Colombian National Museum

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National Museum of Colombia

Established	1823
Location	International Center, Bogotá, Colombia
Director	María Victoria de Robayo
Website	www.museonacional.gov.co

Colombian National Museum (Spanish: Museo Nacional de Colombia) located in Bogotá downtown, is the biggest museum in Colombia. Former prison called Panóptico (inspired on the Panopticon prison)

The National Museum is the oldest in the country and one of the oldest in the continent, built in 1823. Its fortress architecture is built in stone and brick. The plant includes arches, domes and columns forming a sort of Greek cross over which 104 prison cells are distributed, with solid wall façade. The first prison built in 1874, known as the Panóptico (prison only up to 1946), to replace different localities used for such purpose in Bogotá, for that reason the largest building of the city was built during the second decade of the XIX century. In 1948 the building was adapted for National Museum and restored in 1975. Most recent intervention implied substantial rooms and support services modernization, placing the museum in the Colombian cultural vanguard.

The museum houses a collection of over 20,000 pieces including works of art and objects representing different national history periods. Permanent exhibitions present archeology and ethnography samples from most antique Colombian men vestiges, 10,000 years BC, up to XX century indigenous and afro- Colombian art and culture. Founders and New Kingdom of Granada room houses rich Liberators and other Spanish authorities iconography; the round room exhibits a series of oleos synthesizing Colombia painting history.

Paintings by masters Débora Arango, Fernando Botero, Enrique Grau, Ignacio Gomez Jaramillo, Santiago Martinez Delgado, Alejandro Obregón, Omar Rayo and Guillermo Wiedemann are part of the Permanent Collection.

The Museum offers a Shop-Café located next to the north garden, a warm place, decorated with artistic and historical replicas serving as restaurant and shop. Side by side the Coffee Pavilion, offering diverse national beverage preparations.