Museum sights in Argentina
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Museo de la Ciudad
In a restored galpón (sheepshearing shed), the Museo de la Ciudad has impressive exhibits, from logging to military displays, postal communications to cartography, indigenous artifacts to yet another milodón, an extinct giant sloth.
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Museo del Hombre Chaqueño
The Museo del Hombre Chaqueño had just moved at the time of research and wasn't yet open, but focuses on the colonization of the Chaco and provides information and exhibits on the provincial indigenous cultures.
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B
Convento y Museo de San Francisco
The principal historical landmark in Santa Fe is this Franciscan monastery and museum, built in 1680. The walls, which are more than 1m thick, support a roof made from Paraguayan cedar and hardwood beams held together by fittings and wooden spikes, rather than by nails. While the museum section is mediocre, the church is beautiful, with an exquisite wooden ceiling and a fine polychrome Christ by the grumpy Spanish master Alonso Cano – it was sent as a sympathy gift to Santa Fe by the Queen of Spain when the town moved. Note also the tomb of Padre Magallanes, a priest who was killed by a jaguar that took refuge in the church when it was driven from the shores of the Paraná…
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Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio
Showcasing the most important fossil finds in Patagonia, this natural-history museum offers outstanding life-sized dinosaur exhibits and more than 1700 fossil remains of plant and marine life. Nature sounds and a video accent the informative plaques, and tours are available in a number of languages. The collection includes local dinosaurs, such as the tehuelchesaurus, patagosaurus and titanosaurus. Museum researchers were part of an international team that discovered a new and unusual species called Brachytrachelopan mesai, a short-necked sauropod. Feruglio was an Italian paleontologist who came to Argentina in 1925 as a petroleum geologist for YPF.
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Museo Histórico del Norte
Set on the plaza in the cabildo, the Museo Histórico del Norte has a collection that ranges from pre-Columbian ceramics through to colonial-era religious painting and sculpture (admire the fine pulpit from Salta’s Jesuit church), and displays on Salta in the 19th and 20th centuries. The endless series of portraits of Salta’s governors wouldn’t be out of place in a beard-and-moustache museum, while the transportation collection includes a somber hearse used for children’s funerals and an enormous 1911 Renault that puts any Hummer to shame. The building itself, with cobbled patio and gallery overlooking the plaza, is lovely.
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Museo Folklórico
The hugely worthwhile Museo Folklórico is set in a wonderful early-17th-century adobe building, and has fine displays on various aspects of the region’s culture. Themes include chaya (local La Rioja music) and the Tinkunaco festival, weaving (with bright traditional wallhangings colored with plant extracts) and winemaking. The lagar (stretched leather used for treading the grapes) is quite a sight, as is the room that deals with mythology, including a demanding series of rituals required to sell your soul to the devil hereabouts. The informative guided tour is excellent if your Spanish is up to it.
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Museo Marítimo & Museo del Presidio
When convicts were moved from Isla de los Estados (Staten Island) to Ushuaia in 1906, they began building the national prison, which was finished in 1920. The spokelike halls of single cells were designed to house 380, but in the prison’s most active period held up to 800. It closed as a jail in 1947 and now houses the Museo Marítimo & Museo del Presidio. It’s a fine port of call on a blustery day. Halls showing penal life are intriguing, but the informative plaques are only in Spanish. Two of the more illustrious inmates were author Ricardo Rojasand and Russian anarchist Simón Radowitzky.
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Museo Arqueológico Adán Quiroga
The fine Museo Arqueológico Adán Quiroga is reason enough to come to Catamarca if you have an interest in Argentine indigenous culture. A superb collection of pre-Columbian ceramics from several different cultures and eras is on display. Some – in particular the black Aguada ceramics with their incised, stylized animal decoration – is of truly remarkable quality. A couple of dehydrated mummies found at 5000m are also present, as well as a spooky shrunken head from the Amazon, and trays used to snort lines of rape (finely ground tobacco). There’s also a colonial and religious section.
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Museo del Puerto
On the outskirts of town – in a former customs building that’s hardly noticeable among the massive grain elevators and fortress-like power plant of Puerto Ingeniero White – the Museo del Puerto is an iconoclastic tribute to immigrants and their heritage, and includes an archive with documents, photographs and recorded oral histories. The best time to visit is for a weekend afternoon tea, when local groups prepare regional delicacies, each week representing a different immigrant group. Live music often accompanies the refreshments. Bus 500 from the Plaza Rivadavia goes to the museum.
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Museo Casa de Ricardo Rojas
Walk under the facade, modeled after the Casa de Independencia in Tucumán, and behold a quaint courtyard surrounded by European and Incan architectural motifs. Famous Argentine educator and writer Ricardo Rojas lived here from 1929 to 1957, and in his office wrote his renowned El Santo de la Espada (1933). Note the glass case displaying his original books; the library contains 20,000 volumes. An old dining room with period furniture also gives an idea of the past. The small theater holds Friday concerts and the occasional workshop; the entry fee includes a short tour in Spanish.
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Museo Arqueológico Provincial
The Museo Arqueológico Provincial is definitely worth a visit. The standout exhibit is a vivid 3000-year-old fertility goddess figure, depicted with snakes for hair and in the act of giving birth. She’s a product of the advanced San Francisco culture, which existed in Las Yungas from about 1400 BC to 800 BC. There’s also a selection of skulls with cranial deformities (practiced for cosmetic reasons) and mummified bodies displayed with what might have been their typical possessions. Staff hand out a booklet that has information in English.
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Museo Nacional del Petróleo
Intransigent petroleum fans should head to Museo Nacional del Petróleo for an insider look at the social and historical aspects of petroleum development. Don’t expect balanced treatment of oil issues – the museum was built by the former state oil agency YPF (it is now managed by the Universidad Nacional de Patagonia). While its historical photos are interesting, the detailed models of tankers, refineries and the entire zone of exploitation are best left to the die hard. Guided tours are available.
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Chirau-Mita
Even if you're not a fan of succulents, it's likely that you'll appreciate Chirau-Mita, an impressive cactus garden a short stroll from town, where more than 1500 species have been grown from seeds and are elegantly showcased, divided by country of origin, in an attractive hillside setting.
Entry is by informative guided tour (some English spoken), and the visit includes a handsomely presented museum, which has some stunning Patagonian fossils, prehistoric weapons and tools, and pre-Columbian ceramics.
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Museo Municipal de Bellas Artes Dr Genaro Pérez
This museum is prized for its collection of paintings from the 19th and 20th centuries. Works, including those by Emilio Caraffa, Lucio Fontana, Lino Spilimbergo, Antonio Berni and Antonio Seguí, chronologically display the history of the cordobés school of painting, at the front of which stands Genaro Pérez himself. The museum is housed in Palacio Garzón, an unusual late-19th-century building named for its original owner; it also has outstanding changing contemporary art exhibits.
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Iglesia San Francisco
The magenta-and-yellow Iglesia San Francisco is Salta’s most striking landmark. The exuberant facade is topped by a slender tower; inside, the single nave is ornately painted to resemble stucco-work. There are several much-venerated images here, including the Niño Jesús de Aracoeli, a rather spooky crowned figure. There’s a lovely garden cloister, accessed via guided tour (which run on demand in Spanish; donation appropriate) that takes in a mediocre museum of religious art and treasures.
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Museo de Ciencias Antropológicas y Naturales
An excellent collection founded by two French archaeologist brothers, it is by far the most interesting thing to see in town. There’s a stunning array of indigenous ceramics – mostly sizable, noble funerary urns used for secondary burial (the remains were put in the pot after decomposition) – as well as jewelry, flutes and a large case filled with ornate loom weights. There are also some impressive fossils of glyptodonts, an extinct family of creatures that somewhat resembled large armadillos.
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Museo de la Cultura Jesuítica
On the south side of the Plaza San Martín is the Museo de la Cultura Jesuítica, set among the ruins of what was once the Jesuit mission’s church and cloister. If you read Spanish, it’s an excellent museum, with a comprehensive overview of the missions in Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay and detailed information on all aspects of those fascinating communities. The photographic displays are also good, and the museum would make a useful first stop on a tour of the Jesuit zone.
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El Fogón de los Arrieros Museum
The El Fogón de los Arrieros Museum features the wood carvings of local artist and cultural activist Juan de Dios Mena. Founded in 1942, the El Fogón de los Arrieros is a cultural center, art gallery and bar that for decades has been the driving force behind Resistencia's artistic commitment and progressive displays of public art. Still the keystone of the region's art community, it is now famous for its eclectic collection of art objects from around the Chaco and Argentina.
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Museo Sanmartiniano
On the southern edge of town, four blocks south of the Plaza San Martín, the army barracks house a museum, the Museo Sanmartiniano. As well as various San Martín paraphernalia, it also has some objects from the Jesuit period, including a wooden Christ found in mud by the Río Uruguay. Charmingly, and typically for provincial museums in Argentina, there are also a couple of objects that aren’t really on the program: an unusually twisted eucalyptus branch, for example.
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Museo Arqueológico
The private Museo Arqueológico is the collection left by enthusiastic archaeologist Rodolfo Bravo and well worth a visit. Sourced mostly from grave sites in a 30km radius from Cafayate, the collection consists of an excellent array of ceramics, from the black and gray wares of the Candelaria and Aguada cultures to late Diaguita and Inca pottery, all well displayed across two rooms. While there’s not much explanation, the material speaks for itself.
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Museo Provincial de Ciencias Naturales y Oceanográfico
Feeling up strands of seaweed and ogling a preserved octopus are part of the hands-on approach of this museum in the 1917 Chalet Pujol. A winding staircase leads into nine small rooms of marine and land mammal exhibits and preserved specimens, plus collections of Welsh wares. The explanations are in Spanish and geared to youth science classes, but it’s visually informative and creatively presented. Twist up to the cupola for views of the port.
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Museo Policial
The odd Museo Policial, the police museum, features grisly photos of auto accidents, tales of crimes of passion, and tedious drug-war rhetoric. It redeems itself with absorbing accounts of cuatrerismo (cattle rustling, still widespread in the province) and banditry, including the tale of two 1960s' outlaws who, after killing a policeman, lived for five years on the run, helped by the Chaco's rural poor. Officers accompany visitors on guided tours.
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Interpretation Center
The entrance to San Ignacio Miní is on the north side on Calle Alberdi, where the first stop is the new interpretation center. It's an impressive display with plenty of unbiased information (in Spanish and English) about the missions from both the Jesuit and Guaraní perspectives. You can listen to Guaraní music, including some religious pieces composed at the missions, and inspect a virtual model of San Ignacio as it would have been.
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Museo Histórico Provincial
During Argentina’s civil wars, a bullet pierced the imposing wooden door of this colonial house, killing General Juan Lavalle, a hero of the wars of independence. The story of Lavalle unfolds in Museo Histórico Provincial. There is also religious and colonial art, as well as exhibits on the independence era, the evacuation of Jujuy and 19th-century fashion. There are some English labels, and guides on hand to answer questions.
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Museo Evita
Everybody who is anybody in Argentina has their own museum, and Eva Perón is no exception. You can see her immortalized in Museo Evita through videos, historical photos, books, old posters and newspaper headlines – even her fingerprints are recorded. The prize memorabilia, however, would have to be her wardrobe: dresses, shoes, handbags, hats and blouses stand proudly behind shining glass, forever pressed and pristine.
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