Palacio de Bellas Artes: Mexico City Travel Guide (4.8★)

Marble outside, Art Deco inside

Bellas Artes is built from two eras that don’t match. Italian architect Adamo Boari started it in 1904 with a white Carrara marble shell, Art Nouveau curves and an orange-tiled dome. The Revolution stopped construction, and Federico Mariscal finished it in 1934. His interior is all Art Deco: black and red marble, geometric brass and stepped light fixtures.

The building is heavy and the old lakebed under it is soft, so it has visibly sunk below the street around it. You walk down onto the plaza before you go in, not up to the doors.

The murals worth climbing for

The murals fill the upper floors, which open around the central atrium. Plan on 90 minutes to two hours. Look for:

• Diego Rivera, Man, Controller of the Universe: Rivera repainted this here after his Rockefeller Center mural in New York was destroyed in 1934. Lenin’s face is still in it.
• José Clemente Orozco, Catharsis: a violent, crowded panel about war and decadence.
• David Alfaro Siqueiros: his New Democracy triptych is muscular and bursts out toward you.
• Rufino Tamayo: two calmer panels on the birth of Mexican nationality.

The main theatre has a glass curtain made by Tiffany & Co. It shows the volcanoes Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl, and you only see it on certain tours or when you attend a performance.

Beating the crowds at Bellas Artes

This is one of the most-visited buildings in the city. It’s very well known, so timing does more for you than any shortcut.

• Weekdays: it’s calmest from 11am to 1pm, right after opening.
• Sundays: doors open at 8am, and 8am to 11am is the quietest weekend window. Saturday doesn’t open until 11am.
• Avoid: weekends from 1pm to 6pm, when the atrium and the ticket line are at their worst.

Buy tickets at the taquilla (ticket office) inside. Prices and any charge for photography are posted there and on the INBAL website. Mexican residents often get in free on Sundays, so expect that day to fill up fast once the morning is over. Inside, people speak quietly and stand back from the murals. Flash is a reliable way to get a guard’s attention.

To see the building’s real purpose, book the Ballet Folklórico de México. It’s a long-running show of regional dances held in the main hall. Check the current schedule and book ahead, because weekend shows sell out.

Around the plaza

Bellas Artes Metro station (Lines 2 and 8) comes up right beside the building. The Alameda Central, the city’s oldest public park, stretches west from the steps.

Across Eje Central are the gilded Palacio Postal and the Torre Latinoamericana, which has an observation deck. Walk two blocks east along pedestrianised Avenida Madero to reach the Casa de los Azulejos, faced in blue-and-white tile.

For the classic overhead photo of the orange dome, go up to the café terrace on the top floor of the Sears building on Avenida Juárez. It looks straight down on the palace. Up there, a coffee at the railing at dusk is the usual move.