SPAIN: Spanish art collector Baroness Carmen Thyssen has threatened to chain herself to a tree on Madrid's most emblematic street, the Paseo del Prado, to stop proposed building works outside a museum of valuable paintings donated by her family.
The baroness said a redesign of the street, planned to keep traffic away from the nearby Prado museum, would leave her own museum choking in exhaust fumes. "They want to put a motorway in front of us and, what's more, they will do it by cutting down a unique line of trees," she said.
"I'll look for other nature lovers such as myself and we will chain ourselves to each tree so that they cannot get rid of them."
The baroness, a former Spanish beauty queen, was instrumental in persuading Swiss- based Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen to bring one of the world's greatest private art collections to a museum specially created for it by the Spanish government 14 years ago.
Madrid's city hall said no official complaint was received from the Thyssen-Bornemisza museum when the plans were first made public.