The Prado is left hanging

The great unveiling: in March, the introduction of a Goya that turned out not to be; another item on a great museum's index of indiscretions. By Elizabeth Nash

Chaos as bleak and impenetrable as anything portrayed in Goya's Black Paintings engulfs Spain's Prado Museum, home to one of the finest art collections in the world. Bursting at the seams, with nine of every 10 of its treasures buried in vaults for lack of space, this fine but dilapidated 18th century institution has suffered from sustained bungling that has brought it to the point of crisis.

Until last week there were hopes that Madrid's top tourist attraction, housing the world's biggest collection of masterpieces by Velazquez, Goya and El Greco, might double its exhibition space by the year 2000. Instead, it seems destined to limp into the 21st century crippled by political meddling and bureaucratic incompetence.

Last Friday, plans to expand the 177-year-old building were dashed when an international jury of architects failed to select from among 550 proposals a single project that was up to the task. Not one of the 10 finalists in a competition launched nearly two years ago solved the problems presented by the museum's historic building and its sensitive site in the heart of the capital's most opulent quarter.

The decision, greeted with incredulous dismay in the architectural world, sets long-overdue expansion plans back to square one. "A joke", "A melancholy and predictable disaster", "Costly and dismal failure," were comments from observers. The new conservative Culture Minister Esperanza Aguirre, president of the jury, was the only one on the platform of notables to keep a smile tightly pinned to her face while she announced the result. But she gave no indication of what the next step might be.

It is a mishap worthy of a long and sorry saga of incompetence and sometimes farcical cockups that has afflicted the museum, and which may be linked to the fact that it has had a dizzying turnover of government-appointed directors: five in the past six years, eight since the dictator Franco died 20 years ago. The latest, Fernando Checa, took over in May, promising that his priority was to bring order to the institution's shambolic internal organisation.

Mr Checa's predecessor, Jose Maria Luzon, was swept from office in March after wrongly hailing as a newly discovered Goya a painting that was already registered as the work of another artist. Mr Luzon rushed to announce that a religious painting uncovered during the restoration of Franco's former torture chambers in Madrid was "a cracker of a Goya". In fact, it was painted by a lesser-known contemporary, Mariano Salvador Maella.

Worse was to come. A former Prado director, Alfonso Perez Sanchez, spotted the painting as a Maella the moment he saw it on television and made his doubts known immediately. A quick check revealed, after the damage had been done, that the work was registered in the archives of Madrid's local government as a Maella and that a preliminary sketch was even registered in the Prado's own records.

The scandal revealed the damage caused by treating the museum as a political football. Mr Luzon, an archaeologist by training with no specialist knowledge of Goya, is considered to have been a grey placeman for the previous Socialist government. His announcement could not have been more ill-timed, on the eve of a blockbuster exhibition celebrating the 250th anniversary of Goya's birth.

The Goya gaffe was the only the most grotesque of a string of blunders. The director who spotted the Maella, Mr Perez Sanchez, had himself been sacked for what was seen as the grossly inappropriate gesture of signing a declaration opposing Spain's participation in the Gulf war in 1991.

Yet another, Francisco Calvo Serraller, had to quit in 1993 after his wife, the editor of a style magazine, set up a photo-feature in which designer chairs marched across the marble flags of the Prado's principal rooms, with Velazquez master works featuring as a mere backdrop.

None of the last five directors has been a qualified curator, a situation inconceivable in any comparable museum in Europe. At least Mr Checa is an art historian, a specialist in the 16th and 17th century royal collections that form the heart of the museum. He says curating will be a priority, and promises to increase the number of curators from six to 11. The Prado has always had very few curators by international standards - for many years it did not even have one for Spanish art, its strongest suit.

The Prado has long suffered from political meddling and with the high- profile international competition out of the way, the politicos now have a freer hand than ever. They are at liberty to appoint any architect they fancy, possibly even a Culture Ministry employee, without having to seek endorsement from the international architectural community.

So, forget anything daring for the Prado, comparable with Pei's Louvre glass pyramid or the National Gallery "carbuncle". Libeskindesque crushed boxes? No chance. The jury's eight international architects were given notice of their duty, and we are left in no doubt of the government's priorities. From the Culture Ministry came murmured warnings that the winning project should not be too costly.

And the Mayor of Madrid, the conservative Jose Maria Alvarez de Manzano, warned that a project with "an impact" would be "difficult for the Town Hall to accept". This was the man who last month authorised the destruction of the remains of a 17th century royal palace where Velazquez once worked in order to build an underground car park. One historian identified the background of Velazquez's masterpiece "The Spinning Women" as being the chapel of the ruined palace. But Mr Alvarez de Manzano said the remains were not worth preserving and that Madrid was full of such buildings.

The Prado, in common with galleries across Europe, including London's National Gallery, was overwhelmed by a surge in popularity in the 1960s and a renewed wave in the 1980s. But while the National Gallery and most dramatically the Louvre took bold action to meet the public's insatiable thirst for art, the Prado, uniquely in Europe, did nothing. On the contrary, throughout those decades it was neglected and starved of resources.

The museum's authorities were jolted out of their torpor only in October 1993 when they discovered that the fabric of the old building had deteriorated so much that rainwater was gushing down the walls of the room containing Velazquez masterpieces, including the jewel of the museum's entire collection, "Las Meninas".

So shocking was this revelation that the director, Felipe Vicente Garin, resigned on the spot and parliament, in a rare spasm of cross-party harmony, approved an emergency repair programme - which, despite the urgency, only lumbered into action this summer.

The crisis also prompted the Socialist Culture Minister, Carmen Alborch, to propose a world competition to produce a plan for expansion - this grand gesture bit the dust last week. Rafael Moneo, the only architect of international renown who made it to the final shortlist of 10, declared the result "disappointing and sad". No project could have solved all the problems of the site, he said.

The Prado has had a rackety history ever since building was set in train by the Bourbon King Carlos III's architect Juan de Villanueva in 1785, above what legend says is an underground river flowing from the nearby Retiro park. Superstitious souls attribute the museum's agitated life to the subterranean currents that flow beneath it, producing tensions among those living and working above.

The museum suffered its first indignity in the Peninsular Wars when Napoleon's troops commandeered it as a cavalry barracks and gunpowder store. When peace came in 1814 further damage was inflicted by Madrilenos who plundered wood and stone to repair their ravaged homes.

In the Civil War, it was sandbagged and paintings were moved to the ground floor. Other works were brought from outside Madrid to be given refuge: the Prado was somehow thought to have moral immunity. It was bombed anyway, but the paintings were undamaged.

In the first extension, in 1918, a few rooms were added at the back. The second, in the Fifties, added more rooms, the third - and last - in the Sixties was effected by closing the courtyards between the existing extensions to make more rooms. Since then, the only solution to a growing collection and explosion of visitors was to decant the 19th century paintings into the Cason del Buen Retiro, a former 17th century palace ballroom that was restored in 1971.

In recent years, tales have emerged of the museum's funds, principally the 8bn peseta fortune bequeathed to it by Manuel Villaescusa, being frittered away on overpriced works of doubtful worth and, in some cases, doubtful provenance.

The terms of the Villaescusa bequest require the museum to acquire major works, "preferably a single one that the museum's trustees consider most interesting and which comes up for sale". However, critics say, the museum has bought more than a hundred, some of which are not even on display.

Why, they ask, did not the museum buy Goya's "Marianito", an exquisite portrait of his grandson, when the owners, descendants of the Duke of Albuquerque, offered it? Or make an effort to buy the "Condesa de Chinchon", widely recognised as one of Goya's master works, also in privatehands?

The Prado says that much of the Villaescusa bequest is tied up in real estate, and with the property market depressed, it makes little sense to sell up to realise funds for paintings to which the museum has free access and which it believes will eventually fall into its hands.

Any day now, the vast metal gantry sitting in the Prado's forecourt will be hoisted over its head to start the process of putting new lead and glass on to its leaky old roof. For 18 months, visitors will have to pick their way round scaffolding, negotiate confusing changes as principal galleries are closed and paintings shunted from room to room or bundled into cupboards during each stage of the repair work.

We will have to suffer the improvised loos and the tenebrous cafeteria for much longer than that, and we may never be able to see more than 10 per cent of what the museum holds. But, at 400 pesetas (pounds 2) a throw, gratis on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, somehow it is still worth it.