Built as part of a push for architectural modernity in the 1960s and ’70s, this Brutalist treasure from 1979 is just a short walk from the southern tip of Parque La Carolina and features multiple stories stacked atop a narrow concrete pillar. The building is home to Medialab CIESPAL, a media organization that hosts educational events and media archives and collaborates with universities and other institutions in Quito and abroad.

Nestled in Quito’s northern financial district, Parque La Carolina offers multiple modes of escape from urban life, including soccer fields, basketball courts, skateboard surfaces, and a nautical park with a river where ferries run. While it’s small relative to other grand parks of the world at just a quarter of a square mile, it serves a similar function in Quito to what Central Park does in Manhattan.

Influenced by Pablo Picasso and the Cubists, Oswaldo Guayasamín is among Ecuador’s most renowned artists, best known for filtering horrific tragedies of the 20th century through cubist paintings and sculptures. Fundación Guayasamín is his former home, the ground floor of which has been preserved much as he left it. Below the house is a museum dedicated to his work.

This urban park sits on the site of a redeveloped bus terminal outside of Quito’s historic Old City and hosts a number of activities and amenities that are free to the public, including dance classes, wall climbing, soccer, and a full gym. It also has art installations, murals, and other open public spaces. Outside the old bus terminal is a roofed soccer field.

Located on the burial ground of soldiers who perished in 1822’s Battle of Pichincha, this cemetery features structures designed by some of Quito’s most iconic architects, including Francisco Durini, Muis Mideros, and Pietro Capurro. First opened in 1872, it also is the site of a convent that serves as a museum dedicated to Father Almeida, subject of a popular local folktale.

Olga Fisch came to Ecuador in 1939 as a Jewish refugee from Hungary, and rather than exporting her Bauhaus sensibilities to Quito’s art scene, she imported Ecuadorian folk culture and art into her own aesthetic. She collected and preserved Quechua artifacts, many of which are on display at the flagship store for her rugs and clothing accessories, which incorporate ideas and designs originating in Quechua culture.

Another Brutalist work from Ovidio Wappenstein, the hotel opened in 1968, with an extension completed in 1978. It sits next to Wappenstein’s Edificio COFIEC just north of Parque El Ejido in the central part of Quito.

Bernardo de Legarda was commissioned by the Church of San Francisco to create an image of the Virgin Mary in 1734, producing a 12-inch-high wood sculpture of a winged Mary that became known as the Virgin of Quito. Almost 250 years later, a 656-foot-tall aluminum replica was erected by the city and local religious leaders on El Panecillo, a large hill in the center of Quito. The statue is visible throughout the city.

This boutique hotel is a restored neoclassical mansion that sits in Plaza de San Francisco at the heart of Quito’s Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage site awash with churches, covenants, and remnants of the capital’s colonial history. While the UNESCO designation limits development in the area, a station of the city’s new metro will open nearby in 2020, connecting the hotel with the rest of Quito.

Named after Federico Fellini’s classic film 8½, this movie theater, cafe, music venue, and lounge has been a cultural staple of the La Floresta arts district since 2001, and the organization behind it has even produced its own films. The space features an enclosed greenhouse-like structure in the front and numerous sitting areas inside.

Pobre Diablo has lived several lives, one as a coffee factory and another as a jazz club. Today it’s a coworking space operated by local business IMPAQTO. But the layered space retains numerous remnants of its past, including the stage and bar of the jazz club, exhaust hooding from the coffee factory, and a bathroom wall featuring pictures of every president in Ecuador’s history. The space was redesigned by local architect Daniel Moreno Flores.

This park was originally the Mariscal Sucre International Airport before Quito’s new airport outside of the city opened in 2013. Many of the runways remain in place and have been redeveloped as a running track. A convention center was built next to the park in hopes of spurring redevelopment in the area, but zoning restrictions that limit building height and density have stood in the way.

Construction on this massive church and monastery began shortly after the Spanish arrived in Quito in 1535, creating the centerpiece of the city’s historic Old Town. In addition to its lavish chapels, the church holds a museum of colonial art, including the locally beloved original sculpture of the Virgin of Quito. There is a courtyard in the middle of the church, and the front empties into the Plaza de San Francisco.

Located in the south-center of Quito’s city center, Villa Flora illustrates the way the city has integrated its colonial past with its metropolitan present. The area was originally a citadel. Architecture scholar Felipe Correa describes it as “a tightly knit urban fragment.” At the center of the district is the circular Parque de los Enamorados.

This work from Milton Barragán Dumet, who contributed to a number of Brutalist works in Quito in the 1970s, features a flat facade that faces the street, plus a series of terraces in the back that face the Guápulo valley, mimicking the slope of the surrounding land. Completed in 1981, the building features shops and duplex homes.