24 February was the last day of the exhibition The Architecture of Eduardo de Adaro and the Banco de España. A Changing World, which opened at the exhibition hall at our headquarters on Plaza Cibeles in mid October. The exhibition attracted 26,595 visitors over the course of its four months, i.e. an average of over 6,600 per month, 1,782 of whom took the guided tours laid on when the event opened. The exhibition also proved very popular among employees of the bank itself, many of whom took guided tours organised specifically for them and their families, including tours aimed especially at children at Christmas.

^{Exhibition The Architecture of Eduardo de Adaro and the Banco de España. A Changing World (Banco de España Exhibition Hall, 24 October 2023 - 24 February 2024). Photos by Juan Carlos Quindós de la Fuente}

Curated by Yolanda Romero and Esperanza Guillén, the exhibition invited visitors to discover the legacy of Eduardo de Adaro, architect and chief designer of the bank's original central headquarters, and outlined his place in the historical and cultural context of late 19th century Spain. Using a wide range of documents, objects and art works, it highlighted the innovative nature of his architectural work, which blended the palatial and the industrial, the technological and the artisan, the functional and the educational, the traditional and the innovative.

The exhibition took place in the broader context of a long-term project launched in 2019 to help rescue and highlight the name of an architect who paid close attention to the problems and debates of his time and saw functionality as a basic dimension of his work. A monographic book has also been published to accompany the exhibition, called Eduardo de Adaro. Arquitecto del Banco de España ['Eduardo Adaro: Architect of the Banco de España'], based on research conducted between 2019 and 2023 by History of Art Professor Esperanza Guillén. A series of photographs of de Adaro’s work, taken by Manolo Laguillo, one of the leading exponents of the revival of architectural and urban photography in Spain, has also been produced.

Along with the series of photos by Laguillo, the exhibition also featured a selection of pictures  from other photographic reports on the building at Plaza de Cibeles held in the bank’s archives. They range from photos taken by the studio of Jean Laurent y Cía in the 1880s and 1890s to prints produced a century later by Candida Höfer, Jorge Ribalta and Javier Campano. The exhibition also included sketches, layout drawings and decorative items (including two examples of the symbolist style stained glass panels) designed for the building by Mayer of Munich) plus a range of technological and functional objects. Also on show were several paintings from the bank's art collection, including the portrait of writer and politician José Echegaray painted in 1905 by Joaquín de Sorolla. It was Echegaray who, during his tenure as Treasury Minster, turned the Banco de España into the country's leading financial institution by granting it a monopoly on the printing of banknotes.

^{Exhibition The Architecture of Eduardo de Adaro and the Banco de España. A Changing World (Banco de España Exhibition Hall, 24 October 2023 - 24 February 2024). Photos by Juan Carlos Quindós de la Fuente}

By highlighting the figure and the iconic architectural designs of Eduardo de Adaro, the exhibition was able not just to display part of the artistic and documentary heritage collection of the Banco de España but also to show how documentary photography in Spain has changed from its beginnings in the last quarter of the 19th century to the present day. We are now working on our next exhibition, an initial preview of which will soon be available.