Mexico City 3 : Museums

Mexico City has an incredible variety of museums and other historic buildings; the ones we didn’t get to would be respectable choices for any number of visits. 

To our credit we did manage to visit the most famous sites : the Museo Nacional de Antropología, the Palacio Nacionale (a kind of museum), the Carlos Slim Museo Soumaya, the Castillo at the Bosque de Chapultapec. These won’t be get a posting in these pages as they are quite well known and well covered in the literature, both online and print. Two big favorites, well known or not, which will receive separate postings in the future will be the Blue House and the nearby Trotsky House. Likewise for the incredibly beautiful Palacio de Bellas Artes, another kind of museum.

But still there are a few under the radar items which merit a mention, pictures of which are included below : the Museo Nacionale de Arte, which despite its rather grand title seems to be one of the lesser known of the city’s major historic buildings. Our highlight there was a Saturday afternoon concert by Mexican pianist Aquilles Morales in the second floor room (I don’t recall its exact name) which is larded with its irresistibly excessive Baroque/Art Nouveau frescos. Anyway, it all made for pleasantly reverberant acoustics for the likes of Debussy, Chopin, Albéniz et al. 

There was also : the Folk Art museum (Museo de Arte Popular), an underrated gem with : incredible carvings of miniature figures, a jaguar sculpture, a psychedelic VW bug, and all sorts of other amazing stuff; the disappointing Carlos Monsivais museum (Museo Estanquillo), disappointing because only one floor of four was open to the public; the funky Museo Policia which had a creepy mujeres asesinas exhibit; the Guggenheim-esque Museo de Arte Moderno, which has a fabulous collection of modern art but is probably best known as the home of The Two Fridas. 

I also include here a few pictures of La Opera Bar restaurant,* Sanborns (aka La Casa de Los Azulejos), and the Hotel Majestic, all historic buildings though technically not museums.

Museo Nacionale de Arte

Museo de Arte Popular

The end for Pancho Villa

Museo del Policía

Museo de Arte Moderno

Mathías Goeritz, El Cuadro de los cuadros

Javier de la Garza
Aparición de la Papaya

Juan O'Gorman, Autorretrato mútiple 
(Multiple self-portrait)

  [1] Our experience at the Opera was very positive, and belies their spotty reputation for overpriced menu items and arrogant, bad service.