Welcome to Madrid

CentroCentro now houses the Interpretation Centre for the Landscape of Light, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 25 July 2021. This new space introduces visitors in a fun, educational, and attractive way to the treasures found in this area, which stretches between the Paseo del Prado, to the neighbourhood of Los Jerónimos and El Retiro.

The centre has an exhibition that includes information and images of its most outstanding aspects – nature, history, art, and an international model of urban development – through panels, maps, a model, interactive and audiovisual posts that illustrate the values that earned its status as a World Heritage Site. A dynamic place that seeks to encourage members of the public to explore, discover, and enjoy one of the most important areas of Madrid. For this purpose, maps of the area will be available in various languages.

The centrepiece is a circular model that reproduces the entire World Heritage Site with a videomapping projection that explores the evolution of the area over the centuries.

One of the sections in the centre is dedicated to one of the institutions that make up this Landscape of Light, which will rotate every six months. The first one is the Royal Botanical Garden-CSIC, which has prepared a small exhibition of the assets that it safeguards.

The chosen location for the Interpretation Centre is the Patio de Operaciones courtyard of Cibeles Palace, since the building that houses Madrid’s City Hall is also part of the Landscape of Light.

The area boasts an exceptional number of institutions of all kinds. Here, you will find Cibeles Palace, City Hall, the Bank of Spain, Casa de América, the General Headquarters of the Army (Buenavista Palace), the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, the Congress of Deputies, the Palace and Ritz hotels, the Stock Exchange, the Navy Headquarters, the Naval Museum, the Prado Museum, the National Museum of Decorative Arts, the Royal Spanish Academy of Language, the Church of Los Jerónimos, the Royal Botanical Garden, the Royal Astronomical Observatory, the National Museum of Anthropology, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food, and the Environment, the Ministry of Health, Social Services, and Equality, La Cuesta de Moyano, CaixaForum and the Reina Sofia National Museum Art Centre, among others.