Free guided tour at the open-air ‘Prado Museum’ exhibit

This is a press release from Instituto Cervantes de Manila

During the open-air exhibit “The Prado Museum in Intramuros” at Plaza Roma, this coming June 24, at 5pm, Instituto Cervantes, the Embassy of Spain, and WTA will present the guided tour “An Architect at The Prado Museum,” by architect William Ti Jr. 

William Ti Jr., a graduate in Architecture from the University of Santo Tomas, and in Urban Design from the National University of Singapore, is the founder of WTA Architecture and Design Studio. He is a strong advocate of social architecture that promotes a more socially relevant practice of architecture. Among his major projects are The Book Stop Project, Chateau Lorraine, Omni Gardens in Manila, and One Mall Valenzuela.

An initiative of The Prado Museum and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), carried out by the Embassy of Spain in the Philippines, Instituto Cervantes de Manila, and Intramuros Administration, the exhibit, The Prado in Philippine Streets, shows life-size reproductions of masterpieces from The Prado Museum in Madrid. It was inaugurated last 22nd of April at Ayala Triangle Gardens in Makati, coinciding with the celebration of Día del Libro (World Book Day), which is annually organized by Instituto Cervantes.  

After its first stint in Makati, the exhibit moved to Intramuros, where it will remain until September, providing visitors and passers-by a face-to-face encounter with 53 works of some of the great masters from the 12th to the 19th centuries in the form of high-definition photographic prints representing their actual size. The collection display includes different schools of painting: Spanish (Goya, Velázquez, Murillo, Sorolla), Italian (Titian, Botticelli, Caravaggio), Flemish (Rubens, Van Dyck, Bosch), German (Dürer) and Dutch (Rembrandt).

The exhibit also pays tribute to the Philippines’ very own Juan Luna in celebration of his 160th birth anniversary with his Cleopatra, a silver medalist in the 1881 Exposición Nacional de Bellas Artes (National Exposition of Fine Arts) in Madrid and has since then been in the custody of The Prado along with other works of his. 

Perhaps it is not common knowledge that The Prado also houses some of the works of local artist Félix Resurrección Hidalgo along with those of lesser known but equally talented Filipino painters, particularly those who participated in the Exposición General de las Islas Filipinas held in 1887 at the Palacio Cristal in Madrid, which displayed Philippine culture, arts and history.

The Prado Museum first opened its doors to the public in 1819 with a collection of the principal artworks that used to adorn royal palaces in Spain.  Since then the Museum is home to more than 8,000 artworks that include portraits and canvasses, aside from sculpture, drawings, prints and decorative arts. These treasures undoubtedly make The Prado one of the best galleries in the world.

The travelling project El Prado en las calles makes its final stop in the Philippines after gracing the streets of several cities around the world. The exhibit will run for two months in Intramuros before making its rounds through the Philippines.

Admission to this guided tour is free on a RSVP basis at this email: admni@cervantes.es. For more information, please call 5261482 or visit http://manila.cervantes.es or www.facebook.com/InstitutoCervantesManila. – Rappler.com