Voces del Prado

The golden rule. Teamwork

Miguel Zugaza Miranda, Museum Director, 2002-2017

Every day I asked myself why I deserved to work in this institution. I found it marvellous to come to work every day at the Museum and to offer something of my commitment. I loved being a part of that and to mix with the staff in general, working on finding out other people’s challenges, things that other people wanted to do. As director, every now and then you have to say what you think about things and you have to define goals.
My directorship was based on a golden rule, which is that it’s important to have a strong Board of Trustees and a strong directorship, in other words, not two directing bodies which are competing but which are reinforcing each other. This already happened under Eduardo Serra, it continued under Rodrigo Uría, and then I think there was an ideal moment from my point of view with Plácido Arango, who was president of the Board of Trustees for six years, also coinciding with the inauguration of Rafael Moneo’s extension and with the creation of the Study Centre.
The Regulatory Law on the Museo del Prado was passed. When the Law was passed by Parliament it was a happy moment. Establishing a law for the Prado was very moving, as basically it stipulated that there was a Board of Trustees which replaced the previous, more direct government control. So it has a big responsibility, in addition to that of apportioning funding to the Museum. The Board represents the government, it represents civil society, it represents the scientific and the academic communities, academic institutions, but it also has the important responsibility of attracting donations and funding. The fact that the Museum’s major benefactors are represented under their own names on the Board is important for ensuring loyalty in their sponsorship relationship with the Museum.
I believe this is the rule. We’re an institution that has this dual structure of directorship, of organisation, and I think it’s good that there is such good interaction and synchronisation between the Board and the Museum’s directorship.