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Like any large
city, Mexico DF is a study in diversity – skyscrapers, elegant
mansions, folksy parks and neighborhoods, and of course, the old
colonial parts of the city. The main square, or El Zocalo (which is
absolutely huge – second only to Red Square in Moscow - and
completely barren concrete), houses a couple of the most important
buildings in the city. The main city Metropolitan Cathedral is
here. Built over several centuries the metropolitan cathedral is a
mixture of styles - both Baroque and Neoclassical. Like Spanish
cathedrals, it features a cross plan, and the parish church is
annexed on the right side of the cathedral. Mexico City is build on
landfill reclaimed by the Aztecs from Lake Texcoco, and in places
the ground is unstable – the cathedral is slowly sinking into the
earth. |
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Mexico DF - Mexico Distrito Federal
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The National
Palace contains several large murals by the famous painter, Diego Rivera.
His México a Través de los Siglos (Mexico Through the Centuries), on the
main stairwell leading to the first floor, depicts every major event and
person of Mexican history, from Cortés’ conquest of the Aztecs and Mexico to
the Mexican Revolution, all with Rivera’s typical Marxist twist. The most
famous is the "Epic of the Mexican People in their Struggle for Freedom and
Independence", which condenses two thousand years of history onto the space
of a wall (much of it gruesome) |
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