Puig des Molins Monographic Museum

The royal visit served its purpose, since the necropolis was soon after declared Historic and Artistic Monument. Apart from this, there was a commitment to buy private land, to give back those belonging to the Army and to construct a new building to serve as a museum that could hold all the important archaeological artefacts that were crammed in the Dalt Vila building, the archaeological museum headquarters since 1907. The drafting of a project immediately started which took into account the setting of a perimeter stone wall and fence of 77,500 sq meters.

The proclamation of the Spanish Republic on April 14th, 1931 prevented this fencing project to see the light. However, it was under this new Republican regime, when the necropolis was declared Historic and Artistic Monument, on June 3rd, 1931. But this Ministerial decree did not establish the boundaries of the site, which were not accurately known. Because of this, during the next decades the city started to invade the burial area, mainly in the lower part where the archaeological evidences were less noticeable. The Historic and Artistic Heritage Law passed in 1933, didn’t signify a big change either. The President of the Republic, Niceto Alcalá Zamora, paid a visit in 1932, which encouraged Román to offer a piece of land for free from can Partit, belonging to his family, to build the new Museum.

This is how a compromise was reached to build the new facility, that would hold Ibiza and Formentera's archaeological collections. The project was drafted and awarded in 1935. It was started in 1936 but with the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the construction came to a halt. It wasn’t until 1965, that they began the final construction on what we now know today as the 1966 Museum building.

However, it soon became evident that the new building didn’t have the necessary capacity to meet its purpose. Therefore, they decided to maintain Dalt Vila's museum as a general museum and use this new building as a monographic museum for Puig des Molins necropolis. The new museum opened in 1966 to host the second Edition of Ibiza's Contemporary Art Biennial. In 1968, it was definitely inaugurated as Puig des Molins' Monographic Museum. Since then, the museum has gone through a lot. It has undergone several remodelling projects in order to adapt its structure to the increasingly demanding museographic needs of the institution.

After the remodelling, Puig des Molins' Museum, in addition to the permanent exhibition rooms, we can also find in this building the administrative and research facilities, the library, storage rooms and the restorer’s workshop; as well as other places oriented towards informational and educational activities, like an educational room or the assembly hall.

On December 12th, 2012, and after a major alteration of its facilities, the museum reopened to the public.

When designing the new Museum, it was decided to turn the visit to Puig des Molins' necropolis and its Monographic Museum into an invitation to “a trip to death in ancient Ibiza”. An immersion into the mindsets of the people who inhabited the city of Ibiza during Ancient times, in the way they understood death, their beliefs, fears and hopes of the beyond, as well as in the funerary behaviour they developed.