Museo Nacional de Colombia

This guide to the Museo Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá begins with the building's original purpose: a Greek-cross penitentiary designed in the 1850s by architect Thomas Reed, its wings arranged so guards could watch every cell at once. It follows the decades convicts spent working, praying and sleeping under armed watch, until the prisoners were marched out to a new penitentiary in 1946 and curators moved in instead. Look up at the arches as you walk the old cell wings - they were built to watch, not to inspire.