Researcher ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0009-0005-2280-9980
Graduation Year
2025
Document Type
Open Access Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Art History
Second Department
Latin American Studies
Reader 1
Martin Vega
Reader 2
Julia Lum
Terms of Use & License Information
Rights Information
© 2025 Stella M.W. Robinson
Abstract
The Museo Nacional de Antropología (MNA) is the largest and most frequently visited museum in Mexico. This monument to the splendor of Mexico’s pre-Hispanic past claims to document the entirety of Mexico's past and contemporary Indigenous heritage within its 25 archaeology and ethnography rooms However, the architects reduce Indigenous architectural features into symbols of the pre-Hispanic past in their idealization of a mixed-race (mestizo) heritage to promote the modern Mexican nation as the successors of the Mexica (Aztec) empire. My architectural analysis dissects the museum's claims of hybridity through comparing the structure to several architectural precedents, including the Maya pre-Hispanic site of Uxmal, and colonial Christian church architecture, as well as analyzing the materiality, location, and narrative that the museum constructs.
Recommended Citation
Robinson, Stella M.W., "The Structure of Universal History: An Architectural Analysis of the Museo Nacional de Antropología" (2025). Scripps Senior Theses. 2615.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/2615
