Until 1946, the Museo Nacional de Colombia’s stone building was El Panóptico, a penitentiary said to hold the country’s most dangerous criminals. Then the inmates moved out and the curators moved in.

The museum is older than its home. It dates from 1823 and began life elsewhere, only settling into the former jail in 1948. Its collection came with it. These included pre-Columbian art, archaeological finds, ethnography, works by leading Colombian artists and the biggest iconographic collection of Simón Bolívar.

VoiceMap’s La Macarena to Parque Nacional tour stops you on the corner outside to hear how a penitentiary was emptied in 1946 and reopened to the public as a museum two years later.