Founding Museum

Mendoza was founded on March 2, 1561 by Pedro del Castillo. Much of the City was destroyed 300 years later by an earthquake. Few buildings were left standing, one of them are the Ruins of the Church of San Francisco, located at the corner of Ituzaingó and Beltrán streets.

The Municipality of the City of Mendoza made an important and hard effort to recover and preserve its architectural heritage. The Pedro del Castillo Square was remodeled, finding true treasures in its excavations, such as the remains of the original Cabildo from the colonial period and the fountain that fed its ancient inhabitants with water. In this building where the City of Mendoza was founded, there is also the Museum of the Foundational Area (MAF), where you can see inside excavations with vestiges of the old city, it has an expographic design for audiences with visual and motor disabilities.