Like a jewelry box, a treasure chest, or a Wunderkammer, the Royal Collections Gallery opened its doors in the city of Madrid last 28 June to showcase its extraordinary architecture, in addition to its no less extraordinary collection of objects which – through the exceptional, rare, sacred, and lofty – tells the history of Spain’s monarchical dynasties, and with it the history of the country.

The much-awaited inauguration, which we dutifully covered in the preceding issue of Arquitectura Viva, was the culmination of a protracted and complex, sometimes convoluted process that began almost twenty-five years ago, but above all it marked the conclusion of a titanic effort to consolidate – and through actual content – Madrid’s monumental southern lip, after four centuries of debates and frustrations. It was therefore excellent news for the capital – which sees its most representative side completed, and through a sublime new museum – and for all of Spain, which finally has an edifice at a par with the long, once glorious, definitely always interesting court life that the Habsburgs and the Bourbons led.

Unfailingly adept at laying out the stage sets of politics, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez did not shy away from using the royal collections and the building’s magnificent architecture for the presentation, on 3 July, of his program for Spain’s turn to preside the EU Council. He was accompanied by Ursula von der Layen, but also by the aura of History.