This article was made by our partner MUPAPY: Voices of Museums and Cultural Heritage. This week, the article is about the Ypané Museum. Click here for the previous article about Reactivo 2025.
Redefining and claiming spaces that were previously symbols of bigotry and suffering during trying times, is not a strange practice within the cultural world. The Ypané Museum of the Fallen is just another example of that. It is housed in a building that was used as a detention center for political opponents during the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner from 1954 to 1989. The building was constructed near the fields that witnessed the Battle of Ytororó more than 150 years ago. This space has now become a museum of memory for the city.
This municipal Ypané Museum is located within the Ytororó National Park. It is just meters away from the famous Monument of the Battle of Ytororó, founded in 2018. With a private collection that includes a variety of buttons, buckles, shells, rifles, cannonballs, sabers, and other archeological objects, it has the particularity that most of those artifacts were dug from the surrounding area or belonged to the people of the town.
What the Ypané Museum has to offer
But of course, in addition to the war relics, and as it is customary with Paraguayan museums, visitors can also find an entire aisle dedicated to the indigenous community with its owns exhibition.
The museum’s repertoire is divided in four different exhibition chambers: Room 1 is dedicated to Bernardino Caballero and Room 2 to Valois Rivarola, both very known war heroes. Room 3, as previous stated, focuses on the indigenous people of Yvy Marae’y, and Room 4 aims to tell the history of the city of Ypané itself.
Importance of the museum
Last year, to show the importance of museology and the preservation of cultural and natural heritage in Paraguay, the Ypané Museum hosted the First Academic Conference of the Museum of the Fallen. This event also celebrated the culmination of the Museology Course offered by the Paraguayan Association of Museologists and Museum Workers (AMUS) and the Autonomous University of Asuncion.
Admission is free, and the Ypané Museum is open to the public Monday to Saturday. However, this place of memory is not the only place to visit in this city of the Central department. Other recommended places are: the Monument of the Battle of Ytorororó, the San Pedro Apóstol Parish, the Tierras Malas, and the Yberá Lagoon. The Ypané museum is located 23 kilometers from downtown Asunción and can be easily reached by bus on line 38 “Mcal. López”.
Monday: 7 AM to 1 PM
Tuesday: 7 AM to 1 PM
Wednesday: 7 AM to 1 PM
Thursday: 7 AM to 1 PM
Friday: 7 AM to 1 PM
Saturday: 7 AM to 12 PM
Sunday: Closed.
For more information, interested parties can contact Ypané Museum’s phone number: +595 981 405191.
