Landscape of Light. Paseo del Prado and El Retiro Park

Paseo del Prado and El Retiro Park. Landscape of Arts and Sciences. New UNESCO World Heritage Site

The city of Madrid now forms part of UNESCO’s World Heritage list. Following Spain’s submission in 2019 of its nomination 'Paseo del Prado and El Retiro Park, Landscape of Arts and Science', UNESCO has now granted world heritage status to Madrid’s Paseo del Prado and El Retiro Park. In this extraordinary site that boasts “outstanding universal value” culture, science and nature have coalesced since the mid 16^th century. The Landscape of Light is the first site in the city of Madrid to have been granted World Heritage status, and the fifth in the Region of Madrid which is home to El Escorial Monastery, Alcalá de Henare’s old town, Aranjuez and the Hayedo de Montejo.

Paseo del Prado was the first of Europe’s tree-lined urban promenades. Citizens began to use it in the 15th century as a place of recreation, and Philip II set about remodelling and beautifying it with trees and fountains. In the late 18th century, during the reign of Charles III, this urban renewal turned into a model that had a particularly strong influence in Latin America, giving rise to several notable projects on the other side of the Atlantic.

A new conception of the urban space emerged, an improvement based on a complex project with markedly social elements that included an innovative and decisive factor that made it unique in its era: the creation of an area devoted to research and science via a group of buildings and facilities of a scientific nature: the Natural History Cabinet - now the Prado Museum -, the Academy of Science, the Royal Botanical Gardens and the Royal Observatory. It was a major project with the aim of public dissemination, instruction and teaching of science, which would beautify the city at the same time.

Arts, Politics and Finances

The Landscape of Light, granted World Heritage Site status on 25 July 2021 in the Chinese city of Fuzhou, includes Paseo del Prado, from Plaza de Cibeles to Plaza de Atocha, the whole of El Retiro Park and the neighbourhood of Los Jerónimos.

The site contains an abundance of institutions that are exceptional for their sheer number as well as their diversity. It is home to Cibeles Palace, the current seat of Madrid City Council, the Bank of Spain, Casa de América, the Headquarters of the Spanish Army (Buenavista Palace), the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, the Congress of Deputies, the Westin Palace and Mandarin Oriental Ritz hotels, the Madrid Stock Exchange, the Headquarters of the Spanish Navy, the Naval Museum, the Prado Museum, the National Museum of Decorative Arts, the Royal Spanish Academy, the Church of San Jerónimo el Real, the Royal Botanical Gardens, the Royal Observatory, the National Museum of Anthropology, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food and the Environment, the Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality, Moyano Hill (Cuesta de Moyano), CaixaForum and the Reina Sofía Museum, among other institutions.

It also boasts a number of famous monuments, such as Puerta de Alcalá gate, the Cibeles, Apolo and Neptuno (Cybele, Apollo and Neptune) fountains, the Alcachofa (Artichoke) Fountain, the “Obelisk”, or Monument to the Fallen, and the Monument to Alfonso XII at the lake in El Retiro Park. It is home to over 21 properties and objects declared to be of cultural interest (“Bienes de Interés Cultural”), and many of the holdings and collections contained therein are of global importance, such as the Royal Academy, works by Goya, Velázquez and Picasso, the collections of prints and archives at the Royal Botanical Gardens and the Herschel telescope.

Visit the bid's official website

The Paisaje de la Luz. Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro brochure