Anahuacalli Museum
Diego Rivera's temple-like museum of volcanic stone in Coyoacan, built for his pre-Hispanic collection.
Anahuacalli, meaning house surrounded by water in Nahuatl, was Diego Rivera's own project. From 1943 he began raising a massive building of dark volcanic rock on the lava field of the Pedregal in southern Mexico City, intending it as a studio and as a home for the pre-Hispanic sculpture and ceramics he had collected over decades. He left it unfinished at his death in 1957; Juan O'Gorman, Ruth Rivera and Heriberto Pagelson completed the work and the museum opened in 1964.
The building draws on Mesoamerican pyramid forms, with sloping stone walls, narrow doorways and mosaic ceilings designed by Rivera in volcanic tesserae. Some 2,000 of the roughly 45,000 pieces he gathered are on show across three floors, and the top level keeps the studio he planned, with full-scale studies for his murals. Terraces look out over the lava garden, and a group of workshop and gallery pavilions added in 2021 hosts contemporary exhibitions, ceramics and cartoneria classes.
Highlights
- Volcanic stone galleries modelled on Mesoamerican temple architecture
- Rivera's mosaic ceilings set with dark and coloured stone
- Pre-Hispanic sculpture and ceramics from Rivera's own collection
- Rivera's top-floor studio with full-scale mural studies
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