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The hardest time was when we lost the Palace of Villahermosa. Everyone was moping around because it had been many years crying over a building, and when we finally got it, the feeling was that of "God gives and God takes away." Since there was no money in the first years that the Prado owned Villahermosa, it didn't manage to make the most of it. Management was taken there, we were taken there and we set up temporary exhibitions such as "Goya and the spirit of Enlightenment" or "Delacroix," but it was not enough to use up all the space that was available. That's why Pérez Sánchez asked me to fill it with children, no matter where they came from, get them coming in and going out through the doors. It was quite tragic. One day I found out, not from Pérez Sánchez but from people close to the minister of Culture, Solana, who had told Pérez Sánchez when he protested, Solana happened not to care at all about children, when Pérez Sánchez spoke about the project of "The Prado for children", it was almost like a weapon, Solana told him: "Look here, Mr. Pérez Sánchez, you are a historian and you will be right in the end, but I am a politician and what I have to do at this point in time is give up the Palace of Villahermosa for the future Thyssen Museum".
We felt squeezed in completely. Those of us who were there were sent to some flats on Ruiz de Alarcón and the little house on Villanueva. The chance of an enlargement had gone down the drain.
There was talk of a bridge with the Ministry of Healthcare. There were thousands of different suggestions. Even the Army Museum was mentioned, until at last the enlargement was done by Moneo, which has at least solved the matter of temporary exhibitions, in that now we don't have to empty out part of the Museum the way we used to. I think it came as a shock when they told us we had to vacate Vistahermosa. There was brown paper lining most of the walls. Since we had to leave, I remember we took a box of coloured chalk and I wrote: "From the people of Madrid to the royal family: you didn't leave; we kicked you out back in 31". [Spain became a Republic in 1931, ending the Monarchy]. Somebody caught us red-handed and they went in that afternoon, and with other coloured chalks they wrote nasty things about Tita Cervera, the Thyssens, and the minister of Culture. It was the only time I was scared because Pérez Sánchez called me saying: "Hey, we've got to file a report, look at these pictures they've brought to me about all the things you people have written". The worst thing was the sentence "you didn't leave; we kicked you out". It's a good thing that Isabel Caride had taken pictures of everything we had written, and we took them to Pérez Sánchez; yes, a report would be filed against me for disrespect. The Palace of Villahermosa, how I love that place, so many memories. Several years later, during an inauguration, the lift stopped all of a sudden, and someone asked: "What floor are we at?"; "Right where the Workshop School was", and they looked at me not knowing what to make of my remark, but that was where the Workshop School had been. All in all, that was the worst time. I haven't been pressed like that since then.
Secondary education professor, she joined the Museum under the leadership of Alfonso Pérez Sánchez to create the Office of Education, the origin of the today's Education Area. In 1986, she was appointed Head of the Education and Teaching Department.
Interview recorded on June 04, 2018
