El Museo Canario

Why does a museum building in Las Palmas feel as if it belongs to a different era entirely? El Museo Canario does not simply display objects of the past—it preserves the thinking of the late 19th century as carefully as the artefacts themselves.

From intellectual meeting to museum

The story begins with a decision made in 1879, when a group of intellectuals met to set up a historical society. The leaders were Dr Gregorio Chil y Naranjo and Agustín Millares Torres. Their aim was straightforward but ambitious: promote the study of Canarian history at a time when Gran Canaria had no higher educational institutions. A year later, in 1880, they opened a small museum and library on the second floor of Las Palmas City Hall. It was a working base for research, and soon became the main engine for historical study on the island. Archaeologists associated with the museum organised field trips into the island interior to gather artefacts from ancient Guanche settlements—the pre-colonial inhabitants of the Canaries. The museum’s origins also sit inside a wider European scientific debate. In the late 19th century, anthropology was energized by major fossil discoveries in France, including Cro-Magnon man, found in 1868.