Madrid. Located in the paseo del General Martínez Campos in Madrid, the former home and studio of the painter Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (1863-1923), now the Sorolla Museum, will no longer be accessible to the public from October. Property of the Spanish State and dependent on the Ministry of Culture, the museum is benefiting from a major expansion and rehabilitation campaign, the first of this scale since the creation of the building, designed from the outset, there is more than a hundred years old, by the architect Enrique María Repullés, as a place to live and work at the request of the artist.
A partial renovation of the museum took place in 2001 and 2002, with an intervention on the roofs of the house and an overhaul of the permanent exhibition, notably concerning the painter’s three workshops, but it did not make it possible to improve the access to rooms, due to a lack of space. The surface area of the future site, including offices, will amount to more than 6,000 m2, including 5,100 m2 for the museum, more than double the current surface area.
The work is being carried out by the Directorate of Infrastructure and Cultural Facilities and led by the Nieto Sobejano architectural firm, which designed the expansion-rehabilitation project in two phases. The first expansion work, underway since 2022, concerns new buildings adjacent to the museum, with an area of more than 2,000 m2.
Ultimately, the museum will include new temporary exhibition rooms, reserves to store the entire collection, new reception halls, a loading dock and a new café. A conservation and restoration workshop intended for the museum’s works will also see the light of day, while a large auditorium is planned to host scientific and cultural activities such as conferences, congresses, audiovisual projections but also concerts and shows.
The second phase of work begins in the fall and will focus on the rehabilitation of the Sorolla house, in terms of the architecture of the historic building and its equipment. The damaged floors and woodwork will be restored and the use and circulation of the spaces will be adapted for people with reduced mobility. An air conditioning system will be installed in all of the exhibition rooms to ensure the conservation of the works. In collaboration with the Cultural Heritage Institute of Spain, the museum gardens will also be renovated. The Ministry of Culture plans a total budget of 6.5 million euros for all the work and the opening of the doors of the new museum complex to the public by 2026.
An important collection
Before the second phase of work, the Sorolla Museum is preparing the dismantling, packaging and transfer of the entire museum collection to the new warehouses of the extension building. The collection is made up of nearly 9,000 cultural assets, including 1,400 paintings by Sorolla, but also drawings, sculptures, ceramics, old photographs, collections and furniture, as well as numerous objects collected by the artist during his life. .
The creation of the museum in 1932 was born from the initiative of Sorolla’s widow, Clotilde García del Castillo, who bequeathed all of her works and her heritage to the Spanish State in 1925 so that an institution could be created in the memory of the painter. During the closure, the museum continues its participation in the Sorolla centenary exhibitions (until December 2024), by lending works from its collection.
