Under its purple jacaranda canopies and along its picturesque historic streets, Mexico City is in the midst of a cultural transformation. Led by a united front of gallerists, hoteliers, designers, and restaurateurs, the Mexican capital’s thriving creative class has spent the past decade breathing new life into neighborhoods filled with previously down-at-the-heels Art Deco and Beaux Arts buildings. Meanwhile, progressive philanthropists and architects are erecting dynamic museums and skyscrapers at a bracing clip. This city of nearly 20 million, where crime and political upheaval are no longer front and center, is becoming a thoroughly modern metropolis—a seductive second home to jet-setters from Paris to Buenos Aires and an enticing destination for savvy travelers.
“这是一个回到1920年代的迷人氛围,’30s, and ’40s, where the artistic community is closely knit and trying to make a name for itself,” says Mexico City native Annette Stephens, cofounder of the trendy jewelry-and-accessories label Anndra Neen with her sister Phoebe, who adds, “A lot of people are starting to feel that and invest here.”
Not since the days of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo has the Distrito Federal—or D.F., as the city is known—received such attention as an international art center. Partial credit goes to the rapidly growing contemporary-art fairZona Maco, which celebrated its tenth anniversary this spring and is moving up its dates to February in 2014. Nowhere is the capital’s art-world prominence more evident than in Plaza Carso, a former auto-manufacturing area in the Nuevo Polanco neighborhood that is fast becoming an architectural wonderland.
The latest addition is the highly anticipatedMuseo Jumex, the brainchild of Eugenio López Alonso, heir to the Grupo Jumex fruit-juice empire and arbiter of the company’s stellar contemporary-art collection, widely considered one of the best in Latin America. Opening in November, the five-story travertine-clad museum tower, topped with a skylit saw-tooth roof, is architectDavid Chipperfield’s first project in the region. Leading Mexican architect Fernando Romero designed the neighboring aluminum-tiledMuseo Soumaya, completed in 2011, to accommodate the extensive holdings—including a number of Riveras and Rodins—of one of the world’s richest men, Carlos Slim Hélu. The plaza is also getting an underground theater, the Teatro Telcel, that will stage Broadway plays beneath a cantilevered metal canopy. The innovative structure, devised by the Madrid-based architecture firm Ensamble Studio, will be “the most avant-garde theater in the country,” Romero says.
To the south of Nuevo Polanco, across the Avenida Ejército Nacional, lies the city’s commercial hub, Polanco, with its California Colonial–style mansions, which house many of the city’s best shops and restaurants, including chef Enrique Olvera’sPujol. Currently ranked 17th on S.Pellegrino’s World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, it specializes in elevated Mexican fare, such as suckling-lamb tacos and chili-infused blackberry sorbet. The area is also home to the D.F.’s most tranquil getaway, the 35-roomLas Alcobashotel. “It’s like you’re staying at someone’s amazing apartment,” says Bertha González Nieves, cofounder and CEO of the tequila brand Casa Dragones. A few blocks west is the namesake boutique of ascendant fashion designerCarla Fernández, whose modern twist on indigenous textiles is described as “ethnic with an edge” by Carlos Couturier, cofounder of the hotel firm Grupo Habita. Vintage furniture abounds at neighboringDecada, whilePirwistocks innovative pieces by regional designers like Emiliano Godoy and Cecilia León de la Barra.
