Content area
Full text
COSTA RICA MAY be the oldest country in the world whose most prized art museum inhabits a former international airport.
San José's Museo de Arte Costarricense (known affectionately as the MAC), is located at the end of Paseo Colón in Parque La Sabana.
"This is a very special museum. We are now in what used to be the old airport," explained museum director Florencia Urbina as she guided Americas around the 10,800square-meter property.
"In the 1950s, passenger planes landed at La Sabana, and passengers would disembark in what is now the sculpture museum. People would take out their handkerchiefs and wave very elegantly to their loved ones getting off the planes. This was the national airport."
During the 1960s, a new airport was built, and in 1978 the art museum was inaugurated. But almost from the beginning, the building fell into disrepair.
"Things started...