Julieta Alva
The National Palace in Mexico City has served as the residence of the President of Mexico since 2018 and is located on the cities main square.[1] This is a historical site of importance, as it was the original location of the palace of the ruling class during the Aztec empire. Much of the buildings importance lies in its siting strategy, and the insurmountable reality that it was built using the stones remaining from the decimation by the Spanish of the original structure that belonged to the ancient civilization. The Palace as it stands today holds great meaning as not only the home of the federal treasury and national archives, but the façade that fills the entire east side of Mexico’s main square—a center for commerce and gathering for the current population. It exists as a landmark in Mexico City, and a visual manifestation of Spanish colonization in its stark baroque appearance and blood-red detailing.
With a brief assessment of these features, this inquiry will be concerned with the cultural derivation of the built form of Mexico City today as a result of Spanish colonization. Investigating the past where once stood an exuberant complex of indigenous Aztec temples, and understanding contemporary meaning of the buildings that stand in their place, conceivably perpetuating colonial ideology.
The Palace Over the Years
The palace known construction start date is 1522[2] and its main use is as a classified government building, and it measures over 200 metres long. The figure above shows the Eastern façade, which faces the Zocalo and is host to the central doorway and main balcony. On each side of the balcony where the President gives a speech during the Mexican Independence ceremony every year, is an Aztec eagle knight and his Spanish counterpart. These sculptures are representations of the synthesis of Mexican and Spanish culture as demonstrated on this institutional building.[3] The rest of the façade is covered in baroque arches, all which are coated with murals and sculptures detailing the history of Mexico as well as homages to the Aztec gods through artist interpretation. Many of these details were added after 1910 following the Mexican revolution, since before this time representation of Indigenous cultures was discouraged in the public sphere.
The building itself underwent many different uses and appearances, changing with the time and ruling powers. During colonization period, Hernan Cortes held the palace as his personal residence. It was far less decorated as it stands today, and had only two entrances and embrasures for cannons and other fortification methods were its main decoration.[4] The Spanish crown later attained the building in 1562, and it became the Palace for the Viceroys until Mexican independence in the 1820s.[5]
Coming into the 20th centuries, the palace structure has faced deterioration both from natural weathering and archaeological involvement. Discovering as they go that underneath the palace lies the remains of parts of the complex of temples and homes of the Aztec civilization. This building represents the synthesis of Mexican and Spanish identities, which emulates contemporary Mexican culture. The same stones that made up the Aztec palaces and were present as foreign flags were flown above them, and saw new authority asserted over time. As a result, it can be remarked that the intent of the colonizers was not only to prove that they had dominated this civilization, but also managed to assimilate the remining people into their own European culture.
Templo Mayor – A Complex Built for Gods
National Palace, Metropolitan Cathedral, Palace of Fine Arts are all known landmarks in Mexico City that have been built upon the ruins of the once astonishingly vast Aztec civilization. However, it would take an entire research year in itself to determine and outline the details of these complexes. For the sake of this investigation, focus will be drawn to the seventh temple in Templo Mayor – the main temple of the Aztec people in the capital city Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City. The temple was dedicated toe the gods of war and rain, Huitzilopochtli and Taloc. Construction is estimated to have taken place sometime after 1325 and was ultimately destroyed in 1521 by the Spanish.[6] From 1978 to 1982, specialists worked on excavation on the site where it was believed to have stood, and in order to uncover much of the temple buildings in the surrounding area had to be destroyed.
The site has now been converted into a museum that houses many of the uncovered materials and artifacts during the archeological excavations. Ironically the original intent for the destroyed site was to act as proof of total domination of the Spanish over indigenous culture, however today it has evolved into as a testament to the resilience and undeniable integration of Aztec influence on the city and its people.
The Zócalo
Public plazas are often important spatial representations of society and social hierarchy. In Mexico City today, the plaza or Zócalo holds great importance for Mexican people, as it is a gathering place, as well as space for commercial and ideological exchange. However, the grid-plan town with a central plaza can be interpreted as the manifestation of Spanish colonial control. As investigated in Setha M. Low journal on indigenous architecture and the Spanish American plaza, the assumption that the Nahua and Aztec peoples were passive recipients of Spanish colonization and the allocation for space within the city is largely contested.[7] The struggle between Spanish colonial and Indigenous Mexican culture can be seen in the manifestation of the new colonial buildings that were literally built on top of the city that was destroyed. Although, the plazas have been found to exist long before the Spanish arrived. Mesoamerican cities including Tenochtitlan and Cuzco were largely organized around ceremonial plazas and major temples.[8] And although the colonial powers imposed their grid pattern and streets that characterize the cities today, the plazas were informed by the existing urban design scheme, and actually served as inspiration and were greeted with admiration. This discourse is significant because the National Palace is flanked by the Zócalo, which is formally known as Plaza de La Constitucion. It is the main square which is prominent and frequently visited. Just across from it stands the Metropolitan Cathedral, another landmark in Mexico City. The Zócalo has been a gathering space for Mexicans since before the colonial period, and holds major importance in both Mexicans indigenous and colonial histories.
Hernan Cortes sought to destroy any remnants of Aztec architecture and culture in his quest to colonize Mexico. According to Barbara Mundy, in The Death of Aztec Tenochtitlan, the Life of Mexico City—he describes the city as “destroyed and razed to the ground,” and it would be fair to equate total physical destruction with the city’s death if we understand it as he did at the time as being coterminous with the built environment.[9] When he tore down the seventh stage of the Templo Mayor, he did not imagine that years later its re-emergence would stand as a vindication for the erasure of the culture, and become a symbol for a cultural identity that had been lost. The remnants of the Templo Mayor that exist today hold a deep cultural capital for Indigenous Mexican identity, and its been an ongoing debate to what extent excavation should continue in order to uncover the history of an entire civilization. In order to do so, important colonial buildings must be torn down or damaged since the new city was erected on top of the ruins. The ground of the city itself is volatile as it was built up on soil of an original lake bed, so there is even more risk in continuing the excavations.[10]
The siting strategy of the National Palace was a direct attempt to portray dominance over the Indigenous people during Spanish colonization. The evidence is in the uncovering of the Templo Mayor underneath these buildings as well as the act of physically building up using the materials of the destroyed temples and homes. The inclusion of the Zocalo as part of the new urban design strategy employed by the Spanish is another indication of how the histories are intertwined. The relationship between space and power in the form of the built environment is clearly demonstrated in the construction of the National Palace and Zocalo in Mexico City, as instruments of colonial domination and control. There is much yet to be discovered in how exactly these spaces were used during their time, and what importance that holds. Whether as space for markets, religious ceremonies, or secluded places for the Spanish elite. This discussion opens up the question of to what extent does the uncovering of the Templo Mayor deconstruct colonial notions of power and dominance? And to what degree should we protect the colonial structures as the functionaries of contemporary built environments.
[1] Rivero, Lilia. “Gestión Cultural En El Palacio Nacional De México: Uso y Conservación Del Patrimonio.” Ge-conservacion 11 (2017): 243–49.
[2] Rivero, Lilia. “Gestión Cultural En El Palacio Nacional De México: Uso y Conservación Del Patrimonio.” Ge-conservacion 11 (2017): 243–49.
[3] Rivero, Lilia. “Gestión Cultural En El Palacio Nacional De México: Uso y Conservación Del Patrimonio.” Ge-conservacion 11 (2017): 243–49.
[4] Jose Rogelio Alvarez, ed. (1993). “Palacio Nacional”. Enciclopedia de Mexico. 10. Mexico City: Encyclopædia Britannica. pp. 6141–2.
[5] Rivero, Lilia. “Gestión Cultural En El Palacio Nacional De México: Uso y Conservación Del Patrimonio.” Ge-conservacion 11 (2017): 243–49.
[6] Estrada-Gonzalez, A. and Adriana E. Estrada-González. 2005. International Cultural Tourism: Management, Implications and Cases Butterworth-Heinemann [Imprint]. doi:10.1016/B978-0-7506-6312-0.50015-7.
[7] Low, Setha M. “Indigenous Architecture and the Spanish American Plaza in Mesoamerica and the Caribbean.” American Anthropologist 97, no. 4 (2009): 748–62.
[8] Low, Setha M. “Indigenous Architecture and the Spanish American Plaza in Mesoamerica and the Caribbean.” American Anthropologist 97, no. 4 (2009): 748–62.
[9] Mundy, Barbara E. Essay. In The Death of Aztec Tenochtitlan, the Life of Mexico City, 1–24. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2018.
[10] Low, Setha M. “Indigenous Architecture and the Spanish American Plaza in Mesoamerica and the Caribbean.” American Anthropologist 97, no. 4 (2009): pg.749