National Museum of ColombiaMuseo Nacional de Colombia

Founded in 1823, the National Museum of Colombia threads art, documents, and everyday objects into a single, sometimes contested account of the nation. Since 1948 it has occupied Bogota’s former Panopticon prison, a stark stone complex built 1874–1905 to control bodies and ideas. Its conversion turns confinement into reflection, where Indigenous memory, colonial faith, republican politics, and modern dissent share the same corridors.