Art & Architecture Tour
Mexico City
November 2025

Departure from points of origin in the morning, arrival in Mexico City in the evening.

Cultural Landmarks and The Day of the Dead

The day begins at Chapultepec Park, home to the iconic Museo Nacional de Antropología—an architectural landmark of 1960s Mexican modernism. The museum’s rich collections provide a window into the civilizations of ancient Mesoamerica, revealing cosmologies, rituals, and social structures that continue to shape Mexican culture today.

In the afternoon, the program shifts to explore the atmosphere of Día de los Muertos, Mexico’s UNESCO-recognized tradition that honors the memory of loved ones with a unique blend of reflection and celebration. Across the city, this living tradition takes form through altars, candlelit offerings, markets, music, and public processions (desfiles), offering a vibrant expression of collective memory and cultural identity.

The Historical Center: Layers of Architectural Styles

The Centro Histórico is the city’s historic heart—built atop the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan and later transformed by the Spanish into the capital of New Spain. Here, centuries of architecture sit side by side, from the excavated Templo Mayor to the grand Metropolitan Cathedral.

The City’s Expansion and Spacial Poetics

We begin in the Northwest outskirts of Mexico City to see Torres de Satélite, a monumental entrance to Ciudad Satélite by Luis Barragán and Mathias Goeritz, and Cuadra San Cristóbal, Barragán’s equestrian masterpiece co-designed with Félix Candela.

Pedregal: Modernism in a Volcanic Landscape

Today’s focus is on the Southern reaches of Mexico City, where modern architecture and landscape come together in striking ways. We begin at the Casa Estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo, a pair of connected houses designed by Juan O’Gorman in the 1930s—a bold example of early Mexican functionalism. Nearby, we visit Jardines del Pedregal, an upscale neighborhood developed by Luis Barragán atop a lava-covered landscape. We will also explore the celebrated UNAM campus, a major urban and educational project masterplanned by Mario Pani and Enrique del Moral in the 1950s.

Contemporary Architecture and Economic Center Reforma Avenue

We begin the day in the San Rafael, Atlampa, and Buenavista neighborhoods just north of the historic center, visiting key sites of modern and contemporary architecture such as Casa Wabi Sabino, a new cultural space by Alberto Kalach, along with his earlier work, the Biblioteca Vasconcelos—a monumental public library and cultural center whose soaring, open shelving system defines one of Mexico’s most striking civic interiors.

In the afternoon, we move toward the city’s economic center along Paseo de la Reforma, the grand 19th-century boulevard that continues to attract major urban, commercial, and architectural development.

Spaces of Memory and Continuity

The day begins in Chapultepec Park with a visit to the Museo Tamayo, a striking work of late Mexican modernism, dedicated to contemporary art from Mexico and beyond. In the afternoon, we head South to Coyoacán to explore the Museo Anahuacalli, a volcanic stone complex envisioned by Diego Rivera as a temple to pre-Hispanic culture and a synthesis of ancient and modern sensibilities.

We conclude the day at Xochimilco, where the city’s past lives on through the floating gardens—an enduring agricultural landscape that reveals Mexico’s deep ecological and Indigenous heritage.

Private Initiatives and Architectural Reuse

Our final day offers a look at how contemporary art and architecture shape Mexico City’s evolving urban landscape. We begin in Polanco, now filled with dense residential towers and new cultural institutions such as the Museo Jumex, a contemporary art museum in a refined, geometric building by David Chipperfield.

In the afternoon, visits to Labor, housed in a 1940s building by Enrique del Moral, and Kurimanzutto, a pioneering contemporary gallery in a former industrial space redesigned by Alberto Kalach, complete the program with two influential spaces that highlight how architecture and contemporary art continue to shape Mexico City’s present.

Participants who wish to extend their stay are invited to join a special visit to Teotihuacán, one of the most remarkable archaeological sites in Mexico. Located Northeast of Mexico City, this vast pre-Columbian complex was once the most populous city in the Americas and larger than ancient Rome at its peak.

Teotihuacán: The Ancient City of the Gods

Teotihuacán is laid out according to geometric and cosmological principles. Its monumental structures—the Pyramid of the Sun, the Pyramid of the Moon, and the Temple of Quetzalcoatl—offer a powerful encounter with the architectural and symbolic sophistication of ancient Mesoamerican civilization. A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987, Teotihuacán continues to reveal the depth and complexity of the cultures that shaped the region long before Spanish colonization.