Voces del Prado

When a crisis reveals strength

Miguel Zugaza Miranda, Museum Director, 2002-2017

In 2013 we were told that the government funding we received would be cut by 60%. This was a critical moment given that all the changes we had made at the Museum - enlarging it, modernising it, the new Prado Law which allowed for greater autonomy in the Museum’s management - had all been done at times of economic growth.
The crisis appeared at a particular moment and everyone made an enormous effort. I feel very proud of having been involved in a process of reflection when everything suggested we were going to have to reduce our activities, stop doing things in order to try and contain our costs. On the contrary, we decided to resolve this problem of lack of funding at that point by doing more things.
For example, opening the Museum every day of the week, doing exhibitions or doing more exhibitions but with works from our own collection, and persuading the public and our sponsors that this was a direction we had to pursue.
So, at that moment of weakness due to the crisis what emerged was enormous strength, which was the capacity of the Museum itself, its collections, the intelligence of the curators when organising them and explaining them to the public. It was a huge fright but then a magnificent opportunity to reveal the Prado’s true merit.