Manzana de la Rivera

The Manzana de la Rivera is an antique city block transformed into a museum-library-theater-café complex located in Asunción.

Located at Juan de Ayolas 129, Asunción, Paraguay, the architectonic complex is a group of nine restored houses as well as some new construction.

In this context, a group of architecture students started the campaign Salvemos la Manzana frente al palacio which means let’s save the city block in front of the government house, opposing a project that intended to demolish it to build a park in its place.

Its location relates to the layout of the streets before Doctor Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia squared the city.

In the back part there is a passing gallery, as a sample of the culata yovai, a type of antique Paraguayan house.

Nowadays it houses the Museo Memoria de la Ciudad, a museum in commemoration of the city, and exhibits texts, maps, objects, paints, graphics, as well as other elements that tell the history of Asunción, since its foundation until modern times.

It also has an “hemeroteca” a place for quick and actualized reading, as well as a mobile library service that visits many schools and parks in the city.

It also has a space named “La Galeria” (the gallery) that works as an exhibition place, mainly of sculptures and equipment.

In the Patio Leonor, (joining of the internal gardens between “Castelvi” and “serra I and II”) different kinds of shows are carried out.

The multi-use lounge Federico García Lorca was inaugurated on June 26, 1999, with the visit of the Spanish president José María Aznar.