With
private and public resources, and through to a project
made by the Chilean Cultural Heritage Corporation,
specialists from the Conservation and Restoration
National Center have begun with the restoration
of the sacred art pieces held at the Merced Convent,
in Santiago´s downtown. The works will cost
about 150 million pesos.
At the end
of the Merced main hall there stand the convent´s
fences, and the beautiful and peaceful gardens.
Inside it is kept one of Chile´s most valuable
art collections. Paintings and sculptures from he
European Baroque and Latinamerican colonial art
are part of the significant pieces of religious
images, plus pre-Columbian pieces from Easter Island
and the Andes.
Thanks to a project made by the Chilean Cultural
Heritage Corporation, with a cost of around 150
million pesos, specialists from the Conservation
and Restoration National Center are already working
on the religious pieces. These are objects that
had been kept until now with no care nor order,
unknown to the public. Now they are being selected
and restored, and will be placed in a new museum
that will tell the story of the Southamerican Our
Lady of Mercy Order.
"The pieces were taken away, so the building
was emptied for the Museum, wich will be renewed.
Now, the priority is to maintain more than to restore
and, paralell to develop the works of investigations,
documentation and design that are necessary for
a good Museum", says Paula Valenzuela, from
the Restoration and Conservation National Center.
About the architectural work on the building, "the
idea is to keep as much as possible the building
as patrimony", says museologist Alan Trampe,
one of the professionals working on the project.
"In that context, we have thought about an
introdctory hall, where the Order´s line,
spirit and trajectory will be shown. What it is,
what it does, its origins, its missions". On
the second floor there will be a room with no information,
full of pieces and objects that represent the whole
collection, in a quiet surrounding. "It will
be a contemplative room, for the thinking and the
spirit".
The museum, the store and the cafeteria, around
the peaceful gardens, may turn this place in a very
peculiar cultural center, offering an oasis for
Santiago´s downtown, where art, tranquility
and nature will meet. The gardens may also be offered
for rent for parties and weddings, in order to have
more resources for the Museum. |
