The San José Castle celebrates this Friday, March 20 its 50th anniversary converted into one of the main cultural references of Lanzarote.
After a complex restoration process driven and led by César Manrique, the old Fortress of Hunger opened its doors on March 20, 1976 transformed into the headquarters of the International Museum of Contemporary Art, the first of this discipline in the archipelago, and of a surprising, original and revolutionary restaurant in its aesthetic and gastronomic conception.
Since its inauguration, the Museum's halls have received works by many of the best contemporary artists. In fact, just a few months later, on December 8, the Castillo de San José was the setting for the First International Plastic Arts Competition of Lanzarote. The event, promoted by Manrique himself, consolidated Lanzarote as an artistic center by hosting works by artists of the stature of Picasso, Miró, Tàpies, Chillida, Millares, Moore and the Lanzarotean Pancho Lasso, among others. That exhibition facilitated the island's access to the most important currents of modernity and consolidated the MIAC's permanent collection. It was, at the same time, the embryo of the Biennial Art Encounter organized by the Tourist Centers since 2001.
Simultaneously, heads of State, heads of Government, artists, athletes, movie stars and tens of thousands of people fell surrendered to a gastronomic proposal that has been constantly renewed. In it, historical dishes have shone like the delights of wreckfish or sole in banana sauce and, more recently, creations like potato foam with rabbit in salmorejo, without forgetting its popular desserts, like the banana flambés or the crépes suzette.
The counselor of the Tourist Centers, Ángel Vázquez, congratulates “the population of Lanzarote” for an anniversary “that we have all built together”.
Furthermore, he/she/it gives thanks “to César Manrique, the only one capable of imagining the San José Castle where others only saw an abandoned fortress”; to “all our visitors, for trusting us and helping us grow”, and to “a human team that has put its creativity, its professionalism and its smile at the service of our emblematic space every day during these 50 years”.
Half a century of culture, art and gastronomy
San José Castle has known how to rethink itself to continue shining with a modern, innovative, and functional proposal. The museum space attracts the local population and thousands of visitors with a continuous program of temporary exhibitions and public activities that offer a reflection on contemporaneity, as well as support for emerging art.
Meanwhile, the restaurant has reoriented its proposal to continue being a benchmark in a booming and increasingly competitive gastronomic sector. “And we will continue working every day to make ourselves even better,” guarantees Vázquez.
The counselor has announced, finally, the launch of “a special program to preserve the memory and legacy of César Manrique and celebrate throughout 2026 the first half century of life of a space that is history and heritage of Lanzarote, and project it for the present and the future”.