MIAC - Castillo de San José

The Castillo de San José was built in the late 18th century, during the reign of Charles III, to strengthen the defence of Puerto de Naos and the Arrecife waterfront. The works also gave the local population jobs at a time of scarcity, which is the origin of its popular name, "Fortaleza del Hambre" (Fortress of Hunger). Once it lost its military role the building fell into neglect, and in the mid 1970s César Manrique proposed to the Cabildo de Lanzarote that it become a museum and directed its remodelling, which kept the character of the old stronghold. The International Museum of Contemporary Art (MIAC) opened on 8 December 1976 and was a pioneering art centre in the Canary Islands and in Spain.

The collection brings together work by Canarian, Spanish and international artists. One room is devoted to key figures of 20th century Canarian art such as Manolo Millares, Cristino de Vera, María Belén Morales and José Dámaso, another to the Lanzarote sculptor Pancho Lasso, and the upper terrace holds El Sueño I by Martín Chirino. The restaurant occupies the semicircular glazed structure added to the castle during Manrique's intervention, with a large window opening onto the bay, and rounds off a visit where art, history and landscape merge. The museum is one of Lanzarote's Art, Culture and Tourism Centres (CACT), like Jameos del Agua and Cueva de los Verdes.