{"id":2639,"date":"2014-11-11T20:34:52","date_gmt":"2014-11-11T20:34:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.spainexchange.com\/?p=2639"},"modified":"2026-10-09T13:56:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T13:56:17","slug":"palacio-de-cristal-madrid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spainexchange.com\/articles\/palacio-de-cristal-madrid\/","title":{"rendered":"Palacio de Cristal, Madrid"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Palacio de Cristal is a 19th-century iron-and-glass pavilion beside a pond in El Retiro Park, in the centre of Madrid. It belongs to the Museo Reina Sof\u00eda, which uses it for free art installations. This post covers its history and architecture, the restoration that keeps the interior closed in 2026, and what can be seen in the meantime.<\/p>\n

Closed for restoration in 2026<\/h2>\n

The building cannot be entered at present. The Museo Reina Sof\u00eda states that the Palacio de Cristal is temporarily closed for architectural improvements, and Madrid’s official tourism website lists it as closed for renovation works until 2027. No reopening day has been published, so check the museum’s visit page<\/a> before planning around it.<\/p>\n

The exterior is still worth the walk. The tarpaulin that covers the palace during the works carries an art commission. The second of these interventions, “Bundle” by the Peruvian artist Andrea Canepa (Lima, 1980), runs from 13 January 2026 to 1 January 2027. It shows enlarged photographs of oil paintings of bound and layered cloths, a reference to the textile bundles of the pre-Columbian Paracas culture. Admission is free; the work is on the outside of the building.<\/p>\n

History<\/h2>\n

The palace was designed by the architect Ricardo Vel\u00e1zquez Bosco (Burgos, 1843 – Madrid, 1923). It was built for the General Exhibition of the Philippines, which opened in 1887, when the islands were a Spanish colony. The building was conceived as a greenhouse for plants from the Philippines and, according to the museum, went up in just five months thanks to prefabricated parts.<\/p>\n

The model was the Crystal Palace that Joseph Paxton designed for the 1851 Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, London. The museum is direct about the exhibition’s purpose: it was colonial propaganda, and it displayed a group of between forty and fifty people from the islands, which the museum describes as the first “human zoo” in Spain.<\/p>\n

One political event stands out in the building’s later history. On 10 May 1936 Manuel Aza\u00f1a was proclaimed president of the Second Spanish Republic here, with the glass walls covered by curtains for the occasion. The palace was restored in 1975 and again between 1994 and 1998. In the 1990s it became a gallery of the Museo Reina Sof\u00eda, together with the neighbouring Palacio de Vel\u00e1zquez.<\/p>\n

Architecture<\/h2>\n

The plan is a kind of Greek cross in which one arm is replaced by the entrance portico. A glass dome with a height of twenty-four metres rises over the crossing, and the rest of the roof is formed by glass cloister vaults. The iron-and-glass structure sits on a stone and brick base decorated with ceramic friezes designed by the Zuloaga brothers. The museum calls it one of the most representative examples of iron-and-glass architecture in Spain.<\/p>\n

The palace stands next to a small pond with ducks and geese and is surrounded by horse chestnut trees.<\/p>\n

Visiting: hours, price and transport<\/h2>\n