Sixteen years after Patrimonio Nacional, the agency in charge of administering Spain’s state-owned historical royal sites, launched an ambitious project to build a Royal Collections Museum, it can be said that the building is ready, although opening day is still a year away. During the period that we have been working on the design and construction of the museum, many things have happened, but surely the most important was the passing away, four years ago now, of the architect Luis Mansilla, our dear friend and colleague.

Unfortunately, these long years of working together have also seen an uncontrolled acceleration of construction processes, catalyzed by a mercantilist interpretation of architecture. Some architects, constructors, and politicians have a disdain for the passage of time that is always at odds with our firm desire to look at time – in life and therefore also in architecture – as a beautiful building material in itself (...)