Voces del Prado

Inauguration without banality: successful museum management

Rafael Moneo Vallés, Trustee and architect of the Jerónimos extension, 1994-Up to date

The expansion project, even after the debate, has helped a great number of people to come to feel the Museum as something that personally affects them. But this has also been accompanied by a management strategy implemented by those responsible for the Museum over all these years. The expansion has really helped, but without the appropriate management approach in terms of making people feel closer to the Museum, it would not have been nearly enough. I like that. I still have the confidence and the hope that the people in a Museum such as this – and featuring all that the Museo del Prado means to Spanish people – that this project is something that they can also regard as their own. Not that they necessarily think that it belongs to them, but that they don’t feel alienated from it. In this respect, it is important for the Museum to maintain this feeling during the inauguration. In which respect, a dignified tone is essential, without making the whole thing banal. I believe the management approach of the last few years has been especially successful in achieving just this.