Museum / Gallery Sights in Ibiza — 9 of Our Favourites

Eivissa Contemporary Art Museum (MACE) was opened in 1969 and has become one of the oldest contemporary art museums in Spain. Now in two parts, the building has been sympathetically renovated to include the old building designed by Simon Poulet, making use of Old Town architecture, and the new building designed by Victor Beltran Roca, which optimises the space available without adding to the already busy urban landscape around.

Along with housing the permanent collection and temporary exhibitions, MACE also has an archaeological site preserved underground which allows visitors to see the structural changes throughout the various centuries, from Phoenician times in the 6th century to Roman times and more recently the Islamic period of the 10th-12th centuries.

From paintings to sculptures, video art, installations and performances, this gallery exhibits contemporary art in all its splendour.

Past exhibitions have featured celebrated names in the current art scene such as Takashi Murakami or Jenny Holzer.

Founded in 1964, the Santa Maria Diocesan Museum of Ibiza and Formentera was refurbished in 2006 to accommodate a larger collection. The museum's focus is conserving, studying and exhibiting everything relating to the life of the Church on the Islands of Ibiza and Formentera.

Some of the highlights of its collection include a marble tombstone made by a Genovese sculptor in the 16th century, a 13th century baptismal font, 14th century paintings by Francesc Comes and lots of liturgical objects from different eras.

Named Can Ros, this traditional rural house has a typical "porxo" (main room), kitchen, bedrooms, oil mill, balcony, well and cistern.

Apart from this lovely traditional house, visitors can see a vast collection of tools, objects and clothes representing Ibizan rural world. This includes clothing, jewellery, farming and fishing implements, toys and musical instruments. A fascinating insight into the past of Ibiza.

A joint project by the University of Barcelona and the Ibiza Town Council’s Heritage Department, the Madina Yabisa Interpretation Centre was inaugurated in May 2007.

Using modern audio-visual technology to show the history of the city of Ibiza, especially in the Madina Yabisa area during Muslim rule, this museum shows the islands varied past.

One of the centre’s most outstanding elements is the gallery that houses a scale model of the city’s old fortifications, accompanied by an audio-visual documentary in several languages that show the city’s history and evolution down the centuries.

There is also a large museum which displays treasures discovered in the burial chambers, including jewellery, mirrors and painted ostrich eggs.

At the close of the 7th century BC, the Phoenicians founded a settlement on the bay of Ibiza which constituted the original core of the city. It was in this period that the lower part of the Puig des Molins began to be used as a necropolis and reached an extension of 10,000 m².

At the Monographic Puig des Molins Museum the exhibition is organized over five salons and covers the entire period of use of the necropolis. From the question of death in the Phoenician period, including funeral rites, burials and cenotaphs, to Punic funeral rites. This culture was extraordinarily dedicated to the concept of the funeral and the associated rites from the preparation of the body and the funerals linked with burial to the after death cults.

There is also a room dedicated to Roman funeral rituals in Ibiza from the early imperial period until the end of late-Antiquity, and another one displaying the Sainz de la Cuesta Collection.

They have been displayed ever since in the Puget Museum, the collection is comprised of 130 paintings including oil paintings, watercolours and drawings.

The museum is housed in a beautifully renovated old noble house on the main street, and is as much admired for the gothic architecture and history of the building as it is for the works of art displayed within.

The museum was founded in 1907 and contains artefacts divided into the following sections: prehistoric, Phoenician, Roman, Punic and Islamic. MAEF (Museu Arqueologic d'Eivissa i Formentera) preserves, researches and exhibits historical material from the Islands of Ibiza and Formentera.

It's housed in a historical building where the government of the island met from the 13th to the 18th century. It was divided into three groups: bourgeoisie, merchants and farmers until the current council was set up in 1717.

Visitors can descend from the walkway above and walk around the ruins themselves, stand on the Islamic street, step through the doorways of the houses, peer down into the wells and roman graves and touch the stones of the Punic shrine. Sa Capelleta is a fascinating glimpse, a slice through the history of one plot on one street of Ibiza town.