She had to wade through the pandemic crisis as Nadia Calviño's Secretary of State for the Economy and a year ago she moved to a more relaxed position, it is not clear: president of National Heritage, where she has to start up the new Collections Gallery at once Reales, which is determined to open next summer after 25 years of the announcement of the project and eight with the finished museum building.
Is the Royal Collections Gallery a hot potato, which someone defined as the museum that nobody wanted to inaugurate?
Because they did not know the project well. It will be a magnificent opportunity to show our collections, to show a different world. The Gallery is an architecturally marvelous 21st century building. And the opportunity to open it today with works like those in the royal collections, with Caravaggio, Goya, Velázquez, Titian... museums of this nature are no longer opened, it is a phenomenal opportunity, for National Heritage and for the country. Complicated, of course.
If it opens in the summer of 2023, 25 years will have passed since the announcement of the project. Would a pyramid have turned out better?
It is a project that has suffered various complications, from the first tender that had difficulties to the volume of ruins found, which can be seen in the Gallery. But everything has its moment. What seemed very important to me was not delaying its opening but having a realistic project.
One of his predecessors said that the museum was planned thinking that there were exceptional funds hidden and then there were not so many, which led him to try to recover works from the Prado.
The project has top quality funds. What has been done in the last year has been an adjustment in the museum project so that the project would make more sense. before there was perhaps a more centralizing approach of bringing pieces from the collections to Madrid and now a third are going to rotate, we can bring pieces from the Royal Sites, restore them and make them a focus of attention for those who are interested in going to Las Huelgas, Tordesillas, the Almudaina.
The discourse of the museum has been changing. Which one will we see?
The collections are presented chronologically, which allows the visitor to understand them. Other alternatives that were considered, such as showing them by collections of tapestries, carriages... in the end, history is built over time and the collections from the Trastámara to our days will allow us to understand the historical context and value what it meant the best artists and craftsmen in Europe were at the service of the monarchy.
Was the dispute definitively closed with the Prado?
years ago. In fact there will be some deposit of the Prado in the Galleries. A piece that makes sense to tell what we tell.
They will then not have the 'Garden of Earthly Delights'. What will attract the public?
Only the building, with 14 awards, is worth a visit. And the experience will be spectacular. There are incredible pieces, such as a horse by Velázquez or the carving of La Roldana that we are restoring, and of course the Caravaggio, a Titian, a Christ by Bernini... You will even see the hydraulic system of the La Granja fountains, envy of Europe.
The investment in this huge project, will it be profitable? Would you, from scratch, have done it?
It is always difficult to know what one would have done 25 years ago. It is a project of dimensions that fit in with the projects that were then carried out in all areas. From an economic point of view I have reservations about some of these approaches. But it is clear that it is a top-level project for the country that is going to put us in the national and international cultural spotlight. And defending our heritage is essential and is also part of the managers' decisions. Not everything has to do with economic profitability.
