The Los Angeles Times, 2/24/2011
Mexico’s regal National Palace is for the first time giving the public access to the rarified upper chambers where presidents through the centuries have dispatched and governed and, on at least one occasion, been carried off to assassination.
The tour through the presidential office and a series of ornate ceremonial salons is part of a 10-month-long exhibition called Mexico 200 Years: The Nation in Construction that marks the country’s bicentennial, celebrated in September (link in Spanish).
Curator Miguel Angel Fernandez Villar said that a public that perhaps has been intimidated by the lofty institution that is the National Palace can finally get a glimpse of the full inner sanctum.
“The palace is a city within a city, that needs to be better known,” Fernandez said.
The 6,000-square-yard exhibit is “a good history lesson,” he added. It includes flags reflecting chapters of Mexican history, portraits of national icons from Miguel Hidalgo to Pancho Villa, as well as the latter’s gun and saddle, and documents like a booklet-sized constitution. More than anything, the items show that Mexico as a nation is an evolving project.
Mexico Institute 