Mexico City holds more museums than any city outside London and Paris, and its art history is public by design: state-commissioned murals on government stairwells, Luis Barragán's houses, and a contemporary gallery scene stretching from San Rafael to Roma Norte.
Built to house one fresco: Rivera's 15m 'Sueño de una tarde dominical en la Alameda Central' (1947), rescued from the Hotel del Prado after the 1985 earthquake. Tue–Sun 10:00–18:00. The Catrina at its centre is José Guadalupe Posada's skeleton, given a boa.
Rivera's largest mural cycle — 235 fresco panels across three floors of two courtyards, painted 1923–1928 while he was still learning the medium. Free entry, weekdays only, passport or ID required at the door. Mon–Fri roughly 10:00–17:00.
Italian-Renaissance palace of 1911 holding Mexican art from 1550 to 1954, including Velasco's Valley of Mexico landscapes and Saturnino Herrán's 'Nuestros Dioses'. Tue–Sun 10:00–18:00. The Manuel Tolsá equestrian bronze of Charles IV stands outside.
UNESCO-listed 1948 house of Mexico's Pritzker laureate — pink, ochre and lava-stone volumes, a floating staircase without a rail, and a roof terrace walled to frame only sky. Visits by advance timed reservation only, in small guided groups.
Pedro Ramírez Vázquez's 1964 building with its single-column 'paraguas' fountain. The Mexica hall holds the Piedra del Sol and Coatlicue; the Oaxaca and Maya halls upstairs hold the Zapotec urns. Tue–Sun 09:00–18:00, in Chapultepec Park.
Teodoro González de León's concrete pavilion of 1981, half-buried in Chapultepec woodland, built to hold Rufino Tamayo's own collection of Picasso, Warhol and Dubuffet alongside rotating contemporary commissions.
The cobalt house on Londres 247 where Kahlo was born and died, with her studio wheelchair still at the easel, the plaster corsets she painted, and her Tehuana wardrobe sealed until 2004. Timed tickets sell online only, days ahead.
Amalia Hernández's company, founded 1952, performs the Deer Dance and Jalisco jarabes beneath the Tiffany glass curtain of 1 million opalescent pieces, lowered before the show with the Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl volcanoes lit from behind.
UNAM's UNESCO-listed campus of 1952. Juan O'Gorman clad the ten-storey library in 4,000 m² of natural coloured stone mosaic, and Siqueiros's relief mural juts off the Rectoría tower. Free to walk; the Espacio Escultórico sits on lava beds nearby.
Juan O'Gorman's 1932 functionalist pair — one house red, one blue, joined by a rooftop bridge and ringed by organ-cactus fencing. Among the first functionalist buildings in the Americas; Rivera's studio holds his Judas figures and pre-Hispanic pieces.
Kurimanzutto on Gobernador Rafael Rebollar occupies a converted timber warehouse and represents Gabriel Orozco and Abraham Cruzvillegas; OMR's brutalist Córdoba building anchors Roma Norte. Most galleries open Tue–Sat, closing around 18:00.
Mariachi bands in charro suits have hired themselves out on this plaza since the 1920s, at roughly MXN 150–200 a song. The rooftop terrace of the tequila museum overlooks the square and pours mezcal flights from Oaxaca and Durango.