Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
When the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía opened its doors in 1990, it stood as a modern, contemporary Spanish museum on an international scale. Nevertheless, its building has gone through many challenges in order to achieve this goal.
King Felipe II first founded San Carlos Hospital – current headquarters for the museum– in the sixteenth century. It was here that all of the hospitals dispersed throughout the Court were centralized. In the eighteenth century, Carlos III decided to found another hospital, as these facilities did not meet the city’s needs. The present building is the work of architects José de Hermosilla and Francisco Sabatini, who was responsible for a large part of its construction.