[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/studio-campo-baeza-and-maoda-win-competition-to-design-ecuadors-new-national-museum-in-quito_1.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tThe winning design for a new National Museum of Ecuador (MuNA) in Quito has met with criticism among detractors who deride its minimalist aesthetic and claim it clashes with the culture of the country.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cA heritage that tells our Andean, Amazonian, coastal, and insular history cannot be contained within a structure that emulates the homogeneity of high-rise corporate real estate projects,\u201d reads an online petition that has been signed by more than 20,000 people. \u201cThe design must breathe Ecuador, energize local culture, and be a landmark of community ownership, not a monument to concrete.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe design by Studio Campo Baeza, an architecture firm based in Madrid, and the Ecuadorian firm MAODA was selected after a competition overseen by Ecuador\u2019s Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture that included 148 applicants from some 20 countries. But \u201cdebate over the chosen design has raised questions about architecture, heritage, memory, and the institutional management of a project that is key to the country\u2019s cultural sector,\u201d as Expreso<\/em> reported in a story about the resignation of Romina Mu\u00f1oz from Ecuador\u2019s Vice Ministry of Culture just three days after the competition results were made known.<\/p>\n \n\tAfter Mu\u00f1oz stepped down, Carlos Eduardo Montalvo Puente also resigned from his post as the executive director of MuNA, which is slated to begin construction of its new $100 million home in Quito\u2019s La Carolina Park next year.<\/p>\n \n\tBut the petition launched on Change.org calls for a reconsideration. \u201cWhile we recognize the urgency of providing the country with an adequate space to house the 1.4 million heritage assets that remain hidden today, a budget of such magnitude cannot be used to erect a block alien to the reality and identity of the territory,\u201d it reads. \u201cTherefore, we urgently call upon the competent authorities to order an\u00a0immediate re-evaluation\u00a0of the winning proposal.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/national-museum-of-ecuador-design-petition-1234791941\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/studio-campo-baeza-and-maoda-win-competition-to-design-ecuadors-new-national-museum-in-quito_1.jpg?w=1024″] The winning design for a new National Museum of Ecuador (MuNA) in Quito has met with criticism among detractors who deride its minimalist aesthetic and claim it clashes with the culture of the country. \u201cA heritage that tells our Andean, Amazonian, coastal, and insular history cannot be contained within a structure that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2042643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2042643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2042643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2042643\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2042643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2042643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2042643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}