page_title: Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral
section_title: Late 20th-century work
hierarchical_section_title: Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral / Restoration / Late 20th-century work
caption_attribution_description: English: Bases and other artifacts from the foundation excavation of the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral on display in front of the church
context_page_description: The Metropolitan Cathedral of the Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven is the seat of the Catholic Archdiocese of Mexico. It is situated atop the former Aztec sacred precinct near the Templo Mayor on the northern side of the Plaza de la Constitución in Downtown Mexico City. The cathedral was built in sections from 1573 to 1813 around the original church that was constructed soon after the Spanish conquest of Tenochtitlan, eventually replacing it entirely. Spanish architect Claudio de Arciniega planned the construction, drawing inspiration from Gothic cathedrals in Spain.
  Due to the long time it took to build it, just under 250 years, virtually all the main architects, painters, sculptors, gilding masters and other plastic artists of the viceroyalty worked at some point in the construction of the enclosure. This same condition, that of its extensive period of construction, allowed the integration into it of the various architectural styles that were in force and in vogue in those centuries, including the Gothic, Baroque, Churrigueresque, Neoclassical styles.
context_section_description: The cathedral, along with the rest of the city, has been sinking into the lakebed from the day it was built. However, the fact that the city is a megalopolis with over 18 million people drawing water from underground sources has caused water tables to drop, and the sinking to accelerate during the latter half of the 20th century. Sections of the complex such as the cathedral and the tabernacle were still sinking at different rates, and the bell towers were tilting dangerously despite work done in the 1970s.  For this reason, the cathedral was included in the 1998 World Monuments Watch by the World Monuments Fund.
  Major restoration and foundation work began in the 1990s to stabilize the building.  Engineers excavated under the cathedral between 1993 and 1998. They dug shafts under the cathedral and placed shafts of concrete into the soft ground to give the edifice a more solid base to rest on. These efforts have not stopped the sinking of the complex, but they have corrected the tilting towers and ensured that the cathedral will sink uniformly.
caption: Bases and other artifacts from the foundation excavation on display in front of the Cathedral
exif: {}