Cardozo Velásquez House Museum

In the early 1990s, Bolivian sculptor Gonzalo Cardozo and his equally artistic wife, María Velásquez, began transforming their family home in Oruro into a work of art, one to rival any of their pieces in the country's museums. By 1993, the Cardozo Velásquez House Museum opened its doors to the public, charging a small fee for a short tour of its art and collections.

The couple were well-connected in the art world and often traded artworks with famous Bolivian painters such as Mamani Mamani and Ricardo Pérez Alcalá, while also collecting ancient Wankarani artifacts. The family likes to say that they have a bit of every other museum in Bolivia, with sections devoted to Bolivian textiles, ancient pottery and metalwork, colonial art, Bolivian paintings, as well as their own creations. During tours, they personally explain the origins of each section.

In his later years, Gonzalo became fascinated by the concept of the sphere, creating over 6,000 of them from all types of stone. Visitors and friends would bring him rocks from around the world, which the sculptor shaped and mounted on stands carved in the form of human hands, symbolizing the Earth and humanity's responsibility for it.

He passed away in 2021, but his wife and his five daughters, Nayra, Wara, Tani, Lulhy, and Kurmi (all names from the Aymara language), continue to maintain the museum, lead tours, and run after-school sculpture classes for local children.