Voces del Prado

Work on the Prado’s roof

Pedro Álvarez Moreno, Head of the Area of Works and Maintenance, 1994-2009

There were about twenty or thirty different types of material on the roof of the Prado: tiles, lead, zinc, different types of glass, blocks, etc. There were piles of different types of materials. Some areas had flooring. There were lots of air conditioning units and equipment of other types on the roof. And pipes for the air conditioning system. I mean, it was all a bit of a disaster. And lead! There was lead as well.
So there were two fundamental issues: firstly, emphasising the original Villanueva building as the extensions had distorted it to some extent, and secondly, updating the installations. The building’s cornices had disappeared with the extensions on the east side where the most recent extension had been carried out. Also the roof had some installations that had been carried out “a posteriori” to those extensions and which they’d essentially been obliged to locate up there. There was no way of maintaining the interior ceiling spaces because you could hardly get to them. Room 12, the Velázquez lantern, had spotlights that you couldn’t change because you couldn’t get to them. After they put them in they burnt out, which is why it was a very dark gallery. Maybe people were totally used to that situation, but there was no sense to it.
So, it was really important to update things, get everything sorted and ensure there was proper maintenance, as that hadn’t been possible. You really took your life into your hands when you went up into the ceiling spaces. When you had to change the lights in some places the electricians sometimes had to wear a harness as it was dangerous. A pane of glass could break and you could end up on the gallery floor. They made boards so they could walk up there without falling through. There was areas that were impossible to get to. There were some lighting systems that didn’t work. You couldn’t clean the windows. You could hardly do anything. So, it was all filthy as it was extremely difficult to clean.
You could criticise the solution, you could think that it wasn’t the right one, but I honestly think it was a very good solution. We’ve drawn attention to the original Villanueva building. The roof spaces are now accessible, you can walk on the glass ceilings, the windows look northwards and the light can be controlled much more. All that was fundamental. You could criticise but I think that in architectural and functional terms the solution was a good one.