Cuartel de Dragones
Spanish colonial cavalry barracks of 1797 in Maldonado, now a museum and cultural centre.
The barracks were drawn up in March 1771 by the Spanish engineer Bartolomé Howel as part of the plan to fortify the bay of Maldonado against Portuguese and British attack. Work went slowly and the building was completed in 1797 under the governor Rafael Pérez del Puerto. Built of dressed stone under a tiled roof, it covered some two and a half thousand square metres around a parade yard and housed the mounted dragoons who patrolled the coast.
José Gervasio Artigas, later the founding figure of Uruguay, served in the garrison at the end of the eighteenth century, and the building holds the Museo Didáctico Artiguista, which explains his campaigns and the revolutionary period. Other rooms are used for exhibitions of painting and photography, for concerts and for a programme of public lectures run by the departmental government. The complex is a national historical monument and the oldest surviving building in the city.
Highlights
- Colonial stone barracks completed in 1797
- Museo Didáctico Artiguista on the life of José Artigas
- Parade yard and galleries used for exhibitions
- Oldest surviving building in Maldonado
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