Known in Spanish as Museo De Arte Costarricense, the Museum of Costa Rican Art is housed in the former international airport terminal located in Parque Metropolitano La Sabana in San José, Costa Rica. The museum’s collection has over 6,000 works of art by both national and international artists and is the largest collection in Costa Rica. The building is architecturally interesting and its location next to the park – its former runway – is also pleasant (though, unfortunately, we didn’t have time to explore the park).
Getting There
The museum is located 1.8 miles/3km from Plaza de la Cultura in Central San José: though the distance itself isn’t overwhelming, the heat and humidity quickly changes your view. My wife and I started the walk and decided after twenty minutes to call an Uber. Wise choice!
Public buses are available and Google Maps would have made it easy, but Uber is inexpensive and the app is already on my phone.
The Visit
From the parking lot where we arrived, you enter the museum and find the reception/information desk just inside the door, where you get your bearings and prepare for your visit: technically, it’s not a ticket desk because the museum is free!
The museum has fourteen rooms – likely representing the different needs of a 1930s era airport – which don’t really flow together and makes it challenging to ensure you’ve seen everything. That said, the museum is rather small and each room is numbered, but I found myself traipsing back-and-forth across the main lateral room to see everything.
El mundo onírico
Somewhat behind the reception desk is Room 13 houses the temporary exhibitions, currently an exhibit of exquisite drawings of plants and flowers by Flora Sáenz Langlios. Definitely well-execute and detailed, but not my cup of tea.
The room does have two architectural features of note, a set of old tiles protected under glass and a intricately-carved door.
Valle Oscuro
The large exhibit Valle Oscuro by Adrián Arguedas Ruano is currently the primary exhibition and fills most of the rooms. The artwork is a combination of paintings and 3-D figures or scuptures, cartoonish, exaggerated, colorful, surprising and very interesting….and, for some, scary. I did laugh out loud at seeing Kiss in the front-row audience in one of the paintings.
This isn’t the usual artwork that I go to see, but I really enjoyed it.
Main Collection
Rooms 4-7 display works from the museum’s collection. The collection is varied in medium, style, age, etc, and (presumably) works are rotated on a regular basis (though I didn’t ask). Mostly didn’t find much of interest, but that’s me. Overall meh.
Golden Hall
Take the steps upstairs to the Golden Hall (also referred to as Diplomat Salon or Golden Room) which is where diplomats and dignitaries waited (and likely were feted) when arriving or leaving Costa Rica’s one (at the time) international airport. The walls are stunning, stucco carved and painted in bronze, telling the history of Costa Rica from pre-Columbian times as you walk around the room.
Alone this room makes a trip to the museum worth the effort, as it’s an incredible work of art itself, reminding me of Italian palaces where large state rooms were decorated to show local history – Salone dei Cinquecento – or painted to show the surrounding town as if the walls weren’t present with a 3D allusion that is maintained until you’re right there. Thought smaller, the Golden Room ranks up there, absolutely stunning.
[Reminds me that perhaps a trip to Italy is in order.]
Sculpture Garden
Outside the museum on the park side, where passengers embarked and disembarked from their planes, is a sculpture garden of perhaps a dozen works. You can walk around and enjoy the art, sit down and gaze at the building, or walk directly into the park. A pleasant surprise.
Final Thoughts
Larger than an art gallery but smaller than other art museums we’ve visited, the Museum of Costa Rican Art is definitely worth the visit, if for no other reason than the Golden Hall. Despite its size, interesting works abound without having to spend a whole day or afternoon, unlike other major art museums. I expect another visit if we return to San José in the future, and hope to follow their web site for future exhibitions.
Logistics
Address: WWP2+5FW, C. 42, San José, Sabana, Costa Rica
Website: https://www.mac.go.cr/en
Open: Tuesday through Sunday, 9am to 4pm (closed on major holidays, as listed on their site)
Ticket Cost: $0/₡0 for one and all.
Child-Friendly: No interactive displays or other things to keep a child’s attention, though Valle Oscuro may be visually entertaining – or perhaps scary – to a child.
Language: mostly Spanish placards with only occasional English translations.
Length of Visit: 60-90 minutes
