Voces del Prado

The Prado. A museum, an institution and a company

Miguel Zugaza Miranda, Museum Director, 2002-2017

Directing the Museo del Prado… I think this was pretty well described by someone who is a key name in the Museum’s recent history, Rodrigo Uría, who was also president of the Board of Trustees for many years and Vice-president of the Trustees. He said that the Prado was a museum, an institution and a company.
The motor behind the Museum is intelligence. Intelligence has to be present in its management, in knowledge of the collection, in its restoration, it has to be present in everything. We don’t need to make the Prado more beautiful. It’s remarkably beautiful, it’s lovely, it’s the most beautiful museum in the world, but what all of us who work in the Prado have to contribute is our degree of intelligence, our knowledge when overseeing a restoration, or a major study on the history of art or the Museum’s educational programme, or its security, or its financial management. I think that’s the path towards excellence. Being director of the Museo del Prado has to do with those three axes: caring for the institution, caring for something that after 200 years has been preserved as an institution whose existence we’re all very proud of, even people who haven’t visited it are proud that the Museo del Prado exists. So I think that this venerable institution has something good about it. But at the same time we have to fulfil our public mission as a Museum, to be capable to making best use of the opportunities presented to us at each moment, a story that can be fully developed through our work, through the work of the different departments.