Madrid’s museum of its own history sits inside a building put up to shelter the city’s poor, and the doorway is the piece most people see without ever going in.
The Museo de Historia de Madrid is a free city-run museum at Calle de Fuencarral 78 that occupies the former Hospicio del Ave María y Santo Rey Don Fernando. Its best-known object faces the pavement, and the second one needs an open day. The doorway by Pedro de Ribera dates from 1721-1726 and needs no ticket at any hour. The 1830 model of the city is inside, and the museum opens Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00 to 20:00, closing on Mondays.
Is the Museo de Historia de Madrid free and when does it open? The Museo de Historia de Madrid charges nothing and opens Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00 to 20:00, cut to 10:00 to 19:00 between 15 June and 15 September. It closes on Mondays and six fixed dates. Its 1721-1726 doorway by Pedro de Ribera is on the street and needs no ticket at all.
A doorway carved for a poorhouse, not for a museum
The front on Calle de Fuencarral was designed by Pedro de Ribera and raised between 1721 and 1726, in granite with some dolomite, for a charitable hospice rather than for anything cultural.
That original hospice has largely gone. Of it there remain only the doorway, the chapel and the first section, and everything else a visitor walks through today is later construction.
The order of things is worth holding on to, because it explains the building’s odd proportions: an ornate front of the 1720s, a modest surviving core behind it, and a modern museum fitted into the rest. The doorway was never designed to announce a collection, which is why it faces the street with far more ceremony than the entrance behind it needs.
Ten blocks, 5.2 metres and 23 months of work
The city model is the work of the military engineer León Gil de Palacio. Fernando VII ordered it on 13 November 1828 and it was delivered in 23 months, in ten blocks measuring 5.2 by 3.5 metres at a scale of 1:432.
What was used to build it reads like a haberdashery rather than a drawing office:
- Poplar wood for the mass of the buildings and the ground.
- Silk, thread and wire for the finer detail above street level.
- Earth and sand, plus metals, for the terrain and the fittings.
On the museum sheet that the Council publishes, its importance is documentary. It was the first record of the open ground inside the city blocks and of Madrid’s altimetry, taken before the industrial-era rebuilding of the later nineteenth century flattened much of it.
What is still visible on a Monday
Only one of the three things worth coming for survives the weekly closure, because it never depended on the door being open.
| At Fuencarral 78 | When it can be seen |
|---|---|
| Doorway by Pedro de Ribera | Any hour of any day, from the pavement |
| Model of Madrid, 1830 | Tuesday to Sunday, in opening hours |
| Chapel of the old hospice | Tuesday to Sunday, in opening hours |
A Monday in Madrid is an unusually poor day for the free museums generally. The Ermita de San Antonio de la Florida shuts as well, and its Monday closure holds even when the Monday is a public holiday, as covered in the Goya hermitage.
That leaves the pavement as the only part of Fuencarral 78 that works on a Monday, and it works at any hour, in any weather and on 1 May or 25 December alike. It is the rare case in the city where the object with the longest opening hours is also the oldest one on the site.
The hours, and the six days it never opens
On the sheet that the Ayuntamiento publishes, the timetable runs Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00 to 20:00, and drops to 10:00 to 19:00 from 15 June to 15 September, the same summer window the rest of the network uses.
Six fixed dates close it on top of every Monday: 1 and 6 January, 1 May and 24, 25 and 31 December. The wording that Madrid City Council publishes stops at “Tuesday to Sunday” and says nothing about public holidays, which is worth reading against what opens on a Spanish public holiday.
Where the collection picks up from San Isidro
The two city history museums divide the story at a single year rather than overlapping.
The Museo de San Isidro stops at 1561, when the court settled in Madrid, as set out in its free admission and hours. Fuencarral takes it from there to the present, so the two together cover the whole city at no cost. Neither applies a free window, unlike the four big free museums in Madrid.
The museum stands in the Justicia barrio of the Centro district, one of the six mapped in Madrid’s official neighbourhoods, and the reason a city museum charges nothing while a state one charges 3 € is set out in who sets Madrid’s opening hours.
Frequently asked questions about the Museo de Historia de Madrid
Is the Museo de Historia de Madrid free?
Yes, with no general or reduced ticket, as across the city-run museum network. It stands at Calle de Fuencarral 78 and opens Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00 to 20:00.
What is the building that houses the Museo de Historia de Madrid?
The former Hospicio del Ave María y Santo Rey Don Fernando, a charitable hospice. Only the doorway, the chapel and the first section of the original survive, the rest being later work.
Can you see the Museo de Historia de Madrid doorway without going in?
Yes. The doorway that Pedro de Ribera raised between 1721 and 1726, in granite with some dolomite, faces the pavement on Calle de Fuencarral and needs no ticket and no open day.
How big is the 1830 model of Madrid?
It measures 5.2 by 3.5 metres, sits in ten blocks and is built to a scale of 1:432. León Gil de Palacio finished it in 23 months after a commission dated 13 November 1828.
A poorhouse doorway on the pavement, a five-metre city indoors, and nothing to pay for either.