Prado extension opens

Spain's most famous art museum took a step into the 21st century at the weekend when it unveiled a budget-busting modernist new annex after five years' work.

The red-brick, granite and oak, £92m extension to Madrid's Prado Museum was designed by the Spanish architect Rafael Moneo.

It will give one of Spain's most popular attractions badly needed extra space to show scores of paintings which are at present languishing in store rooms. . .

Moneo, a winner of architecture's Nobel, the Pritzker Prize, initially caused controversy with his design because he wanted to incorporate the cloister of the 15th-century Los Jeronimos church, which was removed stone by stone and reassembled inside the extension. . .

The new complex adds 183,000 square feet to the 312,000 sq ft museum.

Posted by David on April 1, 2007 9:37 PM