One of Madrid’s most high-profile museums, the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, has announced plans to open a second space in the city which will house a contemporary art collection donated by the philanthropist and collector Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza and her heirs.
Under the project plans, she will donate more than 180 works worth an estimated €16m “free of charge” to the venue described as a “civic hub for contemporary art, ecology, and public participation”, according to a statement. The works donated, which will pass into public ownership, are drawn from the TBA21 Collection set up by Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza in 2002.
A long-term loan of around 180 additional works, valued around €10m by the auction house Phillips, also forms part of the deal. Artists represented in the collection include Ai Weiwei, Marina Abramović, John Akomfrah, Monica Bonvicini and Candice Breitz.
The new venue, located at the Palacio del Hielo y del Automóvil on Calle Duque de Medinaceli in the Spanish capital, will be refurbished by the Spanish government following two decades of disuse. The Spanish government will also meet the running costs of the new space, according to a spokesperson. An international architectural competition will be launched early next year with construction scheduled for completion around 2031.
The Spanish Minister of Finance, Arcadi España says in a statement that the Palacio de Hielo y del Automóvil “is today regaining a purpose worthy of its history” through the museum expansion, as a former space for historic and scientific research.
Plans to host contemporary art shows at the museum were initially shelved in 2008. Following a John Akomfrah exhibition in 2018, however, TBA21 signed a four-year agreement with the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza the following year to present a series of contemporary art exhibitions from the TBA21 collection, along with contemporary commissions. In 2020, Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza said: “I am not in a hurry to have a building with my name on it. The biggest mistake is to try and copy national museum models.”
The Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, located near the Prado, houses the collection of Francesca’s father, Hans Heinrich von Thyssen-Bornemisza, which was bought by the Spanish government for around $350m in 1993.
Its collection spans eight centuries of European painting until the 1980s; works from the collection of baroness Carmen Cervera, Hans Heinrich’s widow, are also on long-term loan to the museum following a 2021 deal with the Spanish government.
