In 1959, Jesús Rafael Soto won Venezuela's National Prize for Plastic Arts; at the ceremony he announced his intention to start a museum in his hometown, Ciudad Bolívar, but it was only in the late 1960s that he began donating artwork to the city.

[1] The government in Ciudad Bolívar welcomed Soto's proposal, as it had no cultural institutions at the time, and in 1968 offered the neoclassical Casa Wantzelius in the city center for the museum.

Architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva, whose experience creating the art-infused University City of Caracas campus made him the ideal candidate to design an architectural space for housing art, first drafted a plan to renovate the Casa Wantzelius before it was discovered that the building was too damaged to proceed.

[2] The museum, which covers 1,080 m2 (11,600 sq ft), was constructed over a period of only nine and a half months in 1971; Soto visited the fresh site on 21 February, and the completion was announced on 4 December.

[citation needed] Soto was good friends with Villanueva, who, in his later career beginning with the Venezuelan pavilion at the Montreal Expo in 1967, "tried to formulate architecture of essential features, of the greatest refinement and simplicity".

"[1] The museum showcases Soto's works, but also includes art by international artists, particularly pieces with movement and dynamics.