Resurrecting Tenochtitlan: Imagining the Aztec Capital in Modern Mexico City

Resurrecting Tenochtitlan explores how Mexican artists and intellectuals used the Templo Mayor and Aztec Tenochtitlan to create a new identity for modern Mexico City, drawing on archival materials, newspaper reports, and art criticism from 1914 to 1964.

Format: Hardback
Length: 272 pages
Publication date: 16 May 2023
Publisher: University of Texas Press

Mexican artists and intellectuals played a crucial role in shaping the modern identity of Mexico City by drawing connections between the city and the ancient Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. In the aftermath of the Revolution of 1910, archaeologists rediscovered a corner of the Templo Mayor in 1914, sparking a conceptual excavation of the original Mexica capital in relation to the transforming urban landscape of modern Mexico City. Revolutionary-era scholars recognized an intersection between Tenochtitlan and the foundation of a Spanish colonial settlement directly over it, leading to a renewed interest in sixteenth century maps. Mexico City developed with modern roads and expanded civic areas as agents of nationalism promoted concepts like indigenismo, the embrace of Indigenous cultural expressions. Artworks and new architectural projects such as Diego Riveras Anahuacalli Museum helped to make real the notion of a modern Tenochtitlan. Resurrecting Tenochtitlan connects art history with urban studies to reveal the construction of a complex physical and cultural layout for Mexicos modern capital.

Weight: 1348g
Dimension: 227 x 288 x 25 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781477326992