Massachusetts architects Elizabeth Morgan and Ann W. Marshall are working as colleagues in Peru to install an exhibition of archaeological artifacts from the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu at the Casa Concha, a manor house in Cusco.
Eleven years ago, Ms. Marshall replicated Inca stonework for the walls of a Yale-sponsored traveling exhibition of Incan artifacts, called Machu Picchu: Unveiling the Mystery of the Incas. She worked with her husband, Michael A. Hanke, and his Amherst-based museum exhibit company Design Division in addition to Kuhn Riddle Architects, an Amherst-based firm for which Elizabeth Morgan works.
The exhibit featured artifacts collected in Peru by American explorer Hiram Bingham III in 1912 and loaned to Yale University’s Peabody Museum. Late last year, Yale University agreed to return to Peru the ancient relics including stone tools, ceramics and human and animal bones.
The agreement to return the artifacts includes sponsorship of a joint traveling exhibition and construction of a new museum and research center in Cusco.
Yale is establishing a center in Cusco. It will be a joint project with the Universidad Nacional de San Antonio Abad del Cusco and will be called the UNSAAC-Yale International Center for the Study of Machu Picchu and Inca Culture. The building itself is at least 500 years old.
Mrs. Morgan said, “The challenge of moving the exhibit goes well beyond updating the technology and getting everything translated into Spanish. The original displays were meant to fit into a standard museum interior, basically a black box.
The palace in Cusco has a series of rooms and the 15th century building itself features not just Incan stonework, but additions made by the Spanish conquistadors.
“We can take the fake walls out and work with the original stonework,” she said. “The space also has a naturally lighted courtyard that we can incorporate.”
Mrs. Morgan is married to Rob Morgan, formerly of Edgartown, who left recently to join his wife in Peru. They plan on some sightseeing before returning home to western Massachusetts.