La Casa del Alabado, Museum of Pre-Columbian art



La Casa del Alabado was originally a colonial mansion, built in the centre of Quito in 1671. The district, stretching from the Plaza de San Francisco to the Santa Clara convent, is one of the most archetypal of the Ecuadorian capital’s historic centre which achieved World Heritage status in 1978. However, before the colonial city was established in 1534, the area was a major hub of Indian power.


In 2006 the Fondation La Tolita set about restoring and extending the building to give it a new purpose as a Museum of Pre-Columbian art. The casa restoration was sympathetic to the traditions of this type of construction, incorporating limewashed adobe walls, wooden frameworks and openings leading onto a number of patios. The internal layout and museography, on the other hand, have been given a contemporary feel to allow the spotlight to fall on the works themselves and the interpretative resources.




The display cabinets fade into the background so the adobe walls are visible behind the exhibits. For the Pre-Columbian Indian communities, colour was a magical symbol of blood and abundance and a fundamental value. Here it plays a major role in establishing the perspective between the collections and spaces: at times red, at times yellow or even green, the interior wall serves as a backdrop against which the objects are placed in a symbolic space.


ATMOSPHERE AND AMBIANCE

Here, lighting plays a fundamental role in the construction of each theme, from the original chaos to the supra-world. From darkness to brightness, we follow the light along the trajectory of the sun which, night after night, descends to meet the ancestors of the underworld to reappear stronger the following day in the middle of the sky.

The works give a certain insight into the world of the people who created them. By tracing these creations back in time the visitor catches a glimpse of this lost universe. The world of the Pre-Columbian Indians was most likely founded on the power of the spirits and ancestors, the basis for spiritual practices which included the creation of works of art.

Casa del Alabado, Museum of Pre-Columbian art © Daniel + Zaïane Schmitt
The Pre-Columbian world was a cosmos populated by creatures and inhabited by powers. For all these species to prosper, the two had to be reconciled.

The quest of the museography is to take the visitor on a journey through the worlds of the Pre-Columbian Indians. The guiding principle of the visit scenario is Pre-Columbian cosmogony: from primordial nothingness to the developed worlds.

Several levels of interpretation are offered. The first, an archaeological interpretation, is based on scientific studies and summarises for the visitor the worlds he or she is travelling through. The second is a sensory interpretation, achieved by the juxtaposition of related poetic and philosophical texts combined with original sound tracks, sound effects and music.



THE SCENARIO OF THE VISIT

I - THE UNDERWORLD

Casa del Alabado, Museum of Pre-Columbian art © Daniel + Zaïane Schmitt

The primordial universe

Visitors arriving at the start of the exhibition are still living in their ordinary, everyday world. To gain access to the extraordinary world of Pre-Columbian Indian cosmogony, they must symbolically pass from a secular world to a spiritual world. At the start of the circuit, they are invited to cross the barrier between the visible world and this spiritual world. They find themselves in front of a stone monolith which conceals the entrance to an initiatory journey; behind this monolith stands the entrance to a world in another dimension, the primordial universe.

Everything is static, lifeless. The floor emits a cold, harsh light. This “reverse” lighting is disconcerting. Either we have arrived at a time before the sun’s existence or it has died during the night and passed below into the world of the ancestors. We hear the sound of wind and storms. We are back at the beginning of time, before man, before life and before the cycles of days and seasons. The primordial universe is a static, eternal world without order. When a human being dies, he returns to this world to become an ancestor. He becomes as immortal as stone.

The cosmic origins of the universe

Casa del Alabado, Museum of Pre-Columbian art © Daniel + Zaïane Schmitt
The origin of life is found in the infinite vacuum of the world of the ancestors. From this nothingness, human beings create and relentlessly organise the world. They move about to circulate life energy. In their quest, they must make relentless pleas to the spirits and ancestors to look kindly upon them, for the sun to be reborn each day and the rain to fall each season.

Life flourishes
The visitor emerges from this underworld and moves vertically - from the basement to the floor above, from darkness to light - into the living world. The work of the Pre-Columbian artisan was a spiritual work, transforming raw, immortal materials such as stone, wood, earth, bone and shell into powerful creations.



II - THE PARALLEL WORLDS
Casa del Alabado, Museum of Pre-Columbian art © Daniel + Zaïane Schmitt
The Pre-Columbian American Indians had created a system of parallel worlds, of ordinary and extraordinary realities, comprising the underworld, the terrestrial world and the supra-world, which came together to form a harmonious whole.

The light is soft and sunny. The colours become warmer. We discover the colour red, symbol of fertility and life energy. Human beings must connect these worlds to create an energy flow. To do this, they make objects filled with spiritual powers with which they perform their rituals and look after the ancestors and spirits, the aim still being to control the natural forces and ensure they favour the prosperity of the living species.

Axis Mundi

Casa del Alabado, Museum of Pre-Columbian art © Daniel + Zaïane Schmitt

The Axis Mundi are channels which cross right through the parallel worlds. These channels are determined by natural places such as caves, grottos, mountains or constructions such as mounds and pyramids. The offerings and food taken to the ancestors pass through these vertical channels.

To represent the vertical axis, an illuminated Obsidian mirror is staged in a translucent, backlit showcase. Visible from this space, a landscaped patio, complete with a Pumamaqui tree standing vertical like a totem crossing a circle of minerals in a square of vegetation, represents the transversal journey between the worlds.



III - THE UNIVERSE OF POWERS

Casa del Alabado, Museum of Pre-Columbian art © Daniel + Zaïane Schmitt

Shaman and the elite

Only certain people are permitted to travel across the different worlds and to communicate or enter into combat with the spirits. Be they artists, poets, healers or Shamans, these people have been trained and possess qualities which permit them to enter and act in the universe of powers. The people holding these powers subsequently joined forces with the power they represented to become its only holder. They declared themselves elite and formed a dominant class. The museography of the Universe of Powers makes use of reds and yellows, colours we associate with power and prosperity. The sunlight reflects the richness and abundance of the festivals.


The beauty of the supra-world

Casa del Alabado, Museum of Pre-Columbian art © Daniel + Zaïane Schmitt
The visitor has been taken on a journey through the different worlds and the story ends in the supra-world where art is displayed as spiritual activity in its purest form. Creating works of art is in itself a spiritual activity because it takes the initial chaos of the underworld and transforms it into the supremacy of the organised world.

The works of art on display here have been the objects of sacrifice, originating in the worlds of the ancestors. They are charged with spiritual power and brought back to life before us in this very room. A garden spanning the full length of a vertical wall adds an unexpected perspective to the works, evoking the altitude of the Andes and the natural environment of the early Pre-Columbian farmers.

This vertical garden is open to the skies and the gentle wind blowing through it provides an animated backdrop and bestows a certain timelessness on the works: a living canvas which underlines the serenity, power and energy of the art on display.

Maître d’ouvrage : Fundación Tolita, Daniel Klein, Mario Ribadeneira, Carmen Viteri, Quito, Equateur • Direction de projet : Ing. Gyorgy Gutierrez • Mandataire muséographie : Metapraxis Daniel Schmitt • Muséographe : Muriel Meyer Chemenska • Architecte d’intérieur : studio Ethel Buisson • Architecte bâtiment : López y López Arquitectos • Concepteur lumière : Marc Dumas • Soclage : Francis Galarza • Etudes techniques : Ing. Luís Roggiero • Jardin vertical : Monica Navarro de Bodenhorst • Réalisation des médias : Dream Quest, Edward Cooper • Comité scientifique  : Karen E. Stothert, Iván Cruz Cevallos, Clemencia Plazas, Jimena Lobo Guerrero • 540 oeuvres exposées • Surface : 1 500 m² • Plus d'infos : www.precolombino.com