Mexico City · Chapultepec
Museo Nacional de Antropología
A concrete umbrella over a courtyard, and the greatest pre-Columbian collection in existence
The Aztec sun stone, three and a half metres of carved basalt in its own hall
Pedro Ramírez Vázquez built it in nineteen months in 1964 around a courtyard with a single concrete column holding up a canopy the size of a football pitch, with water falling from its edge. Twenty-three halls run around the courtyard: ground floor for archaeology, upper floor for the living indigenous cultures of Mexico.
The Mexica hall holds the sun stone, the Teotihuacan hall has a reconstruction of the temple of Quetzalcoatl in original colour, and the Maya rooms include the tomb of Pakal, lifted from Palenque and rebuilt underground.
The detail
Good to know
- Opened
- 1964
- Architect
- Pedro Ramírez Vázquez
- Halls
- 23, over two floors
- Highlight
- The Aztec sun stone
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