Metropolitan Cathedral

The Metropolitan Cathedral is the largest and oldest cathedral in Latin America — a massive structure built on the ruins of an Aztec temple over a period of 250 years (1573-1813), which means it contains every architectural style that swept through Mexico during those centuries: Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassical, and Churrigueresque all live under one roof, and the result is less a coherent building than a timeline of Mexican religious architecture.

The cathedral's most immediately visible feature is that it's sinking — visibly and unevenly. Mexico City is built on the bed of a drained lake, and the soft clay beneath the cathedral has been compressing under the building's weight since the 16th century. The interior floor tilts noticeably, columns lean at angles that would alarm a structural engineer, and a pendulum installed in the nave shows the building's ongoing movement in real time. A major stabilisation project in the 1990s and 2000s partially corrected the tilt, but the cathedral remains a building in slow-motion negotiation with gravity.

The interior is vast and dark — 14 chapels line the nave, each with its own retable (altar screen), and the Altar de los Reyes at the far end is a Churrigueresque explosion of gilded woodcarving that rises from floor to ceiling in a display of decorative excess that makes Baroque look restrained. The cathedral organ, one of the largest in the Americas, is played during services, and the sound in the cavernous stone interior is extraordinary. Below the cathedral, the crypt contains the remains of archbishops and colonial officials, adding another historical layer to a site that is already three civilisations deep.