1. Museo del Prado
If You are a real fan of art Prado that’s a place for You! The Prado Museum is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It is widely considered to have one of the world’s finest collections of European art, dating from the 12th century to the early 20th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection, and the single best collection of Spanish art. Founded as a museum of paintings and sculpture in 1819, it also contains important collections of other types of works. El Prado is one of the most visited sites in the world, and it is considered one of the greatest art museums in the world. The numerous works by Francisco Goya, the single most extensively represented artist, as well as by Hieronymus Bosch, El Greco, Peter Paul Rubens, Titian, and Diego Velázquez, are some of the highlights of the collection.
2. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
This museum is very different from Prado. Is mainly dedicated to Spanish art.
Predominant styles in that museum are surrealism and cubism. Highlights of the museum include excellent collections of Spain’s two greatest 20th-century masters, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí. Certainly, the most famous masterpiece in the museum is Picasso’s painting Guernica. Along with its extensive collection, the museum offers a mixture of national and international temporary exhibitions in its many galleries, making it one of the world’s largest museums for modern and contemporary art.
3. Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza
The Thyssen is an art museum located near the Prado Museum at one of the city’s main boulevards. It is known as part of the “Golden Triangle of Art”, which also includes the Prado and the Reina Sofia national galleries. The Thyssen-Bornemisza fills the historical gaps in its counterparts’ collections: in the Prado’s case this includes Italian primitives and works from the English, Dutch and German schools, while in the case of the Reina Sofia it concerns Impressionists, Expressionists, and European and American paintings from the 20th century.
4. Museo Arqueológico Nacional
This is one of Madrid’s oldest museums (dating from 1867) which, after a six-year renovation project costing some €65 million, reopened on April 1, 2014, with the aim of being ‘the best archaeological museum in Europe and, therefore, in the world’. It traces the evolution of human cultures, from prehistoric times up to the 15th century, and the collection of artefacts includes finds from the Iberian, Celtic, Greek, Egyptian, Punic, Roman, Paleochristian, Visigothic and Muslim cultures.
5. Museo de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando
Beautiful building of this Academy is placed 2 minutes from Sol. The academy was established by royal decree in 1744. Nowadays it’s a museum and gallery, today it houses a fine art collection of paintings from the 15th to 20th centuries: Arcimboldo, Giovanni Bellini, Correggio, Guido Reni, Rubens, Zurbarán, Murillo, Fragonard, Goya, Juan Gris, Pablo Serrano, among others. The academy is also the headquarters of the Madrid Academy of Art.
6. Museo de América
Have You ever think about finding this kind of museum in Madrid? Probably not, but don’t take this opportunity for granted and visit it!
The Museum of America holds artistic, archaeological and ethnographic collections from the whole American continent, ranging from the Paleolithic period to the present day.
7. CaixaForum Madrid
You need to go there at least to see how beautiful Vertical Garden it has! On the house next to CaixaForum Madrid, there is a green wall designed by French botanist Patrick Blanc.
CaixaForum Madrid is a museum and cultural center in Paseo del Prado 36, Madrid. It is sponsored by La Caixa. It was constructed by the Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron from 2001 to 2007, which combined an old abandoned electrical station with new construction of floors encased with oxidized cast-iron, which was meant to be of a similar color and weight as the brick below. The red of the top floors contrast with the plants on the wall, which match the character of the neighboring Real Jardín Botánico.