Mexico City is built directly atop the drained bed of Lake Texcoco, the site of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital the Spanish conquered and largely dismantled in 1521, and much of the modern city continues sinking into the soft lakebed sediment beneath it, some areas subsiding by as much as 30 centimetres annually, among the fastest rates of urban sinking recorded anywhere in the world. That instability regularly reveals itself in visibly tilting historic buildings, including sections of the Metropolitan Cathedral, engineers working continuously to stabilise structures built centuries ago on ground never intended to support them.
The Templo Mayor, the primary temple of the Aztec capital, lay buried and largely forgotten beneath the colonial city for centuries until its rediscovery in 1978, when electrical workers accidentally unearthed a massive stone disc depicting the dismembered Aztec goddess Coyolxauhqui, triggering major excavations that continue revealing more of Tenochtitlan directly beneath the modern city’s historic centre.
One of the Largest, Most Culturally Dense Cities on Earth
Mexico City’s metropolitan area is among the most populous in the world, and its historic centre alone contains one of the largest concentrations of museums anywhere on the planet, well over 150 within the city as a whole, reflecting a deliberate, sustained civic investment in culture and public art dating back decades. Frida Kahlo’s former home, La Casa Azul, remains one of the city’s most visited sites, offering direct insight into both her personal life and her relationship with muralist Diego Rivera, whose own large-scale public murals throughout the city helped define a distinctly Mexican school of politically engaged public art in the early 20th century.
Despite its sinking foundations and genuine air quality and traffic challenges, Mexico City has increasingly been recognised internationally for its culinary scene, street food traditions dating back generations now sitting alongside a rapidly growing fine dining reputation drawing global attention.
Painting a City Layered on Its Own Ancient Foundation
Mexico City’s colonial architecture and modern skyline, built atop centuries of buried history, give a watercolourist genuinely layered depth to work with. We’ve captured that character in our own Mexico City Watercolor Print, painted first by hand and printed to order on archival paper, a small piece of Mexico for a wall at home.
Built on a drained lake above a buried Aztec capital, Mexico City remains a metropolis whose ground has never fully stopped shifting beneath everything constructed on top of it.