Centro Cultural La Moneda, Underground arts centre and gallery beneath Plaza de la Ciudadanía in Santiago, Chile
Centro Cultural La Moneda is an underground arts center and gallery in Santiago, Chile, built beneath the Plaza de la Ciudadanía, next to the presidential palace of the same name. The facility spreads across several floors and uses a glass-slab roof to channel natural light into its exhibition rooms and a central atrium.
Built between November 2004 and January 2006 by the office of Cristián Undurraga and Ana Luisa Devés, the center was inaugurated on 26 January 2006 by President Ricardo Lagos. It formed part of the Bicentennial Project marking 200 years of the Chilean Republic. Its first major show, México. Del cuerpo al cosmos, drew 81,204 visitors in its first month.
The center's name comes from the Palacio de La Moneda above it, and its entrance is reached from the Plaza de la Ciudadanía. Since opening, it has hosted traveling shows such as La Antigua China y el Ejército de Terracota, Grandes Modernos from the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and Antiguo Egipto: Vida en el Nilo. The Cineteca Nacional de Chile and the Centro de Documentación de Artes Visuales also operate here.
The center lies under the Plaza de la Ciudadanía, in front of the southern façade of the Palacio de La Moneda. A parking garage for 564 cars occupies four levels beneath the plaza, with pedestrian and vehicular access on Morandé and Teatinos streets. The Cineteca Nacional's film programme is published separately, so check it before planning a screening.
Inside the center, the Cineteca Nacional holds a digital archive of Chilean film and video that goes back several decades, covering productions that are hard to find anywhere else. It is one of the few places in South America where the public can explore this kind of deep audiovisual record in person.
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