Fundación Banco Santander Opens its Cultural Centre
The Faro Santander Museum opened its doors this week on the northern coast of Spain
Exhibition view, Banco Santander collection. Photo: Belén de Benito, courtesy Faro Santander
The Banco Santander Foundation this week welcomed its first visitors to its new cultural centre in the Cantabrian city of Santander.
Housed in the Pereda building, a historic waterfront landmark that formerly hosted the bank’s headquarters, the museum will play host to the organisation's sprawling art collection across 10,000 sq. m of exhibition spaces. The museum has been renovated by the British architect Sir David Chipperfield.
The museum’s inaugural exhibition programme is threefold. Masterpieces from the Banco Santander Collection will showcase key works from its holdings, alongside an exploration of the Mexican 20th century art scene through the works of Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and others in Modern Mexico in the Gelman Santander Collection, as well as a retrospective on the work made by the surrealist artist Leonora Carrington during her time in Santander.
The museum joins the Centro Botin and the future outpost of Madrid’s Reina Sofia Museum (due to open in 2027) as part of the cultural institutions that have refashioned the Santander’s reputation from a port city into a major location in Spain’s art scene.
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