Museo ICO (Madrid)

The ICO Museum is an exhibition space of the ICO Foundation located on Zorrilla Street, in the Centro district of Madrid, Community of Madrid, Spain.

Its rooms were inaugurated in 1996 as a place to exhibit the art collections of the Official Credit Institute. These funds are distributed in three collections in which 20th-century Spanish art predominates: one of sculpture, another of painting and a complete series of Pablo Picasso’s set of engravings known as the Vollard suite.

According to the Directory of Museums and Collections of Spain of the Ministry of Culture and Sport, the ICO Museum “has as its main mission the conservation and dissemination” of this collection.

In 2012, the ICO Foundation changed the exhibition policy of the museum, ceasing to exhibit the funds of its own collection to focus on the fields of architecture and urban planning, which it has approached since then through the realization of temporary exhibitions addressed from three different perspectives: the great challenges that these disciplines face, the great figures, schools or currents of contemporary architecture and the links between photography and architecture or urban planning.

Examples of the first type of perspective are exhibitions such as “Spain Mon Amour” / “Modern Ruins” where architectural success is contrasted with the urban planning failure of recent times in Spain or “The Architect is Present” which explores the aesthetics of austerity cultivated by several international studios.

Among the exhibitions dedicated to the great names of the architectural discipline one can find, according to the official tourism website of Madrid City Council, examples such as Marcel Lajos Breuer, Dominique Perrault, Raili Pietilä, Ábalos & Herreros, Alejandro de la Sota Martínez, Juan Navarro Baldeweg, David Alan Chipperfield or Anna Heringer.

Regarding the approach taken from the field of photography, it is worth highlighting the participation of the ICO Museum in the summer photography festival PHotoEspaña. According to the information on its website, the ICO Foundation says that the exhibitions are accompanied by educational activities for children and young people and guided tours for adults.

Address: C. de Zorrilla, 3, Centro, 28014 Madrid, Spain.

Working hours:

Thursday 11 AM–8 PM
Friday 11 AM–8 PM
Saturday 11 AM–8 PM
Sunday 10 AM–2 PM
Monday Closed
Tuesday 11 AM–8 PM
Wednesday 11 AM–8 PM