Manuscript and Mosaic: The Codex Mendoza in Mexico City’s Zócalo

In 1981, charged with overseeing the revitalization of Mexico City’s historic center, architect Pedro Ramírez Vázquez envisioned the Zócalo adorned by a mosaic of the Codex Mendoza. The proposed design replicated the codex’s iconic image of the Aztec foundation myth depicting an eagle perched atop a nopal at the center of the city of Tenochtitlan, represented schematically as a quincunx segmented by two bisecting canals. In his capacity as the Secretary of Human Settlements and Public Works, Ramírez Vázquez’s proposal linked the renovation of infrastructure with a project to highlight and conserve the city’s architectural and archaeological heritage. Only three years after the discovery of the Coyolxauhqui stone at Templo Mayor, the idea to place the image of a pre-Columbian codex at the heart of the city–– in the middle of a square flanked by the cathedral and the former viceregal palace–– intensified ongoing debates about how to reconcile the conservation of the nation’s pre-conquest indigenous and colonial pasts. This paper examines the short lived and ultimately failed project to redesign the Zócalo in the image of the Codex Mendoza, analyzing both the aesthetic controversies and socio-economic turmoil–– namely the crushing austerity measures precipitated by the 1982 financial crisis–– that shaped the project. Although Ramírez Vázquez’s mosaic never came to fruition, the design process, subsequent debates about the architectural future of the Zócalo, and the project’s strange afterlife in a border town theme park offers fresh insight into a period of tumultuous political transition and profound historical reflection for Mexico.