Museo Nacional de Arte, Mexico City: A Stairway Not to Miss

Museo Nacional de Arte, Mexico City: A Stairway Not to Miss

There are museums you visit for the art, and then there are museums where the building itself is half the story. The stairway in this building is spectacular and worth the price of admission alone, which is about $5 USD. It also has incredible painted ceilings, so don't forget to look up.

This enormous Beaux-Arts palace in the Centro Histórico was built between 1904 and 1911, during the Porfirio Díaz era, as the Palace of Communications and Public Works. Italian architect Silvio Contri designed it with Renaissance and French and Italian influences, and filled it with marble, stained glass, elaborate ironwork and plenty of decorative detail.

And then the building's life got interesting.

It was used for government offices and later became associated with the National Archives before being transformed into the Museo Nacional de Arte in 1982.

Today it houses almost 10,000 works spanning around 450 years of Mexican art, from the viceregal period through the first half of the 20th century.

Best reason to go: The building. The staircase in particular. The art is the bonus.

MUNAL is open Tuesday–Sunday, 10am–6pm, with last entry at 5:30pm. General admission is MX$90.

Official Munal Site: https://munal.mx/

And if you come for paintings, some not to miss:

• El suplicio de Cuauhtémoc (1893), Leandro Izaguirre — a huge, dramatic painting of the torture of the last Mexica ruler. One of the museum's signature works.
• Cañada de Metlac (1893), José María Velasco — a beautiful Mexican landscape with the railway cutting through the lush landscape.
• El martirio de San Ponciano (1605), Baltasar de Echave Orio — an important example of early New Spanish painting.
• La Virgen del Apocalipsis (1760), Miguel Cabrera — one of the notable works from the 18th-century collection.
• Erupción del Paricutín (1943), Dr. Atl — particularly interesting because Dr. Atl documented the actual birth of the Paricutín volcano; MUNAL has a remarkable group of his volcano works.
• Mis sobrinas, María Izquierdo — a striking modern Mexican portrait and one of the works highlighted by Mexico's Ministry of Culture as key to understanding Mexican art.
• Autorretrato (El coronelazo) (1945), David Alfaro Siqueiros — a self-portrait by one of Mexico's major muralists

And if you're into stairways...

Pop across the street to the Palacio Postal, Mexico City's beautiful old post office.

The building opened in 1907, and honestly, the staircase is worth a look. The grand central stairway has sweeping ironwork made in Florence, Mexican marble steps and a huge glass ceiling above it. The stairs seem to cross and then split off again as they rise through the building.

Don't just check out the stairs. The whole building is covered in beautiful little details, from the bronze work and marble to the ornate windows and decorations.

And best of all, it is still a working post office.