Casa de Rivera, Montevideo, National Historical Museum in Ciudad Vieja, Uruguay
Casa de Rivera is a neoclassical building from 1802 with a distinctive octagonal bay window that houses exhibits across two floors focused on Uruguayan history. The rooms display paintings, manuscripts, and objects that span different periods of the nation's past.
The building was erected in the early 1800s and served as the residence of General Fructuoso Rivera, Uruguay's first constitutional president, who lived there from 1834 to 1849. Its later renovations in the 1940s enabled its transformation into a public museum.
The museum presents an extensive collection of paintings, documents, and artifacts that illustrate Uruguay's social development from independence to the early 1900s.
The location is straightforward to find and the rooms are easy to navigate, with adequate space to move between the displays. Visitors should allow an hour or two to view all the exhibits without rushing.
The building was deliberately reworked in the 1940s by architects Italo Dighiero and Beltran Arbeleche to preserve its appearance while serving as a museum. This careful adaptation allowed the original structure to remain intact while the interior was completely reorganized for public use.
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