On the same day that Miguel Zugaza, director of the Prado Museum for the last 15 years, announced his departure, the architect Luis Fernández-Galiano gave the seventh and last lecture of the series "The Prado Museum: historical milestones of its collections"., organized by the Friends of the Museo del Prado Foundation and the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters in collaboration with the Museo Universidad de Navarra.

Under the title From the Cabinet to the Campus: the transformations of the Prado Museum's headquarters, the professor reviewed the most important milestones in the construction of the building and the configuration of its particular Campus from its origin, commissioned by the Count of Floridablanca to the architect Juan de Villanueva, to the present time, whose expansion project has just been awarded to the studios headed by the British architect Norman Foster and the Spanish architect Carlos Rubio, and which will rehabilitate the former Salón de Reinos of the Buen Retiro Palace to gain 2.500 square meters of exhibition space. "Although in the constructive history of the building that has taken more than two centuries, some twenty architects have intervened, its main protagonist was Juan de Villanueva, the best representative of international neoclassicism in Spain," said Fernandez-Galiano. "The Prado is a complicated building to understand, but in which very important moments of our history are crystallized."

In 1785, Villanueva presented two projects to the Count of Floridablanca in response to the request of the Minister of State, of which the one that contemplated two first floors with interior circulations was chosen. Public utility was an important condition for the works of the Enlightenment and Villanueva's future building had a double commitment: to beautify the city and to create an establishment for study, research and public instruction. "The idea was to construct a "multi-purpose" building, which could house in its interior a natural history cabinet, an academy of natural sciences with capacity for its instruments, laboratories, classrooms and library, and a large hall for academic meetings."

"The works progressed at a good pace during Floridablanca's ministry. However, after he was exonerated from office in 1792, construction entered a slower process. With the building still unfinished, the Napoleonic invasion took place and the building was used as a barracks, leaving it devastated."

The rehabilitation of the building progressed gradually until, in March 1818, Ferdinand VII, with the decisive intervention of his wife Maria Isabel de Braganza, made public his decision to restore the Villanueva building at his own expense in order to house many of the works from the royal collections for their conservation, for the study of the professors and the recreation of the public. At that moment, the transformation of the building into a painting gallery began in earnest.

When the Prado Museum, then the Royal Museum of Paintings, was created in 1819, the Prado de los Jerónimos building designed by the architect Juan de Villanueva was chosen as its headquarters. This building was enlarged and remodeled on numerous occasions in order to meet the needs that arose as the collection was enriched and adapted to new uses. "Within all this constructive history, we can say that the twentieth century has been the century of extensions: Fernando Arbós in 1914, Pedro Muguruza between 1943 and 1946 with the construction of the new exterior staircase of the Goya façade, Fernando Chueca Goitia in 1952 and several more names, until 2007, with the most important expansion in its history: that of Moneo, where the "Campus del Prado" was thought for the first time, with a sum of buildings of which dependencies of the Hieronymite Monastery and the Buen Retiro Palace would form part.

The future expansion of the Prado, which includes more than 5,000 square meters of additional space, including 2,500 square meters of exhibition space, will be the work of another Pritzker Prize winner, British architect Norman Foster, who in collaboration with the studio of Spaniard Carlos Rubio Carvajal will be in charge of renovating the Salón de Reinos. "The heart of this proposal is the reconstruction of the Hall of Kingdoms, which will serve as a new exhibition area, but it is also important to highlight the façade, that great portico with bronze pillars, which leaves the museum open to the city," said Fernández-Galiano.

The series "The Prado Museum: historical milestones of its collections", which was attended by an average of 250 people, was inaugurated by Professor of Art History Francisco Calvo Serraller, current director of the Prado Museum's annual series of conferences. Throughout 7 sessions, which have taken place every Wednesday at the Museum of the academic center, the aim has been to learn how the collections of the art gallery have been configured, through individualized commentary on some of the masterpieces that have been incorporated. Among the speakers were Miguel Falomir, deputy director of Conservation and Research at the Prado Museum; Rocío Sánchez Ameijeiras, professor of Art History at the University of Santiago de Compostela; Gonzalo Borrás, professor emeritus of Art History at the University of Zaragoza; and Andrés Úbeda, head of Conservation and Research at the Prado Museum; Andrés Úbeda, head of Conservation of Italian and French Painting up to 1700 at the Museo del Prado; Manuela Mena, head of Conservation of 18th century painting and Goya at the Museo del Prado; and Luis Fernández-Galiano, professor of Projects at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid, who was in charge of the last lecture.

The closing ceremony of the series, sponsored by Viscofán and with the collaboration of Fundación Diario de Navarra, was attended by the head of the academic area of Museo Universidad de Navarra, Nieves Acedo, and the dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, Rosalía Baena, who wanted to highlight the role played by museums in disseminating research and teaching in the humanities and putting them at the service of society. "Museums make the humanistic perspective tangible, material. They manage to capture how attractive and powerful art is. They manage to socially disseminate the value of the humanities, those disciplines that are often forgotten, but that only they manage to explain man, in their imaginative dimension, with art, in their expressive dimension, with language, in their historical or reflective dimension."