Museums in Mexico City

The Templo Mayor museum is built directly over the excavated ruins of the Aztec Empire's Great Temple, discovered by chance in 1978 when electrical workers unearthed the massive Coyolxauhqui stone disc.

Palacio de Bellas Artes is Mexico City's premier performing arts centre and art museum, crowned by an Art Deco interior within an Art Nouveau marble shell. The building took 30 years to complete (1904-1934).

The Casa Azul (Blue House) in Coyoacán is where Frida Kahlo was born, lived with Diego Rivera and died. The cobalt-blue walls enclose original artwork, personal artefacts, the studio where she painted from her bed, and a garden filled with pre-Columbian sculptures.

Museo Soumaya is a free private museum funded by Carlos Slim, housed in a sculptural aluminium-hexagon-clad building designed by Fernando Romero. Its six floors hold over 66,000 works spanning 30 centuries of art.

Casa Luis Barragán is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a pilgrimage for architecture lovers. The Pritzker Prize-winning architect's private house-studio in Tacubaya is a masterclass in coloured planes of light, water and volcanic stone.

The Museo Nacional de Antropología is the most visited museum in Mexico, housing the world's largest collection of pre-Columbian artefacts across 23 exhibition halls surrounding a vast courtyard with an iconic aluminium rain-fountain canopy.

The Museo de Arte Moderno sits in Chapultepec Park in a circular modernist building and showcases Mexican art from the early 20th century to the present, including major works by Kahlo, Rivera, Tamayo, and Dr. Atl.

The Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo occupies a striking concrete building in Chapultepec Park, designed by architects Teodoro González de León and Abraham Zabludovsky. The core collection is Rufino Tamayo's personal trove of international contemporary art — Picasso, Warhol, Rothko and Bacon share space with Mexican masters.

Museo Jumex houses one of Latin America's most important collections of contemporary art — over 3,000 works by artists including Cy Twombly, Jeff Koons, Andy Warhol and Gabriel Orozco. The saw-tooth-roofed building by David Chipperfield in Polanco is an architectural statement in itself.

Housed inside Chapultepec Castle, the Museo Nacional de Historia chronicles Mexico's journey from the Spanish Conquest to the 1917 Constitution through 20 exhibition halls.

The MUAC (Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo) is the centrepiece of UNAM's Cultural Centre campus — itself a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The glass building by Teodoro González de León houses rotating exhibitions of Mexican and international contemporary art.

The Museo del Estanquillo displays the vast personal collection of writer Carlos Monsiváis — a dizzying trove of Mexican popular culture: movie posters, comic books, political cartoons, miniature toys and lotería cards. The museum captures the visual texture of 20th-century Mexico in delightfully chaotic fashion.