The house of the "earth element" gods

When you cross through the threshold of the Anahuacali  museum in the southern region of Mexico City, you quickly realize this is no ordinary structure. From the outside, the museum looks like a four-cornered pyramid, a concept by Diego Rivera intended as an artistic acknowledgment of his Mexican heritage and the earth-element gods. The four elements are represented by their respective gods in each corner of the building: for the earth, the corn goddess Chicomecóatl; for the air, Ehécatl, god of the wind; Huehuetéotl, god of fire, and for water, Tláloc, god of rain. The only god I felt a connection with that day was the sun god, whom I was thankful for on a warm February morning. 

Museo Anahuacali-house on land between two seas

Diego Rivera's concept for the building also had a practical purpose. He needed a space to house and display his private collection of roughly 2,000 pre-Hispanic figurines and sculptures. He apparently chose this geographical area of Mexico City because the perfect ecosystem had been formed by the eruption of the Xitle volcano in the year 400 BC. The desert plants integrate with the architecture as a sacred receptacle with a connection to the underworld.  

The underworld is a dark place apparently, so the ground floor of the museum is intentionally dark. Instead of windows, Rivera had the brilliant idea of inserting opaque alabaster slabs in niches, making it look like giant french fries are letting in a faint yellow light. On that floor, you're introduced to the pre-Hispanic communities such as Olmecs, Zapotecs, Nahuas, the people of Teotihuacan --the location of the pyramids just outside of Mexico City-- and those of northeastern Mexico. As an archaeologist and anthropologist, my father specialized in the Olmecs, one of the country’s most ancient civilizations. In fact, if you want to read his book Olmec-an early art style of precolumbian Mexico, I noticed there is one for sale on Amazon.  

My dad's book, published in 1971

Back to the museum: The ground floor, or underworld section is also appropriately sloped downward, giving the sensation of no return. Narrow entryways squeeze you in, and you're greeted by many stone and clay members of Mexico's ancient civilizations demonstrating a day in their lives in perpetuity.  

Alabaster slabs let in just enough light to shine your way through the underworld

Diego Rivera's Precolumbian ancestors offer a warm welcome

After the underworld, a new life emerges, and you're filled with the hope of new beginnings. Feathered serpents and jaguars stare at you from their perches in the ceiling, but these Mesoamerican deities can't get at you as they are embedded in stone using a very traditional mosaic technique. The feathered serpent is a prominent deity found in many Mesoamerican religions. Among the Aztecs, it is known as Quetzalcoatl, Kukulkan among the Yucatec Maya, and  Q'uq'umatz and Tohil among the K'iche' Maya. A jaguar or cuauhocelotl in Aztec is a fierce, brave hunter in ancient Mexico and the symbol of the Aztec elite warriors. According to Aztec beliefs, the Aztec Jaguar Warriors represented the Aztec god Tezcatlipoca who was god of the night sky.  

 

Feathered serpent deity on museum ceiling

Jaguar deity looks down from the ceiling

As I made my way through the museum, I wondered which culture was tied to my heritage. On one display, I could see the devotion to women represented by a collection of curvy female figurines. On another, an homage to women who died in childbirth reveres them as warriors. In pre-Hispanic Mexico, women who died in childbirth were defined as warriors who offered their lives on the battlefield. These women goddesses were known as Cihuateteo depicted as dead women who are kneeling or resting on their lower extremities. The photo below of the dead woman shows her arms resting over her womb and a striking skeletal face.   

Figurines of women formed in clay

 

Cihuateteo - A warrior woman who has died in childbirth

In terms of male representation, fertility is the prominent theme expressed by the protruding elements standing upright from between the legs. I was intrigued by how polished the members were, compared to the rest of the sculpture. Also, it seems the "supersize me" culture took root hundreds of years ago!

A nod to fertility - male figures with giant penises

After the sex-Ed section of the museum, and higher up from the ground, the underworld gives way to wider spaces and brighter light. An impressive gallery of Diego Rivera's super-sized sketches shows the groundwork he accomplished for the frescos he completed in places like the Rockefeller Center in New York or in buildings in San Francisco and Detroit where he left his mark between 1922 and 1953. His work clearly shows his left-wing political orientation, depicting communism and socialism. He had been a member of the Communist Party of Mexico since 1922. 

More light near the top of the building shows mural sketches by Diego Rivera

The Anahuacali is a museum unlike any other I have visited, designed by a great artist, as a work of architecture and a temple that has been integrated with its natural surroundings, thus unifying past, present and future.  From the rooftop, I was able to appreciate the intention of this 1941 structure, and the view of the lava bed and its harsh nature which inspired the creation of this house on land between two seas.  

On the roof of the Anahuacali museum