the palacio nacional at night

At over two hundred meters long, the baroque facade of the Palacio Nacional stretches impressively along the entire eastern edge of the Zócalo. It is from the main balcony of this august building that the president shouts the “Grito de Dolores” on the eve of Mexican Independence to the tens of thousands of people crowded below. Despite the beauty of the building, particulary at night when it is handsomely illuminated, I had never considered venturing inside the complex, which houses several small museums, the national archives, as well as the president’s office.

admirers of rivera's mural

How foolish I was; as any guidebook will tell you, the Palacio Nacional also boasts a breathtaking triptych of Diego Rivera murals. The series, collectively known as “The Epic of the Mexican People” dipicts centuries of Mexico’s history, from pre-Hispanic myths and cultural traditions, through the violence of the conquest and Independence, up through the early twentieth century. These murals are incredible; a person could spend hours examining the endless details, each fragment of a scene revealing something else about Rivera’s take on Mexican history. Currently, the murals are undergoing a renovation, but they seem to only be working on one section of the triptych at a time, leaving the others exposed for the public.

prior to the construction of the third story

The site of the Palacio Nacional is itself historically significant: here was the palace of Moctezuma II, known as the “New Houses.” After the fall of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec palace was nearly destroyed, and Cortés ordered a new palace for himself constructed on the same spot, supposedly using some of the very same red volcanic tezontle stones. After the death of Cortés, the palace became home to the viceroy and was nearly destroyed again when it was lit on fire by supporters of a rival archbishop. It was reconstructed and then went through a new renovation in the late seventeenth century, softening it’s fortress-like appearance into the stately facade we see today. (Although, interestingly, the third floor wasn’t added until the 1920s under Plutarco Elías Calles.) Anahí says that it’s rumored that the plans for the palace were mistakenly interchanged with those of a prison in Peru, and although I haven’t been able to substantiate this myth, it’s easy to imagine this imposing building being used for incarceration.

detail from "the epic of the mexican people"

I suspect most tourists who visit the Palacio Nacional don’t go much further than the Rivera murals, but the complex actually extends back several blocks east of the Zócalo. Beyond the murals, the people wondering around the grounds are an odd combination of soldiers and bureaucrats, with a sprinkling of well-dress families admiring the church that lies at the center of the palace. I was pleasantly surprised to find a small, but lovely garden of indigenous Mexican plants. We also discovered a small gallery featuring rotating exhibits on Mexican art and culture. Unless you’re really in a bind, I would skip the unimpressive gift shop, where you can buy such incongruous gifts as a traditionally embroidered neck-pillow for airline travel.

The Palacio Nacional also is home to the Benito Juarez museum, where you can visit the offices he kept when he was the president. Hailing from a peasant family in Oaxaca but eventually becoming the first (and only) indigenous president fo Mexico, Juarez is a fascinating historical and political figure. I was therefore frustrated to find that the museum was closed, with no useful information about how or when the museum is open to the public.

Despite my disappointment, the Palacio Nacional is definitely worth visiting, not just for the impressive Rivera murals, but for the history of the building itself. As you wander through the grounds, it’s easy to imagine the different historical periods reflected through each renovation. Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes described the palace as “both a traveling and an immobile construction” in how its architecture contains design elements that span continents and centuries. Reading this description, however, I chuckled, thinking of the limits of this immobility: like many builings in the Centro Historico, the palace is sinking, with many stone door frames that had once been at right angles now visibly askew.

Palacio Nacional; Zócalo (eastern end); Centro Historico. Tourists are limited to entering and exiting from the main gate on the Zócalo where they must pass through metal detectors and show identification, so be prepared. Free admission.

The first one, closer to Insurgentes Avenue, consists of the most representative buildings of the campus: the Jardin Botánico (Botanic Garden), the Olympic Stadium, decorated by Diego Rivera’s murals, the Torre de Rectoría (decorated with a three-dimensional mural by David Alfaro Siqueiros), the Biblioteca Central—characteristically decorated by Juan O’Gorman, and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo.

As in every lesbian-college-community in the world, there are some faculties or studies that are preferred among machas. In CU, the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras and the Facultad de Psicología are the most famous, although it is common for your gaydar to activate when you visit the Architecture, Economics or Design Departments.

Also in this area, you can find the CEPE (Centro de Enseñanza Para Extranjeros or Center of Studies for Foreigners) where they offer courses about the History and Culture of Mexico. Classes are in Spanish, but are designed for foreigners.

The second area is located at the south, and is characterized by the cultural activities that take place here. The main building is the Centro Cultural Universitario, which helds a series of theatres in which you can enjoy dance, theatre, music, and movies. It also has a café and a bookstore. In front of this zone, you can go the Espacio Escultórico and the Universum Museo de las Ciencias.

CU was built between 1949 and 1952, in order to centralize the faculties spread in Mexico City’s downtown. CU symbolizes a nationalistic project, and most important, the ideal of an education that entitles anyone to university tuition. UNAM has 292,000 students and 34,000 teachers. Nevertheless, the campus has been place of political dissent, especially during the 1968 Olympic Games. More recently, in 1999-2000 the UNAM was closed for nine months. The reason was that some students protested a rise in tuition, but strikers developed wider demands to reorganize the university. Bad memories in Mexico’s psyche returned when the police took the campus, and brought back remembrances of Tlatelolco massacre in 1968.

In spite of the huge dimensions of CU, there are no dorms in the campus. Instead, students coming from abroad or from other parts of the country rent shared appartments or small rooms close to the university. The latter might imply living with a family or a woman of conservative background, who will not allow you to invite over nor friends neither your partner/girlfriend, etc. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why PDA’s can be found in every garden and bench of the campus.

Food stalls can be found all over the campus, with almost the same kind of food, like tortas, tacos, hot dogs and snacks. Every faculty has a canteen, but we highly recommend Papalotl, a few block from Faculty of Economics.

Ciudad Universitaria. The first are mentioned here can be reached from Copilco subway station. The second, by Ciudad Universitaria Station. Althought there is a free transport inside the campus, it is kind of complicated to use it, specially if you are not famliar to the area. A map of the campus can be seen here</em>