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Background

The Sorolla Museum is located at the former family residence and studio of the painter Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida. It was built by the architect Enrique María de Repullés in 1911 on Paseo General Martínez Campos in Madrid. It is therefore a house/museum that preserves all the original spaces and environments of the painter’s home and studio.

Both in terms of its construction and domestic use, the specificities of the Sorolla Home have determined limitations to the spatial and functional distribution of this building since it was adapted to be used as the Sorolla Museum in 1931. In this sense, the Museum must offer a series of services to both visitors and cultural heritage assets in its custody which it is currently unable to offer, or whose conditions are highly limited due to its spaces being restricted and constrained by its condition as a historical site.

Given the great attractiveness of the Sorolla Home, it is largely preserved as Joaquín Sorolla himself and his family had left it. Therefore, the impossibility arises of offering a complete and guaranteed series of services and functions. Thus, the Sorolla Museum does not currently have adequate spaces for a restoration studio, cultural heritage asset storage facility, educational workshops, temporary exhibitions, assembly hall, group meeting point, cultural heritage asset loading dock, etc.

Over the course of its more than ninety-year history, interventions have been made on several of the Museum’s spaces in attempts to overcome many of the aforementioned shortcomings. Some of the most significant interventions include those that took place in the early 1940s (creation of new exhibition halls on the first floor of the house), mid-50s (partial refurbishment of the household staircase and the creation of the drawing room), mid to late 80s (creation of new exhibition halls, later converted into storage facilities for housings cultural heritage assets, and restoration of the gardens), and the early 2000s (renovation of museography and incorporation of climate control systems in the painter’s studios).

Nevertheless, all these interventions were only partial in scope. Therefore, at no point has there been a comprehensive intervention on the current Sorolla Museum as a whole.

José Benlliure Ortiz. “Construcción de la Casa Sorolla”. 1911. MS. Nº Inv. 80951 Pulse para ampliar
José Benlliure Ortiz. “La Casa Sorolla durante su construcción”. 1911. MS. Nº Inv. 80896 Pulse para ampliar
José Benlliure Ortiz. “El salón y la escalera principal durante la construcción de la Casa Sorolla”. 1911. MS. Nº Inv. 81109 Pulse para ampliar
Campúa, "Vista general de la casa Sorolla", 1914, MS n.º inv. 80898 Pulse para ampliar
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