Alcazar de Colon (Palacio Virreinal Museo Diego Colon)
Early sixteenth-century viceregal palace of Diego Columbus, now a museum on the Plaza de Espana.
Built between about 1511 and 1514 for Diego Columbus, son of Christopher Columbus and viceroy of the Indies, the Alcazar is the oldest surviving viceregal residence in the Americas. Its Gothic and Renaissance arcades of coral limestone look north over the Plaza de Espana and south towards the Ozama river. The palace was abandoned in the eighteenth century and fell into ruin before a major reconstruction directed by the Spanish architect Javier Barroso in the 1950s returned it to use.
Since 1957 the building has served as a museum, furnished with European and colonial pieces of the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries: tapestries, chests, arms, devotional paintings and a reconstructed chapel and kitchen. It forms part of the Colonial City of Santo Domingo, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1990, and is run by the Direccion General de Museos. A three-year restoration completed in 2026 renewed the roofs, floors, lighting and displays.
Highlights
- Oldest surviving viceregal palace in the Americas, begun around 1511
- Double arcaded loggias of coral limestone facing the Plaza de Espana
- Rooms furnished with fifteenth to seventeenth-century European pieces
- Part of the UNESCO-listed Colonial City of Santo Domingo
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