Museums wide open in Montevideo
There are plenty of museums to see in Montevideo, from the traditional ones, such as the Museum of Art History and Museum of Municipal Archives, to the original exhibitions, such as the Open Air Photo galleries and Carnival Museum in the Old City of Montevideo.
Montevideo is celebrating this week the International Museum Day with several varied outdoor and indoor activities. Besides touring art galleries, exhibition halls and museums in a more opened schedule, you can be a spectator of various concerts, theatre, workshops, conferences and all kinds of cultural and artistic activities during May.
On May 18th the International Museum Day was celebrated and celebrations will continue this week. Museums in Montevideo are all opened to the public and are offering a wide range of cultural and original events, most of them for free. As from May 6th, 2014 the city has been developing cultural activities that will continue until this week. Some of these events are organized within the museums, but others involve hiking, educational trips and visits to different neighborhoods of the city.
Many museums have been included in this Museum Week in Montevideo. The idea is to develop awareness of the rich cultural heritage that Museums in Montevideo have to offer, in a city that surprises with the variety of original and cultural activities.
Here is a list of the main museums in Montevideo offering special events during the Museum Week.
• Damaso Antonio Larrañaga Museum: a wonderful collection of species of native wildlife exhibits, especially those that are endangered. Located on the Rambla of Montevideo, it is located in a very unique building that looks like a small Moorish castle.
• Municipal Museum and Historical Archive. It is located in the Cabildo of Montevideo. It is one of the old buildings surrounding the main Plaza Matrix of the Old City. There are permanent exhibitions of objects representing different periods of Uruguayan history.
• Peñarol Station Museum: this museum is a reconstruction of a real railway station of the nineteenth century, the era where objects are exhibited: telegraph, ticket booth furniture, block staff and lanterns.
• Museum of Art History: There are replicas and original exhibits from prehistory, through the Roman Empire, to the heritage of Western art of the nineteenth century.
• Carnival Museum: It is located in the Old City of Montevideo, in front of the port and terminal right next to the Mercado Del Puerto. It is an original exhibit of the Uruguayan carnival with plenty of historic facts displayed.
• Museum of Pre-Columbian and American Indian Art: also located in the Old City with thousand of archaeological pieces of regional cultures, with special emphasis on the area of the Central Andes.
• Blanes Museum: This museum has existed since 1930, and since then it has built up a collection of the nineteenth century, modern and contemporary works of art. The institution is named after the prominent Uruguayan plastic artist Juan Manuel Blanes. It is a bit far away from the center but it is worth visiting it.
• Joaquín Torres García Museum: this museum is a collection of writings, notes, and toys wooden works of this renowned Uruguayan artist. It is an important building on the pedestrian Sarandi 683 in the Old Town, in the small section from the Plaza Independencia to Plaza Matriz.
• Municipal Center of Photography: This institution is located in the Municipality of Montevideo and has a separate access from the street San Jose. It is responsible for the conservation and restoration of one hundred thousand historical photographs of the city, and many other contemporary. At the Rodó Park and the Prado Park you can visit the Open Air Photo galleries, where panels with photographs are posted in open spaces.
• Decorative Arts Museum: located in the neo-classical building Taranco Palace, one of the buildings surrounding the Plaza Zabala Old Town. It is an archaeological collection of decorative arts.
These are just highlight; there are still many more options to see during the Museum Week in Montevideo.
Mary Ann Thompson
