In the heart of Madrid and in the middle of its museum mile stands a fine building dating back to just after 1900, originally used as a telecommunications center and general post office.  Now City Hall has taken it over and completely rebuilt the interior, making full use of its previously unused potential. The Mayor has his office there and Council meetings are held in a specially-designed chamber, but much of the space is available for public use, from a state-of-the-art auditorium in the basement to a restaurant and observation terraces on the upper floors. Temporary exhibitions and special events can be held in the glass-roofed courtyard on ground floor level, and access to all floors is easy by panoramic elevators. From Palacio Cibeles it is a short walk along a tree-lined avenue to the Prado and Thyssen-Bornemisza museums.

Part of the large and well-chosen art collection of Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza is now on display in the specially adapted Palacio de Villalón in Málaga, on Spain’s south-eastern ‘Costa del Sol’. The permanent collection consists of 230 works by Spanish 19^th-century artists, with special emphasis on Andalusian themes. This is a welcome addition, with strong local flavor, to Malagá’s already impressive list of cultural offerings, from the Roman/Muslim fortress dominating the old city to the Picasso Museum housed in another well-adapted historic palace in the city where the artist was born.

Guetaria is a small town in Spain’s northern Basque region where the haute couture designer Cristóbal Balenciaga was born in 1895. Last month, Queen Sofía of Spain inaugurated a museum in his honor, which will display a changing selection from its collection of 1,200 examples of his much-admired design work. The items on display include the wedding dress of Queen Fabiola of Belgium, dresses made for Grace Kelly, and over 100 given by Hubert de Givenchy, who was a disciple and friend of Balenciaga. The museum is housed in the restored Palacio Aldamar and in a purpose-built contemporary extension by architects AV62.  Guetaria is easily accessible from elegant coastal resort San Sebastián and also from Bilbao, so a visit to the new museum can be combined with Spain’s best, most sophisticated gastronomy and of course striking modern architecture.

 Morocco has a number of historic medersas, once used as schools for teaching the Koran. One of the most celebrated is the Attarine Medersa in Fez,  built around 1325 and marking a high point in the decorative arts of the Merinid dynasty, based on delicate mosaics created from fragments of glazed tiles, carved cedar wood and chiseled plaster work. Under the direction of the UNESCO and Morocco’s Religious Affairs Ministry, the medersa has undergone a 3-year restoration employing the same materials and techniques used to create the original nearly 7 centuries ago. Visitors can now enjoy this building’s beauty as it was intended to look by its creators.

The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid houses two large collections covering the whole of western art from 1290 to the present day, in addition to regular important temporary shows. Now the museum is offering special visits for families with children between the ages of 6 and 12, on Saturday and Sunday mornings. The experience starts with a private tour of the permanent collection before the museum opens to the public, followed by a specially-designed theme workshop. The aim is to stimulate children’s imagination and capacity for observation. In another new move, the museum will keep its temporary exhibitions open until 11 pm on Saturdays for the remainder of 2011.