The Passenger

One of the most elegant survivals of Montevideo’s early-20th-century confidence and prosperity. Palacio Taranco stands beside Plaza Zabala in Ciudad Vieja, on the site once occupied by the colonial-era Casa de Comedias, regarded as the city’s first theatre. Commissioned by the Ortiz de Taranco family in 1908, the residence was designed by the French architects Charles-Louis Girault and Jules-Léon Chifflot, whose work gave the house a distinctly French, aristocratic character.

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The Museo de Arte Precolombino e Indígena, generally known as MAPI, is Montevideo’s museum devoted to the archaeology, art and living cultural traditions of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. It stands in Ciudad Vieja, the historic quarter of the city, and provides a valuable counterpoint to the colonial architecture and European-influenced history that dominate much of central Montevideo. Rather than presenting indigenous cultures as a distant prelude to national history, the museum places them at the centre of a broader American story, extending from Uruguay to the rest of Latin America and beyond.

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