Pilgrimage and Santiago Museum

Praza de Praterías, Santiago de Compostela, 15704

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The Pilgrimage and Santiago Museum occupies the former Banco de España building, designed in 1939 by the architect Romualdo Madariaga Céspedes and built on the plot of the Espinosa houses. It is located in Plaza de Platerías, only a few metres from the Cathedral’s south façade. Its ground floor features 5 arches on columns that form an arcade.

The Banco de España building was built in 1948, although the organism’s activity in Compostela began a lot earlier, in 1886. The office closed its doors in December 2004.

The profound remodelling undergone by the building to house the Pilgrimage and Santiago Museum is the work of Manuel Gallego Jorreto (O Carballiño, 1936), one of Galicia’s most prestigious architects. In 2010 he was awarded the Gold Medal for Architecture. He has designed, among other buildings, the Xunta de Galicia’s presidential residence or the Town Hall in A Illa de Arousa.

With a built area of almost 3,500 square metres, the city’s former Banco de España building now forms part, as of July 2012, of its museum complex, which also includes the Casa do Cabido. The large skylight on the second floor overlooks Compostela’s basilica with its impressive Berenguela Tower and a large part of the old town