culture
January 17, 2026
How Madrid’s Prado Museum is trying to avoid becoming like ‘the Metro at rush-hour’
The famous gallery, home to masterpieces from Goya and Velázquez, is exploring how best to preserve, and improve, the visitor experience

TL;DR
- The Prado Museum director, Miguel Falomir, stated the museum has reached its ideal visitor capacity of 3.5 million.
- Concerns were raised about potential overcrowding negatively affecting the visitor experience and the museum's operations.
- The museum is exploring ways to enhance visitor experience by managing numbers, optimizing entrances, and rethinking group sizes.
- A recent visit indicated that navigating the museum was relatively painless, with manageable crowds in most galleries.
- Popular artworks, such as Las Meninas and The Garden of Earthly Delights, continued to attract significant attention and crowds.
Continue reading the original article