The 2025-2026 season del Círculo de Bellas Artes It is permeated by a clear celebratory element. In 2026 el Círculo de Bellas Artes It celebrates the centenary of its building, a structure designed by Antonio Palacios that, since its inauguration, has become a symbol of modernity and a meeting point for culture in Madrid. Throughout its one hundred years of history, its halls have hosted debates, exhibitions, concerts, screenings, and performances that have shaped the intellectual and artistic life of the city, projecting its influence far beyond our borders. Past, present, culture This is the motto that will accompany an anniversary that shuns any nostalgic look back at the past. On the contrary, the centenary celebration will be based on the affirmation of a commitment that remains intact: to offer an open, pluralistic, and transgressive space where free creation and thought can always find refuge. The program will commemorate the legacy of those who have made it what it is.el Círculo an essential place that will also propose new ways of imagining and building what is to come.

A century-old building

Martín Chirino, whose birth centenary will be commemorated in 2025, will be the focus of some of the season's major exhibitions. In 1983, the Canary Islands artist assumed the presidency ofel Círculo and gave it a powerful impetus that established the institution as a leading innovative center for culture in our country. The exhibition will open in October. Martín Chirino. Memoir ofel Círculo and in February The futures of the past. The Círculo de Bellas Artes as a space of cultural agitation in the 1980s and 1990sThis last one will show the renewal that it underwent el Círculo with Chirino at the helm, who positioned the institution as a multidisciplinary center that combined theory and practical teaching. The exhibition also opens in February. The House of Arts. Open since 1926Documents, plans, photographs and previously unpublished pieces will reveal the details of the competition, the design and construction of the building that now serves as the headquarters.el Círculo.

The grand celebration that the 2025-2026 season represents includes the proposal entitled Minerva's Owl, which will bring together artists and collectives to intervene in remote and unexpected placesel CírculoThe performance In Perspective, with which the company El Trastero Creativo will invite visitors to take a tour of the building, combining contemporary dance, architecture and music to reclaim el Círculo as a living, breathing place; and very special open house days that will invite visitors, through activities for all ages, to explore the halls, rooms, and hidden corners of the institution. Musically, the centenary will feature an extraordinary concert on May 24th, as part of the program of Círculo de Cámara, performed by the soprano Lisa Davidsen and the pianist James Baillieu.

For the first time in its history, the archive del Círculo It is now open to the public digitally, thanks to a project that makes thousands of previously unpublished documents from the late 19th century to the present day accessible. Letters, sketches, photographs, minutes, and designs can all be consulted in the new online archive. Archive Portalreaffirming the commitmentel Círculo with the preservation of its historical memory and its vocation for public service.

El Cine Estudio It will program a cycle that will bring together films from 1926, representative of the silent cinema of the time and which will have live musical accompaniment.

Also noteworthy is the renewal of Radio CírculoJust as it celebrates its 25th anniversary, this redefinition will transform the station into an open and free podcast platform. It will continue to be a leading resource for understanding the most challenging aspects of our time, a place to discover new voices, and a forum for discussing the challenges of contemporary culture.

The futures of the past

With The futures of the past, another of the major programming lines of this season, el Círculo It proposes a fruitful and emancipatory look at the past and a search within it for more sensible futures. In contrast to the reactionary revival of history, the institution proposes extracting from it everything that allows us to move forward in building a more just, supportive, innovative, and inclusive future. This task is necessarily a shared one. Therefore, this year, which marks four decades since Spain's entry into the European Union, el Círculo insists on his status as Casa Europa to highlight the transnational dimension of culture. Culture Action Europe, the European Alliance of Academies, TEJA, and the New European Bauhaus form a network of projects that place culture at the heart of contemporary social, political, and artistic debates on our continent. Círculo It is part of them, thus reaffirming its commitment to the arts, thought, cooperation and collective imagination as indispensable tools for building the future.

In this section of the program, two exhibition proposals stand out: the first will analyze in depth the work of Robert Capa. iconsThe first exhibition, opening on October 2nd, will connect the artist's photographs with the historical moment in which they were taken. The second exhibition, which opens on November 6th, offers a critical exploration of the landscapes of a world largely defined by speed, exploitation, and combustion. ¡Aquí hay petróleo! It will guide us in a critical reflection on fossil modernity and our links between energy, body and planet.

Possible Utopias: Glimpses into the Future of Knowledge in 2050 This is the title of a series of six virtual dialogues to be held in May, featuring leading voices in contemporary thought to reflect on the future of disciplines such as science, urban planning, and education. Analyzing major contemporary challenges and the role of science in addressing them is also one of the main objectives of the series. City and Science Biennial, which will arrive at Círculo in November and will be dedicated to commemorating the centenary of quantum mechanics.

El Círculo After a long hiatus, theater and film productions are once again a key element of its programming. In the coming months, the building will be transformed into a large film set where established and emerging names in Spanish cinema will shoot a series of short films produced by [the company/organization]. el CírculoIn the theater section, the institution will co-produce The red bourbon, the third of the titles that make up the tetralogy All for the Crownby Ignacio Amestoy; and Flush, a proposal signed by the young director Txemi Pejenaute, with which we will question ourselves about the climate emergency.

In the musical section, Rigoletto y La Traviata Last season they led interesting debates on topics such as social exclusion and inequality, respectively. This year, through The TroubadourAlso by Verdi, the discussion will focus on the difficulty of moving forward when the weight of the past conditions our present.

Thanks to another musical genre, zarzuela, we will delve into our roots, traditions and cultural diversity to contribute to building an image of a more inclusive and plural society. Zarzuela is the future It proposes to defend freedom of expression and creation against the risk of identity-based and reactionary ultranationalisms.

In another aspect of the musical field, we highlight the following events: Noisy future, with which we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the birth of electronic music, combining theoretical debate with artistic experimentation.

El Cine Estudio The festival will begin in 2026 with the first Spanish retrospective dedicated to Hiroshi Shimizu, one of the great masters of the golden age of Japanese cinema. This retrospective aims to introduce his exceptionally poetic cinematography to new generations of viewers. As a counterpoint, a selection of films by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, a key figure in contemporary Japanese cinema, will also be screened. "The Green Ray," a series of classic and contemporary films projected in 35mm prints or newly restored digital versions, along with a program of heritage films focusing on the issue of housing, are among the festival's new offerings. Cine Estudio this season.

Festival of Ideas. Labyrinths

The second edition of the Festival of Ideas will take place between September 18 and 21 and will once again feature the participation of leading national and international thinkers. The aim remains to bring philosophy to the streets, empowering citizens to take center stage in an open and free program that fosters a culture of encounter, debate, and active listening.

Mazes This is the concept around which this year's edition will revolve, functioning as the epicenter of a program that invites us to "think about the senses, nonsense and contradictions of our present, about our places of confinement or refuge, about our desire for liberation, about our false liberators, about our monsters," as explained by philosophers Marcela Vélez and Javier Moscoso, content directors, in the festival's manifesto.

In addition to the streets of Madrid, which are central to and give meaning to the festival, there will once again be two main venues. The Allianz Stage, in Plaza de España, will be the large public square hosting conferences, talks, performances, concerts, and the book fair. Among others, we can expect to hear from Pankaj Mishra, Michel Houellebecq, Victoria Camps, Sami Naïr, Lucía Carballal, Michael Ignatieff, and Camila Sosa.

The main headquarters will also be el Círculo de Bellas Arteswhere events with a more relaxed and reflective focus will take place: roundtables, conversations, and theatrical performances. This year it will also feature a wellness area for connecting mind and body, as well as a zone dedicated to younger minds: a children's area with content specifically created for the youngest members of families. Gisèle Sapiro, Manuel Vilas, Susana Monsó, Karina Sainz Borgo, Wolfram Eilenberger, Daniel Innerarity, and Clara Ramas are some of the personalities who will be visiting. el Círculo.

The Essentials

In recent seasons they have been grouped under the heading The essentials those dates marked in a special way on the calendar: some for their long history in el Círculo and others for their particular relevance in the cultural life of the city.

We will deliver the Medalla de Oro, the highest recognition it grants el Círculoto the writer Antonio Scuratti, with which we underline the quality of his literary work and his commitment to democracy; already Andrés Rábago “El Roto”, for his multifaceted career and his insightful critique of Spanish society.

Meetings are also important events Public26, dedicated to professionals in the cultural sector; the Continued Reading of Don Quixote, which is celebrating its thirtieth edition; The Round Table, which this year opens up to other literary genres beyond poetry; and the Carnival festivities (with the motto A legendary Carnival) and Night of the Dead and Witches, which will be celebrated on October 31.

This winter some Mythological Christmases en el Círculowhich will be transformed into a magical space inhabited by extraordinary creatures, stories, symbols, and the imaginations of the children who fill the Hall of Columns. This free, intergenerational, and festive program is reflected in the summer with the Climate Shelter, which in 2026 will invite everyone to play. Conceived as a large, open, and free plaza for the public to escape the heat, the shelter has already become a landmark of Madrid's summer.

Science and culture go hand in hand in much of the programming.el Círculo for years. In addition to the aforementioned City and Science Biennial, other initiatives that promote this connection are ConScienciArte, the science fair featuring students from various schools in Madrid; and the dialogue series Science, medicine and humanism, which will highlight the need for genuine collaboration between these disciplines, are a good example of this.

El Círculo It cannot be understood today without its educational aspect. Since 2014, Escuela SUR It offers a comprehensive and interdisciplinary arts education that integrates theory and practice through a two-year postgraduate program (the Master's in Continuing Education in Arts and Artistic Professions) and a seven-month Foundation Course of artistic practice. In addition, we will be holding our Summer Courses again in July, in which el Círculo and the National University of Distance Education collaborate to offer an intellectual, educational and cultural experience in the city center.