National Palace (Mexico) - The Building's Significance

The Building's Significance

On the webpage of past president Ernesto Zedillo, Carlos Fuentes calls the National Palace a "traveling and an immobile construction". Traveling is used in the sense that much of its architectural style is Spanish in origin and symbolized the transplanting of Spanish civilization to the New World. It is immobile in the sense that since Aztec times, this has been the seat of earthly political power, first as the palaces of the Aztec tlatoani, then of the Spanish viceroys, then of Mexican heads of state. Only until very recently, those who held power over Mexico lived here as well as asserted their authority.

The building itself represents the Mexican people as a blending of both Spanish and Aztec. The old palace was destroyed to make way for the new, but both were built of the very same stone. According to Zedillo, this represents something that is not quite Aztec, but not quite Spanish either, much like the country itself. These same stones were present during all of Mexico's major historical events and had seen foreign flags fly above them.

On the eve of Mexican Independence Day, the National Palace is the star of the show. The original bell Father Hidalgo rang is here and the President himself gives the Grito de Dolores from its main balcony. He also notes one such Independence Eve, in 1964, when General Charles de Gaulle, then-President of France, spoke to the crowd in Spanish from the Palace. He notes this to assert that the Palace is not only a place but also a destination where friends of the country can be welcomed.