Explore San José
Lined with tall trees, the verdant Parque España (three blocks east and two blocks north of Plaza de la Cultura) is surrounded by several excellent museums. On the western corner, facing Avenida 5, stands the Edificio Metálica (Metal Building, also known as the “Escuela Metálica”), so-called because its exterior is made entirely out of metal plates shipped from France over a hundred years ago. Though the prospect sounds dour, the effect – especially the bright multicoloured courtyard as seen from the Museo del Jade, high above – is very pretty, if slightly military. Just west of Parque España lies Parque Morazón, more a concrete-paved square than a park proper. It’s centred on the landmark grey-domed bandstand floridly known as the Templo de Música.
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Museo del Jade
Museo del Jade
On the north side of the Parque España rises one of the few office towers in San José: the INS, or Institute of Social Security, building. The eleventh floor of this uninspiring edifice contains one of the city’s finest museums, the Marco Fidel Tristan Museo del Jade, home to the world’s largest collection of American jade.
As in China and the East, jade was much prized in ancient Costa Rica as a stone with religious or mystical significance, and for Neolithic civilizations it was an object of great power. It was and still is considered valuable because of its mineralogical rarity. Only slightly less hard than quartz, it’s well known for its durability, and is a good material for weapons and cutting tools like axes and blades. As no quarries of the stone have been found in Costa Rica, the big mystery is how the pre-Columbian societies here got hold of so much of it. The reigning theories are that it came from Guatemala, where the Motagua Valley is home to one of the world’s six known jade quarries, or that it was traded or sold down the isthmus by the Olmecs of Mexico. This would also explain the Maya insignia on some of the pieces – symbols that had no meaning for Costa Rica’s pre-Columbian inhabitants.
The museum displays are ingenious, subtly back-lit to show off the multi-coloured and multi-textured pieces to full effect. Jade exhibits an extraordinary range of nuanced colour, from a milky-white green and soft grey to a deep green; the latter was associated with agricultural fertility and particularly prized by the inhabitants of the Americas around 600 BC. No two pieces in the collection are alike in hue and opacity, though, as in the Museo de Oro, you’ll see a lot of axe-gods: anthropomorphic bird-cum-human forms shaped like an axe and worn as a pendant, as well as a variety of ornate necklaces and fertility symbols.
Incidentally, the view from the museum windows is one of the best in the city, taking in the sweep of San José from the centre to the south and then west to the mountains.
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Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporáneo
Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporáneo
Sprawling across the entire eastern border of the Parque España, the former National Liquor Factory, dating from 1887, today houses an arts complex that includes the Centro Nacional de la Cultura, Juventud y Deportes (Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports), known as CENAC. Many Josefinos still refer to the buildings as the old Liquoría; indeed you can still see a massive old distilling machine in the grounds, complete with the nameplate of its Birmingham manufacturers. The main attraction here is the cutting-edge Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporáneo, or Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, entered from the corner of Calle 15 and Avenida 3. Opened in 1994 under the direction of dynamic artist Virginia Pérez-Ratton, it’s a highly modern space, with a cosmopolitan, multimedia approach – there’s an area specially designed for outdoor installations by up-and-coming Central American artists. The CENAC complex also houses two theatres, a dance studio (wander around during the day for glimpses of dancers and musicians rehearsing) and an amphitheatre.
