Santander, capital of Cantabria in Spain, will host from 8 September the Faro Santander, a new cultural centre managed by the Fundación Banco Santander. Daniel Vega, former director of exhibitions and conservation at the Guggenheim Bilbao for 28 years, will be responsible for leading this project, whose aim is to create a cultural space deeply rooted in Santander and the Cantabria region, but open to the world. Vega emphasises that international ambition must start locally, becoming a culturally relevant institution for the people of the region before projecting itself internationally.
The centre will house the Banco Santander Collection, a collection built up over 160 years spanning nearly five centuries of art, from the Renaissance to the contemporary. The collection includes works by masters such as Titian, El Greco, Rubens, Velázquez and Goya, alongside modern and contemporary artists such as Miró, Tàpies and Juan Muñoz. The inaugural programme includes the exhibition "Masterpieces from the Banco Santander Collection", curated by María Dolores Jiménez-Blanco, which puts artists from very different periods in dialogue with one another.
Faro Santander will also feature other opening exhibitions, such as "Leonora Carrington: symptomatic surrealism", co-organised with the Freud Museum in London, and "Modern Mexico in the Gelman Santander Collection", with around one hundred works by artists such as Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. The Leonora Carrington exhibition recovers "Villa Pilar", a work never before displayed, linking an episode of the artist's biography in Santander to her international trajectory. Vega demonstrates openness to future collaborations with Portuguese institutions, considering Portugal part of the broader cultural landscape.
The building, designed by British architect David Chipperfield, winner of the Pritzker Prize, transforms a historic building into an open civic space, notably featuring a large central arch that creates a communicating vessel between the city and the sea. The centre has approximately 3,000 square metres of exhibition space spread across five floors, the Cube, a digital installation with 360-degree immersive projection, and achieved BREEAM Outstanding certification with the highest score ever awarded to a museum or cultural centre.
