Naval Museum

Since 2019 the City Council of Madrid, in collaboration with the Autonomous Community of Madrid and the support of the Ministry of Culture, has driven Madrid's nominationto form part of the UNESCO World Heritage List. In 2020 the City Council presented its nomination titled “Landscape of Light” that includes the Paseo del Prado and Parque del Retiro, with their corresponding surrounding area, and it is submitted as a proposal to form part of this list as a Cultural Landscape, a landscape shaped by man throughout history of outstanding value.

The green patch in the heart of Madrid is home to Parque del Retiro, the Real Jardín Botánico and the Paseo del Prado itself. This ensemble is the core value of this Landscape of Light, a unique cluster of Museums and other Science and Art-related spaces, transforming it into a powerful focal point of light and knowledge.

The Naval Museum is part of this nomination, both its collection and the building that houses it. Located on this site since 1932, its collection shows the history of the Spanish Navy and its contribution to the institutional, social, cultural, economic and scientific progress of Spain. The building, erected by Royal Order on July 22, 1915 to house the Ministry of the Navy, was designed by Francisco Javier Luque and José Espelius, shows the characteristics of this type of buildings of the first quarter of the twentieth century; the monumentality and eclecticism of its style, mixing Elizabethan Gothic elements, in honor of the momentum of the Navy during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, but also classical.