For many years, the Museum of the Nation housed an important archaeological, historical, and artistic collection from Peru. Today, the San Borja building primarily serves as the headquarters of the Ministry of Culture and as a cultural venue, while the National Museum of Peru (MUNA), located in Lurín, has taken on a central role within the country’s museum system.
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The Museum of the Nation features a large-scale concrete structure built in the 1980s, showcasing a Brutalist architectural style that is somewhat unusual in Lima. Due to its size, the building can host large-scale exhibitions, auditoriums, and cultural events. The Armando Robles Godoy Hall within the building operates as a movie theater and film archive, with regular screenings of Peruvian and Latin American cinema. There are also auditoriums where ballet performances, folk dance shows, symphonic music concerts, and other cultural activities are held on a regular basis.
It is located at the intersection of Aviación Avenue and Javier Prado Avenue.
The museum is located in the district of San Borja, about 5 to 6 km from Miraflores. By taxi or ride-hailing app, the trip takes between 15 and 25 minutes depending on traffic conditions along Javier Prado Avenue. Since it is not located in a major tourist area, most visitors prefer to take a taxi or ride-hailing service directly to the entrance.
During its years as a museum, the Museum of the Nation housed thousands of original artifacts from different periods of Peruvian history. Its collection included more than 12,500 pre-Hispanic objects, including ceramics, metalwork, and textiles from cultures such as Paracas, Moche, Wari, and Lima, among others, as well as more than 2,500 historical pieces of colonial and republican art.
Today, the building primarily serves cultural and institutional purposes. Its halls and auditoriums host conferences, educational workshops, film screenings, and artistic performances, including ballet, folk dance, symphonic music, and other productions by national artistic ensembles.
Yuyanapaq: To Remember is a photographic exhibition about Peru’s internal armed conflict between 1980 and 2000. Originally organized by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, it brings together images that help visitors understand a painful chapter in the country’s recent history.
This exhibition is composed of photographs taken by journalists, photojournalists, and documentary photographers during those years in the regions most affected by the conflict, primarily Ayacucho, Huancavelica, Apurímac, and Lima. The images document massacres, displacement, terrorist attacks, funerals, detainees, mothers searching for their disappeared children, and entire communities devastated by violence. They also portray resistance, community organization, and reconstruction efforts.
The exhibition can be emotionally intense for some visitors due to the nature of its content. It is a profound and moving experience, recommended for those who wish to understand a key period in Peru’s recent history. It is also one of the most honest and essential cultural experiences Lima offers to travelers seeking to understand contemporary Peru beyond the traditional circuits of archaeology, gastronomy, and colonial heritage. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission estimated that the internal armed conflict claimed more than 60,000 victims.
Tuesday to Sunday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Admission is free for all visitors, making this one of the few completely free cultural experiences available in Lima.
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