After twelve years closed to the public, the Royal Apothecary of the Royal Palace will open its doors at the end of the year. Visitors to the palace (the most-visited monument managed by National Heritage) will have access to a new tour through its herbariums and storage rooms, amid walls lined with glass jars and antique ceramic jars dating back to the 19th century.
In addition to the pharmacy, the upper floor has also been converted into a museum space, as architect Raúl Gómez Escribano explained to ABC. There, the Art Deco laboratory from the first third of the 20th century will open to the public for the first time, and on display will be, for example, the apothecary’s embroidered uniform and Queen Isabella II’s travel first-aid kit, containing the hundreds of vials of ingredients she always carried with her so that her medications could be prepared.
Between the two floors , a staircase hidden between the floor and a false ceiling has been discovered and restored, although it no longer serves its original purpose. The historic rooms of the Royal Pharmacy also include the equipment room, the pharmacist’s office, and his library, where treatises on medicine, physics, and chemistry, plant repertoires, and two incunabula printed in the 15th century are preserved. The tour will allow visitors to discover another facet of what was, at the time, daily life in the Royal Palace.
A space that has been closed to the public since 2000
The Royal Pharmacy was founded in 1594, during the reign of Philip II. At that time, it was located in the old Alcázar, until it was destroyed by a fire in 1734. More than a century later, in 1887, it moved to the Royal Palace in Madrid, where it operated as a pharmacy until the year 2000. Since then, public access has been restricted.
The reopening is the result of a collaboration agreement between National Heritage and the General Council of Official Colleges of Pharmacists. At the ceremony to present the agreement, the president of National Heritage, Ana Cueva, stated that the restoration of the Royal Pharmacy would make it possible to “showcase a very interesting space within the Royal Palace, the cradle of pharmaceutical history in our country.”
This isn’t the only new feature at the Royal Palace, which has now undergone more than a year and a half of renovations. Last week, a new “larger and more accessible” Visitor Reception Center opened its doors in the palace’s east wing, according to a statement from National Heritage, promising to put an end to visitor lines at the building’s entrance.
The new space integrates the main visitor services, including the information desk, coat check, audio guides, ticket sales, and security checkpoints. In addition, the renovation of the façade has allowed National Heritage to establish separate entrances for individual visitors and organized groups.
The Royal Palace Modernization Plan
This series of projects is part of a broader modernization plan for the monument, financed by European funds. The restoration of the Real Botica and the creation of the new visitor center have involved a combined investment of more than 5,625,000 euros. In total, funding for all the projects at the palace exceeds 18 million.
Some of the other projects carried out in the palace include the renovation of the Royal Armory (where the old fluorescent lights have been replaced with LED panels that mimic the original skylight) and the work (still underway) in the Génova Halls, which will be transformed from an exhibition space into a shop and a new café overlooking the Campo del Moro. According to National Heritage, the conversion of the Genoa Halls is due to the fact that, following the opening of the Royal Collections Gallery, no additional museum space is needed.
National Heritage has also renovated the palace’s roof to improve the building’s insulation and energy efficiency. In addition, RGBW projectors have been installed in the exterior lighting, allowing the color of the light to be changed and , as Gómez Escribano told ABC, “to pay small tributes.” The colors made their debut last July, when the palace’s facade was lit up in red to celebrate the Spanish national team’s victory in the World Cup.