The Monument to the Revolution () is a memorial arch commemorating the

Mexican Revolution The Mexican Revolution () was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from 20 November 1910 to 1 December 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It saw the destruction of the Federal Army, its ...

. It is located in the Plaza de la República, near the heart of the major thoroughfares Paseo de la Reforma and Avenida de los Insurgentes in downtown

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

History

Legislative building

The building was initially planned as the Palacio Legislativo Federal (Federal Legislative Palace) during the regime of president

Porfirio Díaz José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori (; ; 15 September 1830 – 2 July 1915) was a General (Mexico), Mexican general and politician who was the dictator of Mexico from 1876 until Mexican Revolution, his overthrow in 1911 seizing power in a Plan ...

and "was intended as the unequaled monument to Porfirian glory." The building would hold the congressional chambers of the deputies and senators, but the project was not finished due to the

. Porfirio Díaz appointed a French architect, Émile Bénard to design and construct the structure, a neoclassical design with "characteristic touches of the French renaissance," showing government officials' aim to demonstrate Mexico's rightful place as an advanced nation. Díaz laid the first stone in 1910 during the centennial celebrations of Independence, when Díaz also inaugurated the Monument to Mexican Independence ("The Angel of Independence"). The internal structure was made of iron, and rather than using local Mexican materials in the stone façade, the design called for Italian marble and Norwegian granite. The Díaz regime was ousted in May 1911, but President Francisco I. Madero continued the project until his murder in 1913. After Madero's death, the project was cancelled and abandoned.

Monument

The structure remained unfinished for twenty-five years, until the presidency of

Lázaro Cárdenas Lázaro Cárdenas del Río (; 21 May 1895 – 19 October 1970) was a Mexican army officer and politician who served as president of Mexico from 1934 to 1940. Previously, he served as a general in the Constitutional Army during the Mexican Revo ...

, when Mexican architect Carlos Obregón Santacilia proposed converting the abandoned shell of the dome into a monument to the heroes of the Mexican Revolution. After this was approved, the structure began its eclectic

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...

and Mexican socialist realism conversion, building over the existing cupola structure. Mexican sculptor Oliverio Martínez designed four stone sculpture groups for the monument, with Francisco Zúñiga as one of his assistants. Work was completed in 1938. The structure also functions as a mausoleum for the heroes of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, Francisco I. Madero, Francisco "Pancho" Villa, Venustiano Carranza, Plutarco Elías Calles, and

. Revolutionary general Emiliano Zapata is not buried in the monument, but rather in Cuautla, Morelos. The Zapata family has resisted the Mexican government's efforts to relocate Zapata's remains to the monument.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Monumento a la Revolucion Art Deco architecture in Mexico Cuauhtémoc, Mexico City Mexican Revolution Monuments and memorials in Mexico City Paseo de la Reforma Military history of Mexico City