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The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Reina Sofia) is Spain's national museum of 20th-century art. The museum, officially inaugurated in1992, is named for Queen Sofía. The museum is mainly dedicated to Spanish art. Highlights of the museum include excellent collections of Spain's two greatest twentieth-century masters, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí. Its most famous masterpiece is Picasso's painting Guernica.
The building is on the site of the first General Hospital of Madrid. King Philip II centralized all the hospitals that were scattered throughout the court. In the eighteenth century, King Ferdinand VI decided to build a new hospital. The building was designed by architect José de Hermosilla and his successor Francisco Sabatini, who did the majority of the work. In 1805, after numerous work stoppages, the building became a hospital, although only one-third of the proposed project was completed. Since then it has undergone various modifications and additions until, in 1969, it was closed down as a hospital.
Extensive modern renovations and additions to the old building were made starting in 1980. The central building of the museum was once the hospital. The building functioned as the Centro del Arte (Art Center) from 1986 until established as the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in 1988. In that year, portions of the new museum were opened to the public. Its architectural identity was radically changed in 1989 by Ian Ritchie with the addition of three glass circulation towers.
An 86,000-foot expansion by French architect Jean Nouvel opened in 2005. The extension includes spaces for temporary exhibitions, an auditorium of 500 seats, a 200-seat auditorium, bookshop, restaurants and administration offices.
The need for a common building to house all the courts in Sofia was raised in 1926 with the foundation of the Judicial Buildings fund. Construction began in 1929 and finished in 1940. While it was the first structure in this strict monumental style in the city, it was followed by the Bulgarian National Bank in the 1930s and the Largo in the 1950s. The initial architectural plan was the work of Nikola Lazarov, later redesigned by Pencho Koychev. The Court House has a syenite plinth, a facing of white limestone and a noticable cornice below the top floor. The four-storey building (with two additional underground floors) spreads over a ground area of 8,500 square metres and has 430 premises, of which 24 courtrooms, a library and a bank hall, totalling 48,000 square metres of used area.
The facade features five large gates and 12 columns. In its style, the Court House is eclectic, uniting several Classical themes, with a fourth floor instead of a baluster, as well as Roman and Byzantine style decorations on the doors, windows and corbels.
Sofia
If you found this photo via a Google image search because someone on Craigslist is looking for a nanny but it sounds suspicious, your suspicions are correct. That Craigslist poster is a scam and they are NOT the family pictured here. I took these photos for my friends back in 2009 and they currently do not live in the US. I am disheartened that my images are used in such an awful manner and I apologize for the inconvenience.