Third era (1910-1939)
The XX Century started to the Museum with it's collections found deposited in the floor and in different rooms in the building that now is the Spanish National Library, in the Madrid's Paseo de Recoletos. A place not appropriate to the exhibition, care and research of its founds.
On July 2nd, 1901, Ignacio Bolívar y Urrutia is named new director. He was an international acknowledged naturalist and entomologist that started the hard task of finding a new headquarters. This claim of a self place was established before in the regulation published in March, 1901. It set out the goals with which it would try to promote the development of Natural Sciences in Spain: to form collections, carry out scientific expeditions, promote and encourage quality scientific works and increase the number of volumes in the Library, among others. In addition, the educational reform of 1901 attributed research and teaching functions to the Museum. It was also decreed that the Museum should be organised into two sections, Geology and Zoology. The centre was attached to the Faculty of Science of the Central University.
In that same year, recollections were important for the Museum, mainly of fauna, which Manuel Martínez de la Escalera carried out in the Gulf of Guinea when he was part of the Boundary Commission that was to set the borders between Spain and France in that region. Although there had already been scientific incursions into this territory at the end of the last century, it was this one that gathered a large amount of important material, which, after its study by specialists from all over the world, brought to light more than two hundred species and twenty new genera. Other expeditions followed on the African continent, such as those supported by the Commission for the Study of Northwest Africa, created in 1905, of which Manuel Martínez de la Escalera was appointed Commissioner.
In the Spanish land, it's is a must to mention the works made by Eduardo Hernández-Pacheco in the deposits from the Tertiary period in the two Castillas, Madrid and Teruel for the study and dating of the remains of mammals and large land tortoises.
In 1906, Ignacio Bolívar requested to the Public Instruction and Fine Arts Ministry an available space for the Museum in the building of a finished one in 1887, the Industry and Fine Arts Exhibition Palace, located in the Madrid's Paseo de la Castellana, the location that the Museum is nowadays. The bugs collections and the Spanish Royal Society of Natural History were the firsts one in came to the new building. This were located in the top floor of the North Pavilion. The Museum
The Museum had not been installed in the Palace until 1910, when all the collections were moved to the new place. This was because the Industrial Technical Engineering School were occupying all the space.
In 1907, the government created the The Board for Advanced Scientific Studies and Research (JAE), presided by Santiago Ramón y Cajal. It main goal was to promote the high-level studies and award scholarships to make research stays in the foreign for the training of pensioners. The Museum, separated from the Central University, was converted in a autonomous center. In this line, out of the official college degree, the Museum teach it's own training courses and internships aimed at specialisation and research.
In this new model of organization, the position of section manager born with the aim to be responsible of the study and promotion of the collections. Among this managers, we can highlight Luis Lozano Rey, ichthyologist, José Royo Gómez, geologist, Eduardo Hernández-Pacheco, paleontologist or Cándido Bolívar Pieltáin, entomologist. Other outstanding figure was Antonio de Zulueta y Escolano, pioneer of genetic research in Spain and discoverer of the existence of genes in the sex chromosome Y of the beetle Phytodecta variabilis. He was also head of the Biology Laboratory.
In 1910, the JAE undertook the construction of an Alpine Biology Station. The initiative came from the Museum's director, Ignacio Bolívar, who had visited several alpine gardens in Europe and promoted the idea of creating such a centre in the Sierra de Madrid. The Station, attached to the Museum, would serve as a base for researchers and would promote natural history studies in mountain areas. They found the right place in the Sierra de Madrid between the towns of Cercedilla and Navacerrada, in an enclave called El Ventorrillo, at an altitude of 1.400 metres. Known as the Estación de El Ventorrillo, this biological station soon became a magnificent support centre for naturalists. It is still fully operational today, used by many researchers from the Museum and other national and foreign centres, who study various aspects of ecology, evolution, biodiversity and conservation of the fauna and ecosystems of the Sierra del Guadarrama.
In 1912, José María Benedito joined the Museum as manager of the Taxidermy Laboratory. His brother Luis was awarded a scholarship by the JAE to visit various taxidermy laboratories in Europe, especially in Germany, France and Holland. Together, the two Benedito brothers produced until the mid-20th century the best taxidermy works currently in the Museum's possession, such as the African elephant and the bee-eater colony.
In the same year, 1912, the Paleontological and Prehistoric Research Commission was founded at the Museum, under the auspices of the JAE. This Commission was responsible for making an inventory of the cave paintings of the Iberian Peninsula and for ensuring that they were traced and copied from the original in order to preserve a drawn replica. These tracings of cave paintings from practically the entire Spanish geography are kept in the Historical Archive of the National Museum of Natural Sciences and their number amounts to more than 2,200 tracings.
In 1913 a replica of the skeleton of a Diplodocus carnegii, a dinosaur from the Upper Jurassic period, was donated to the Museum by ship from New York. The donor was the American magnate Andrew Carnegie and the recipient of the donation was King Alfonso XIII, who gave it to the Museum as a gift. Carnegie had donated replicas of this dinosaur to other natural science museums, such as those in London, Paris and Vienna. The original is kept at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in the city of Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania, United States). Carnegie Museum workers helped with the assembly of the 24-metre replica, which arrived in 34 crates weighing more than 4,000 kilos. It was displayed in the great hall or rotunda of the Palace, which was formerly occupied by the School of Engineers. The hall in which the replica was displayed alone was inaugurated on December 3rd, 1913 by Queen Maria Christina of Habsburg-Lorraine. It was a magnet for visitors to the Museum, who numbered in the thousands. Today it is still one of the most emblematic pieces of the National Museum of Natural Sciences.
Also in 1913, the Museum changed its name to the one it has today, the National Museum of Natural Sciences. The staff had increased considerably and had become more specialised. There were section managers, curators, dissectors, preparators, collectors, taxidermists, botanists, biology teachers, and auxiliary staff such as caretakers, laboratory staff and porters. In 1920 the Museum already had seven sections: Mineralogy; Geology and Palaeontology; Osteozoology; Entomology; Malacology and lower animals; Hydrobiology; Microbiology. In addition to these seven sections there were three laboratories: Biology, Taxidermy and Botany.
The increase of it's activity in all levels is showed in the abundance of its publications. It is published numerous papers made by members of the Museum staff in scientific magazines and books. It is also composed series and monographs edited by the Museum itself. From 1912 to 1939, 129 monographs were edited in the National Museum of Natural Sciences Works series, with works on geology, zoology and botany. It was written 38 volumes of Memories of the Commission for Geographical, Scientific and Prehistoric Research and in 1925 the journal EOS Entomology was founded, which soon achieved international renown. In addition, the Museum participated in publishing activities with two scientific societies, the Spanish Society of Natural History and the Spanish Society of Anthropology.
This good period of research and collections activity, of expeditions participation and collaboration with other institutions, exhibitions, congress -like the VI International Congress of Entomology in 1935- was truncated by the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).
The Museum closed it's doors and part of it's workers move out to Valencia, including it's director, Ignacio Bolívar. A part of him heritage was translated out of the Museum to secure it from the bombing, such as some valuable zoological samples, which were taken to the Prado Museum. Research activity continued with the few staff present until the end of the war. Antonio de Zulueta was in charge of the Museum as provisional director until his dismissal a few days before Franco's troops entered Madrid on 28 March 1939.
Text by Carolina Martín Albaladejo and Ana García Herranz