Miramar Museum of Art and Design
“Things To Do In Puerto Rico”

Radio Inter­view |
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The oth­er day I was inter­viewed on local radio. The sub­ject was “Things To Do In Puer­to Rico”, par­tic­u­lar­ly as it relates to Puer­to Rican muse­ums. I’ve been work­ing on a series for Puer­to Rico By GPS about Puer­to Rico’s Great­est Muse­ums and it was more than fit­ting that we’d talk about it.

So I fired up Chat­G­PT and asked for “25 rea­sons why muse­ums are a great option when vis­it­ing a for­eign coun­try”. I fig­ured I’d get “more than enough meat” for an hour-long program.

Many peo­ple ask Chat­G­PT for fin­ished arti­cles and then won­der why their con­tent doesn’t rank. Well guess what? Google can smell Ai con­tent from a mile away. Instead, I ask for bul­let points, use them as guid­ance and fill in the gaps with my own knowl­edge and experience.

Then again, if you don’t have any knowl­edge to start with, or any expe­ri­ence, that’s a dif­fer­ent problem.

I was espe­cial­ly sur­prised by the first three points because they were the same that I’ve men­tioned in my recent videos. Muse­ums offer “insight into local cul­ture”, “they pro­vide a his­tor­i­cal per­spec­tive” and “they’re great for rainy days”. After all, that third point was the rea­son why I start­ed the muse­um series to begin with.

You see, on August 14th trop­i­cal storm Ernesto passed by Puer­to Rico. At the time Ernesto was what Puer­to Ricans call a “tor­men­ta pla­tan­era”, mean­ing that it was only sup­posed to knock down a few plan­tain trees. Well, the next morn­ing sev­er­al Island munic­i­pal­i­ties were under water and half the Island had no power.

In all fair­ness, it rained a lot more than expect­ed and Puer­to Rico has been affect­ed by a much more destruc­tive storm for the last 39 moths. That storm is called LUMA Ener­gy. Since the com­pa­ny took over the dis­tri­b­u­tion of elec­tric pow­er in Puer­to Rico things have gone from bad, to worse… to “wors­er”. Is that even a word?

Car­oli­na Muse­um of His­to­ry and Art Facade

Well, as you know, in Jan­u­ary of 2023 I start­ed a series cov­er­ing every town in Puer­to Rico. We start­ed in the town of Car­oli­na and went clock­wise around San Juan. Then we did it again and again. By the end of 2023 we had cov­ered 23 towns and in 2024 we have cov­ered 11 so far.

So why leave San Juan out, you might ask? Because that’s where the blog start­ed and we have lots of infor­ma­tion about it. Even so, I occa­sion­al­ly revert to San Juan, like when I slammed the Uni­ver­si­ty Of Puer­to Rico’s Botan­i­cal Gar­den (watch the video below). But I digress.

So there I was, with half the Island in the dark and sev­er­al towns flood­ed (par­tic­u­lar­ly the ones that I was sup­posed to vis­it next: (Naguabo and Humacao). So the idea of explor­ing the muse­ums looked more and more appealing.

Puer­to Rico has a won­der­ful net­work of muse­ums cov­er­ing prac­ti­cal­ly every imag­in­able genre. And, as you’ll dis­cov­er through­out this series, most are run by great out­go­ing peo­ple that have been more than hap­py to receive us and share their knowledge.

Our first expe­ri­ence was at the Muse­um of His­to­ry, Anthro­pol­o­gy and Art at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Puer­to Rico’s Rio Piedras cam­pus.. Albeit being Puer­to Rico’s old­est muse­um, and one of the great­est (in my opin­ion), it has been affect­ed by severe bud­get cuts and struc­tur­al dam­age to half its build­ing. You can read all about it here.

That said, the Muse­um of His­to­ry, Anthro­pol­o­gy and Art is home to what many con­sid­er to be Puer­to Rico’s most impor­tant paint­ing. It’s called “El Velo­rio” (The Wake), by Fran­cis­co Oller, and it hangs proud­ly in the muse­um’s east hall.

Mira­mar Muse­um Of Art And Design | MADMi
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This time we vis­it­ed a total­ly dif­fer­ent muse­um. It’s called the Mira­mar Muse­um of Art and Design (Museo de Arte y Dis­eño de Mira­mar) and it’s locat­ed at 607 Cuevil­las Street, in San­turce, Puer­to Rico. The prop­er address would say “San Juan” instead of “San­turce”, but for us locals the muse­um is in San­turce which is a sub­urb of San Juan.

To make thinks sim­pler, muse­um man­age­ment sim­ply calls it “MAD­Mi”.

If you’re stay­ing in the San Juan, Con­da­do or Isla Verde area just take State Road 26, get off at Exit 1, take Rober­to H. Todd street going south, turn right at the cor­ner of Juan Ponce De León Avenue and con­tin­ue west until you reach the cor­ner of Cuevil­las street. Turn left and you’ll find the muse­um about a half a block down on your left hand side.

Mira­mar Muse­um Of Art And Design | MADMi
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At first glance the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry French Neo­clas­si­cal struc­ture, paint­ed in bright pink, seems rather small for a muse­um. To me it resem­bles one of those old doll hous­es that lit­tle girls used to have when I was a kid.

But the glass and met­al struc­ture direct­ly behind the orig­i­nal house, and an under­ground park­ing garage in the rear, ad more than enough space.

Mira­mar Muse­um Of Art And Design | MADMi
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Many peo­ple approach­ing the house will attempt to enter through the door on the right side of the main facade. I know, because I did. There’s even a side­walk that leads you straight to it. But the entrance to the muse­um is actu­al­ly along the north side of the glass and met­al structure.

When we got there many things caught our atten­tion. To start with, the muse­um is an ultra mod­ern glass build­ing that con­trasts sharply with the French Neo­clas­si­cal facade. Not that the old sec­tion isn’t used, because that’s where most of the museum’s per­ma­nent col­lec­tion and itin­er­at­ing pieces are, but some­how you expect to enter an antique place and instead you are met by a mod­ern one.

Mira­mar Muse­um Of Art And Design Mot­to | MADMi
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As I approached the front desk atten­dant, to ask for our guide, Mrs. Nad­ja de la Torre, I couldn’t ignore the paint­ing behind her. It was a sign that read: “El Que Es Feliz No Jode”, which doesn’t quite have a direct trans­la­tion to Eng­lish. The clos­est approx­i­ma­tion would be “he who is hap­py doesn’t give oth­ers any grief”. How true. I instant­ly liked these people!

Our host appeared a few min­utes lat­er and we start­ed our tour. Mrs. de la Torre is the museum’s Edu­ca­tion Coor­di­na­tor. Last week’s guide —Mrs. Lisa Orte­ga Pol— sim­ply referred to her­self as “an edu­ca­tor”

Our host Nad­ja de la Torre, Edu­ca­tion Coordinator
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and our def­i­n­i­tion at the begin­ning of this article’s accom­pa­ny­ing video states that muse­ums are places where you go to “LEARN” some­thing. Are you detect­ing a pat­tern here?

There’s a set of twin doors on the right hand side of the recep­tion area that leads to the first hall. Beyond this point you’re immersed in piece after piece of beau­ti­ful mod­ern art, some of which belongs to the museum’s per­ma­nent col­lec­tion and some that comes and goes in the form of itin­er­at­ing exhibitions.

I’m not even going to try to explain the paint­ings because I am no art expert. Besides, that’s why God cre­at­ed “muse­um educators”.

You’ll find all sorts of pieces rang­ing from a col­lec­tion of old bread toast­ers, antique tiles, an old HVLP spray gun, a Stude­bak­er hood orna­ment, an old lawn chain and dozens and dozens of paint­ings of all sizes. There are also sev­er­al time­line exhibits that fur­ther expand beyond the pieces. But believe me, there’s method to the mad­ness. Every­thing has been care­ful­ly cho­sen and curat­ed to tell a sto­ry and your muse­um atten­dant is there to help you deci­pher it.

The main mis­sion of the muse­um is to cater to the needs of its imme­di­ate com­mu­ni­ty, which includes three schools, two devel­op­ments for the elder­ly and a well-to-do neigh­bor­hood. There­fore, their offer­ings range from reg­u­lar exhibits to activ­i­ties cater­ing to chil­dren, the deaf and even the blind.

Mira­mar Muse­um Of Art And Design Classroom
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There’s a small class­room on the sec­ond lev­el of the glass por­tion of the muse­um where chil­dren can actu­al­ly “get their hands dirty” and cre­ate their own “mas­ter­piece”. The bleach­ers towards the rear area of the first lev­el are both a piece of art in their own right and a sit­ting area for events tak­ing place in the muse­um. They’re even cov­ered in graf­fi­ti like reg­u­lar bleach­ers would be.

Bleach­ers can also be art!
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So how did this muse­um come to be, you might be ask­ing? Well, the orig­i­nal house (the pink por­tion) was built in 1913. It belonged to judge Luis Mén­dez Vas and his wife María Bagur.

The young cou­ple vis­it­ed France and returned to the Island enam­oured with French Neo­clas­si­cal archi­tec­ture. And, of course, like any good hus­band of the era would’ve done, the good judge had the house built for his lov­ing María.

Sev­er­al years lat­er, when the cou­ple passed away, the house was inher­it­ed by his son Eduar­do Mén­dez Bagur, who in turn wrote into his will that upon his death the house would become a muse­um for the com­mu­ni­ty of Miramar.

In case you’re con­fused, Mira­mar is the name of the area where the muse­um is locat­ed, which in turn is in San­turce, which in turn is in San Juan. Got it? You can learn more about the muse­um when you vis­it or on the muse­um web­site: https://www.madmi.org/en/museum.

Click on image to watch the video

So what about the red 1949 Stude­bak­er pick­up that’s in my video thumb­nail? Did you think I’d for­get about that? Is it even real? Well, the answer to both ques­tions is no. I didn’t for­get and it’s not real.

The red Stude­bak­er pick­up is actu­al­ly a mod­ern sculp­ture by Puer­to Rican artist Miguel Luciano, made to resem­ble the orig­i­nal truck owned by Mr. Eduar­do Mén­dez Bagur. Muse­um man­age­ment want­ed to hon­or Mén­dez-Bagur by restor­ing his orig­i­nal truck and exhibit­ing it at the muse­um. But the orig­i­nal vehi­cle was such a rust buck­et that the mis­sion was tru­ly “impos­si­ble” (par­don the pun). So instead they com­mis­sioned Luciano to cre­ate an exact replica.

Even the plan­tains and the machete are fiberglass
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There’s noth­ing to rust in this piece. Even the bright green plan­tains and the machete in the truck’s bed are made of fiberglass.

Nonethe­less, the piece is a con­ver­sa­tion starter as no one would ever expect a bright red truck at an art museum.

Don’t for­get the gift shop!!!
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As you leave the muse­um don’t for­get to go by the gift shop where you’ll find gen­uine art pieces made by Puer­to Rican hands. There’s noth­ing made in Chi­na at the store. There is, how­ev­er, a great deal of edu­ca­tion­al mate­r­i­al for chil­dren. Pro­ceeds go to keep the muse­um running.

Muse­um hours are Tues­day through Sat­ur­day from 10:00am to 5:00pm. Admis­sion is $5.00 for adults, $3.00 for stu­dents and chil­dren under three are free. You can also arrange tours with pro­vi­sions for the deaf and the blind. How­ev­er, this must be arranged in advance by con­tact­ing educacion@madmi.org.

For more infor­ma­tion call 787–995-7063.

See you next time

©2024,Orlando Mer­gal, MA
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Bilin­gual Con­tent Cre­ator, Blog­ger, Podcaster,
Author, Pho­tog­ra­ph­er and New Media Expert
Tel. 787–750-0000, Mobile 787–306-1590