Mexico City's embrace of culture

10 min read May 25, 2025

Of all the cities in the world aside from Tokyo, our favorite is Mexico City. Every time I visit, I am welcomed with open arms and I feel right at home.

Leica CL · 18mm · f/2.8 · 1/250 · ISO 100

My wife and I love Mexico City for how eclectic aspects of culture come together in one place. There’s art from the smallest local artisans all the way to international superstars. The architecture spans centuries and includes every major movement. The city has more museums within its bounds than nearly all other cities.

Leica CL · 18mm · f/2.8 · 1/200 · ISO 100

While previous trips have been as a couple, we brought the kids and my father along this time. We stayed in Condesa, a neighborhood we know well — one that’s well-suited to foreigners, especially those with children. With plenty of parks, playgrounds, and green spaces, Condesa had lots for the kids to enjoy when we weren’t out visiting the city’s attractions.

Leica CL · 18mm · f/2.8 · 1/100 · ISO 100

As for the attractions, we stuck to the basics this time — some classics we’d seen before, others we hadn’t yet visited.

Leica CL · 18mm · f/2.8 · 1/800 · ISO 100

Museo Nacional de Arte Popular (MAP)

This museum of folk art has been both familiar and unfamiliar to us over the years. We heard about it on our first trip to Mexico City when a friend’s mother recommended it as a good place for souvenirs. Until this time, we’d never ventured beyond the gift shop and entrance, where an old Volkswagen Beetle covered in beads greets visitors.

Leica CL · 18mm · f/2.8 · 1/2500 · ISO 100

To be fair, the gift shop is worth visiting on its own. It offers traditional arts and crafts curated from across the country. While prices are higher than if you bought directly from artisans, the convenience of seeing it all in one place is invaluable.

Leica CL · 18mm · f/5 · 1/60 · ISO 100

The museum is housed in a former fire station built in the early 20th century in the Art Deco style. It has since been rebuilt and reimagined to incorporate prominent Mexican architectural motifs, such as a central open courtyard.

Leica CL · 18mm · f/5 · 1/50 · ISO 800

What I love most is experiencing the sunlight filtering through the massive, colorful artworks hanging in the courtyard. The effect is like stained glass in churches, leaving me with a sense of serenity.

Leica CL · 18mm · f/5 · 1/80 · ISO 100

The galleries offer something for nearly everyone — whether you’re interested in history, craft, or contemporary techniques.

Museo Nacional de Antropología

Leica CL · 18mm · f/4.5 · 1/125 · ISO 100

We approached its wide façade under hot sunlight and entered a cool, dark interior. Emerging into the main complex, we were greeted by the massive courtyard and its centerpiece — El Paraguas, an inverted fountain and sculpture that doubles as the structural support for the expansive roof above it. This iconic statement piece and the vast surfaces of concrete are classic displays of Mexican brutalism.

Leica CL · 18mm · f/2.8 · 1/200 · ISO 100

The arrangement of the museum takes direct inspiration from the Mesoamerican complex, Cuadrángulo de las Monjas. Surrounding the courtyard are galleries filled with priceless artifacts spanning the entirety of indigenous Mexican history.

Leica CL · 18mm · f/2.8 · 1/50 · ISO 3200

Walking from an Olmec head to the Aztec calendar through a modernist building clad in stone, I kept thinking about the people — the people who created these artifacts, and those who visited this museum when it first opened, just before Mexico hosted the 1968 Olympics. This museum is soaked in history, and it’s impossible to miss that feeling.

Leica CL · 56mm · f/1.4 · 1/160 · ISO 800

It’s also unequivocally Mexican in its use of local materials and indigenous architecture, all while maintaining a top notch visitor experience through its use of signage and exhibition layout.

Chapultepec Park

The Museo Nacional de Antropología sits within the vast Bosque de Chapultepec, Mexico City’s answer to Central Park.

Leica CL · 18mm · f/2.8 · 1/500 · ISO 100

Friends of ours in the city invited us to lunch at Lago/Algo, a restaurant and gallery inside a quirky building with a massive glass wall facing the lake and a blanket-like concrete roof.

Leica CL · 56mm · f/2.8 · 1/160 · ISO 125

Leica CL · 18mm · f/2.8 · 1/50 · ISO 200

After lunch, we walked through the park to the Museo Jardín del Agua and Cárcamo de Dolores. This complex features a water garden with shallow pools surrounding mosaic-covered sculpture.

Leica CL · 18mm · f/2.8 · 1/1600 · ISO 100

Just behind it is the Cárcamo de Dolores, a former part of the city’s water infrastructure. Inside is a decommissioned sump, its walls and floor adorned with murals by Diego Rivera.

Over time, water had damaged the murals. But after the site was retired, the artwork was painstakingly restored. While it no longer functions as part of the water system, it serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of water in a region that has always struggled to source it.

Leica CL · 18mm · f/2.8 · 1/50 · ISO 320

It is also one of many examples of how Mexico treats its modern infrastructure as cultural pieces versus simple public works that are easily hidden. Look anywhere in the city and you’ll see countless murals by Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros, metro stations, each themed around a historical icon, and art embedded in everyday public places like hospitals and schools.

These examples celebrate the various layers of Mexican history including bloody centuries of colonization and conquest. They also build a shared national identity among people who have diverse pasts. And, by connecting this art to public spaces, they make this identity universal and not just tied to elites or the ruling class.

Museo Jumex

Just across the park from Condesa lies Polanco, the ritziest neighborhood in Mexico City. Tucked among its high-rises and luxury shopping arcades are numerous cultural institutions, including Museo Jumex.

Leica CL · 18mm · f/6.3 · 1/50 · ISO 125

On display was a Damien Hirst retrospective spanning three decades of work. Several of his famous spot prints were there — the same kind MSCHF controversially cut up and resold at a massive profit.

Leica CL · 18mm · f/2.8 · 1/50 · ISO 100

The Mexican travertine exterior features a factory-like sawtooth roof that’s a nod to the Jumex collection’s origins in a warehouse. The form is understated, especially compared to the flashy Museo Soumaya across the street. But Jumex is more my style — the building is finished to a much higher standard.

Leica CL · 18mm · f/8 · 1/320 · ISO 100

Free admission and the public plaza align with Mexico’s long-standing value of democratizing art. The quality of architecture and art within prove that Mexico City is a world city.

Leica CL · 18mm · f/2.8 · 1/500 · ISO 100

Casa Luis Barragán

Of all the places in Mexico City I’ve longed to visit, this one topped the list. Now a UNESCO World Heritage site, it was once the home and studio of Luis Barragán, the celebrated Mexican architect who won the Pritzker Prize in 1980.

Leica CL · 18mm · f/2.8 · 1/50 · ISO 640

Leica CL · 18mm · f/2.8 · 1/125 · ISO 100

We often see work influenced by him — in Fort Worth, Albuquerque, even San Jose — mostly by his disciple, Ricardo Legorreta. The hallmarks of the style are monolithic surfaces of raw materials like stucco and volcanic stone, often bathed in earthy tones like terracotta, ochre, pink, and cobalt blue.

Leica CL · 18mm · f/2.8 · 1/500 · ISO 100

Leica CL · 18mm · f/4.5 · 1/50 · ISO 1250

I’m used to seeing this Mexican modernist style on a much larger scale, in hotels and museums. But up close, the vast planes of color feel different — less perfect, more intimate. The texture of the materials shines through, inviting the human touch.

Leica CL · 18mm · f/4.5 · 1/50 · ISO 250

Leica CL · 18mm · f/4.5 · 1/1000 · ISO 100

As we followed a carefully guided, unidirectional tour, I tried to imagine what it was like for him to live here.

Though the house is undeniably modernist, it lacks the sterility that sometimes defines his European contemporaries. Its structure is monumental in spirit, but scaled down to feel modest and cozy.

Leica CL · 18mm · f/4.5 · 1/800 · ISO 100

Leica CL · 18mm · f/4.5 · 1/50 · ISO 160

As I quietly observed the books on the shelves and the patina on the furniture, I could understand why this place has become a pilgrimage site for creatives from around the world. Many buildings by European greats like Le Corbusier or Mies van der Rohe are criticized for focusing on logic and abstraction over emotion or context. They can feel cold, alienating and disconnected from their surroundings.

Casa Luis Barragán avoids all of those pitfalls. In its use of form and color, it is certainly innovative. Yet, in its use of simple natural materials, it carries on tradition.

Leica CL · 18mm · f/5 · 1/100 · ISO 100

Leica CL · 18mm · f/5 · 1/50 · ISO 5000

The pools and enclosed outdoor spaces invoke feelings of serenity where European modernist buildings may wow with technical complexity. The small scale and natural materials make the space feel warm and lived in.

Leica CL · 18mm · f/2.8 · 1/200 · ISO 100

Why Mexico City is special

In New York, the biggest attractions are sectioned off from the public, charging steep admission to those who enter. In Mexico City, the museums incorporate public space and free or discounted admission to weave themselves deep into the cultural fabric. This is not just a practical decision, but a reflection of how cultural access is a key Mexican value.

At a smaller, human scale, the abundant murals and metro stations bind old with new. Their handmade quality reimagines traditional materials and techniques instead of rejecting them like in European Modernism.

Instead of the symmetrical tubular steel seen in the Bauhaus, in Casa Luis Barragán I found handcut volcanic rock. The lived-in feeling allowed me feel the building instead of viewing from a distance like a scientific specimen.

I now see why I always feel welcome in Mexico City. This is a place that deeply values sharing culture by hiding nothing, including its bloody past. It proves that in large cities, individuals can meaningfully connect with the place instead of becoming lost among the millions.

Leica CL · 18mm · f/5 · 1/80 · ISO 100