Palacio de la Real Aduana de Santiago, Historic building on Bandera Street, Santiago, Chile

The Palacio de la Real Aduana sits on Bandera Street and displays white walls, stone columns, and a central courtyard designed in Spanish colonial style. The building spans two main levels with symmetrical facades that reflect the design principles of that era.

The military engineer José María de Atero built the palace between 1805 and 1807 on plans by Joaquín Toesca, on a site granted in 1555 to Juan de Cuevas and later occupied by the Jesuit Colegio de San Francisco Javier. After independence it housed the tobacco monopoly and, from 1823, rooms of the National Library. From 1845 it held Santiago's courts until a fire on 23 March 1970 destroyed its rooms, earning the name Old Courts.

The palace now holds the Museum of Pre-Columbian Art, bringing visitors face to face with objects from diverse American cultures and the people who created them. These collections tell stories about how indigenous civilizations lived and made things long before European arrival.

The museum entrance is on the Bandera Street side of the palace, near the corner with Compañía. A pedestrian walkway through the portal of the front facade was opened on 4 January 1979, so visitors pass under the colonnade before entering. The building stands in the historic centre of Santiago, within walking distance of the Plaza de Armas.

The fire that gave the building its "Tribunales Viejos" nickname broke out on 23 March 1970, destroying the courtrooms that had occupied the site since 1845; the Supreme Court itself had moved out in 1915. Reconstruction began in August 1977, and the pedestrian walkway through the front portal opened on 4 January 1979.