Mexico is building culture into its agenda like never before. Not only have major arts institutions like the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes and the Amparo Museum begun acquiring new works this year, after a purchasing freeze during the global downturn, but plans for new museums and galleries are being released in a steady stream. Mexico has even dedicated its pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale to the subject, flaunting no fewer than 13 recent projects by home-grown practices.
See the new galleries and cultural centres springing up across Mexico
One such project is the Amparo Museum. Dedicated to prehispanic, colonial and modern art, the gallery is currently undergoing a major renovation and expansion in the hands of Enrique Norten and his practice Ten Arquitectos. 'My clients in the US are being pretty conservative at the moment, but those in Mexico are much more brave,' says Norten, who has offices in both countries. 'People are really thinking on a big scale.'
Putting his experience working on the plagued Guggenheim Guadalajara behind him (the project was ultimately aborted in 2009), Norten has recently completed the first $17m phase of another museum - the city-regenerating Musevi in Villahermosa, Tabasco.
International big guns are also being drafted in to work on ambitious projects in Mexico. British architect David Chipperfield is currently building a new home for the Jumex Collection in Mexico City - within spitting distance of the Soumaya Museum, completed by Fernando Romero in 2011. And Swiss practice Herzog & de Meuron has drawn up plans for a new Barranca Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Guadalajara.
But it's not just art galleries and museums that are soaking up the investment. The National Council for Culture and the Arts has enlisted Rojkind Arquitectos for a major expansion of the Cineteca Nacional del Siglo XXI, while Arquitectura 911 is currently working on a new building for the Estudios Churubusco. Here we round up the highlights of Mexico's culture-building programme.
-
At $31.4 million, this Lalanne hippo just smashed another world auction record at Sotheby’sThe jaw-dropping price marked the highest-ever for a work by François-Xavier Lalanne – and for a work of design generally
-
NYC’s first alcohol-free members’ club is full of spiritThe Maze NYC is a design-led social hub in Flatiron, redefining how the city gathers with an alcohol-free, community-driven ethos
-
Inside Helmut Lang’s fashion archive in Vienna, which still defines how we dress todayNew exhibition ‘Séance de Travail 1986-2005’ at MAK in Vienna puts Helmut Lang’s extraordinary fashion archive on view for the first time, capturing the Austrian designer-turned-artist’s enduring legacy
-
A cubist house rises in Mexico City, its concrete volumes providing a bold urban refugeCasa Ailes, a cubist house by Jaime Guzmán Creative Group, is rich in architectural expression that mimics the dramatic and inviting nature of a museum
-
Serenity radiates through this Mexican home, set between two ravinesOn the cusp of a lakeside town, Mexican home Casa el Espino is a single-storey residence by Soler Orozco Arquitectos (SOA)
-
Mexican landscape architect Mario Schjetnan's Grupo de Diseño wins 2025 Oberlander PrizeThe 2025 Oberlander Prize goes to Mexican landscape architect Mario Schjetnan and his studio, Grupo de Diseño, highlighting the creative's motto: 'We have a human right to open space'
-
The Architecture Edit: Wallpaper’s houses of the monthThis September, Wallpaper highlighted a striking mix of architecture – from iconic modernist homes newly up for sale to the dramatic transformation of a crumbling Scottish cottage. These are the projects that caught our eye
-
A Mexican clifftop retreat offers both drama, and a sense of placeCasa Piscina del cielo, a clifftop retreat by Zozaya Arquitectos, creates the perfect blend of drama and cosiness on Mexico's Pacific Coast
-
Broken up into six pavilions, this brutalist Mexican house is embedded in the landscapeSordo Madaleno’s brutalist Mexican house, Rancho del Bosque, is divided up into a series of pavilions to preserve the character of its hillside site, combining concrete, curves and far-reaching views
-
The Architecture Edit: Wallpaper’s houses of the monthWallpaper* has spotlighted an array of remarkable architecture in the past month – from a pink desert home to structures that appears to float above the ground. These are the houses and buildings that most captured our attention in August 2025
-
Estudio Ome on how the goal of its landscapes ‘is to provoke, even through a subtle detail, an experience’The Mexico City-based practice explores landscape architecture in Mexico, France and beyond, seeking to unite ‘art and ecology’
