Casón del Buen Retiro (Madrid)

Casón del Buen Retiro is one of only two buildings that have survived the destruction of the Buen Retiro Palace, from which it takes its name, in Madrid, Community of Madrid, Spain.

Built by Alonso Carbonel in 1637, it was initially designed as a ballroom for the Court of Philip IV of Spain.

Since 1971 it is one of the buildings that make up the Museo del Prado, and for decades it has housed its 19th-century painting collections (about 3,000 paintings), as well as Guernica, by Pablo Picasso. This famous painting was moved to the Reina Sofía museum in 1992, and the Casón, after years of work, was reopened as the Museum’s Study Centre in 2009, while the 19th-century collections have been relocated to the main headquarters of the Prado thanks to the extension by José Rafael Moneo Vallés.

The artistic importance of Luca Giordano’s The Allegory of the Golden Fleece, a c. 1694 fresco on the ceiling of the Casón commissioned by King Charles II of Spain, is one of the possible reasons given for the building having survived when most of the other Bueno Retiro palace complex buildings were demolished in the 19th century. The fresco is considered one of the masterpieces of the Prado’s collection.

The library of the Museo del Prado, on the ground floor of the Casón building, consists of the Reading Room for the use of researchers, the museum’s technical staff and students of the Escuela del Prado, and the book stores located in the basements. It comprises some 70,000 books.