Casapueblo

Páez Vilaró first came to Punta Ballena in 1958, when the headland had no trees, roads, electricity or water. With friends he formed a company to buy 40 hectares of land, and chose a plot of about 4,870 square metres for himself. He began with a tin shed for storing old doors and windows, then, with the help of friends and fishermen, built La Pionera, a wooden studio that he later covered in cement and moulded by hand.

Over the following decades rooms were added one after another, many built ahead of visits from friends travelling from afar, and the house became a meeting place for artists, collectors, architecture students and travellers. The artist lived and worked there for the rest of his life and spent his last days in the house. The museum includes a tribute to his son Carlos Miguel, one of the 16 survivors of the 1972 Andes air crash, and the sunset ceremony has been held on the terraces every afternoon since 1994.

Casapueblo is the best-known work of an artist whose reach went far beyond Punta Ballena: Páez Vilaró worked with ceramics after meeting Picasso, painted murals in Washington and in Albert Schweitzer's hospital at Lambaréné, and painted the sails of the Uruguayan training ship Capitán Miranda. The building draws thousands of visitors from around the world, and its sunset ceremony, which the museum likens to an ecumenical mass, has become a ritual for Uruguayans and holidaymakers alike.