The ‘Landscape of Light’ is now a World Heritage Site.

The Naval Museum and the Spanish Navy Headquarters are part of the new World Heritage Site called ‘Landscape of Light’ which includes the Paseo del Prado and the ‘Buen Retiro’ Park.

Spain submitted in 2019 to UNESCO the candidacy of the Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro, a landscape of Arts and Sciences, to the World Heritage List, for being an extraordinary urban cultural landscape where the arts and nature have coexisted since the mid-sixteenth century to the present day. In July 2021, the World Heritage Committee inscribed Madrid's candidacy on the World Heritage List, which includes sites of outstanding universal value.

There are a total of 1,120 sites on the list around the world. Spain, with a total of 49, including Madrid's inscription, is one of the countries that, together with Italy and China, has the highest number of declared sites.

The Spanish Navy contributed to this success with its Headquarters building and the Naval Museum. The former is a building completed in 1928, eclectic in style and characterized by its ornate decoration. The grand staircase made of Carrara marble of imperial style stands out for its beauty and elaborate embellishment. The ceiling is crowned by a beautiful glass stained window that allows zenithal illumination.

The Naval Museum, for its part, boasts a permanent exhibition of navy-related objects suggesting a journey through the Spanish naval history, from the late Middle-Ages to the present day, showing the contribution of the Navy to the social, cultural, economic, military and scientific progress of Spain and the world. It also has different thematic tours that facilitates the understanding of the historical evolution of the Navy.

The Naval Museum's collections, with more than 12,000 objects, includes ship models and cartography, which are among the best in the world and stand out for their importance. Other well-represented pieces are astronomical, scientific and navigational instruments, fine and decorative arts, weapons and flags, uniforms and decorations, seafaring equipment, ethnographic pieces and personal objects of illustrious seafarers, a diversity of materials that are the hallmark of the Institution.