Voces del Prado

The first reforms

Antonio Macías Pizarro, Head of Night Surveillance, 1974-2009

The first halls to be reformed here were those dedicated to Velázquez. I will never forget it as long as I live. After that the rest of the Museum was reformed. The Casón was left untouched.
Next came the Titian halls, the area on the first floor as you enter on the left. That's where the paintings by the primitive masters were kept and all that. In those days the halls received natural lighting through the windows set up high, and on cloudy days you couldn't see much. The floors were made of wood. And in summer there was a device in operation that I cannot forget: the Titian halls had an exhaust that extracted the warm air from the halls. I saw it working.
The next thing to be reformed was the management area, now occupied by the Friends of the Prado Museum [Foundation]. After that the works went on and on for years.
For instance, when the boiler room was set up we had to empty out the street where we parked our cars. Right there where the concierges had their home, by the small houses. The hall for the Treasure of the Dauphin was built by hand. It is an area that did not exist previously. The whole chamber was excavated. The works were impressive, very tough for us. It was very demanding for those of us in the night shift, because there were many open parts. No matter how we looked over it, there was so much we had to watch out for... Thank God nothing ever happened, there were always police outside and the night shift was reinforced, but they were tough times.