There are old churches galore, as replete with decor as (nearly) anything in Rome. And like Rome, most everything in the old city dwells sunken in stoic demonstration of years of inclement weather and poor infrastructural planning. However, there is much more of a tilt here: built on a swamp, everything, and I mean every last thing, in the old core is sunken off kilter, sometimes dropping several feet from Portal to Altar. For all their orthogonal rigor, the Spanish could not have intended the anthropomorhic dancing of all the blocks in their gridded city.
There are some more recent (less specifically Imperial) bombastic Beaux Arts interpretations of the classical tradition. El Palacio de Bellas Artes, for instance, takes a few superficial cues from the Colonial tradition, yes, but then multiplies it with a typical nationist fevor matched to the Opera of Wagner (a contemporary). Still, it is not without some fire and soul to hold it's own in literally a world of likewise imitators. And a Diego Rivera to boot (which, unfortunately, like all the other murals in the center, is closed to the public on Mondays).
Caddy corner to el Palacio and in an ideological category which is really not so far away as superficial differences may at first appear (afterall, all international styles must have something in common) proudly stands el Torre Latinamerica. This was Mexico, and, as the name implies, Latin America's first stab at Manhattanism. Although a little awkward and a lot dirty, the modest tower makes little boast about it's best feature: el Mirador.
Although home to roughly 25 million people, the entire city is legibly inscribed into a Basin visible in total from a 44th storey, centrally located pearch like el Mirador.
And from that height, the hazy horizon is not the only glaringly obvious indication of the problems of a(nother) nation of automobile junkies. 
Thankfully the Americans arrived in 1847, 56 years before the invention of mechanized flight, so most of the treasures of the Spanish Colonial city have survived in tact. Despite a sometimes limping stance and the lack of any truly right angles whatsoever in anything over 60 years old, what remains is still marvelous and magical. It is also very telling of a multivalent history which draws as much from North Africa as it does from Teotihuacan.
Where time and intention have stripped the plaster finish from some of the older denizens of el centro, one can see how the construction methods of the Mexica were adopted directly to the form making of their European colonizers. The lavastone bulk of this church is laid in a manner identical to the talud-tablero of the Pyramids, and probably mean to be plastered in much the same way (although the Christians preferred to save their colorful exhibitions for the interior rather than loudly shout them to the stars as this unique and brightly one sided example demonstrates: Christ cloistered inside, Mexican god-kings proudly displayed in European style outside).
Recent efforts have revealed the original impetus for the Zocolo, the local fulfillment of the Law of the Indies and arguably the center of the local universe (that is , the Place which embodies a city) with the uncovering of Templo Mayor. This was the pyramid from which the blood of countless thousands must have been shed before the Spanish smashed it to build the neighboring cathedral. As the excavation reveals , it is actually several consecutive pyramids, built one on top of the other (like those Russian dolls), too sacred to destroy even when ambition demanded something bigger, better.
And of course, there is the nearby Zocolo with a flag matched in size only at American gas stations.
The cathedral drops two meters (about 6 feet) from the door to the main altar, a difference which despite its immense size is quite perceptable both with the eyes and the feet. As sumptuous on the interior as the exterior, the nave is split halfway by a large chior which , curious to my knowledge of large churches seriously debilitates ones ability to comprehend the spatial certainty of the space (leading to a more urban than architectural experience).
Flanking the east end of the plaza is el Palacio Nacional, a composite background building par excellent which makes no serious effort at symmetry or squareness. Ostensibly the home of the president (I think he actually lives somewhere which is not open to thousands of visitors each day), this is an exercise in democratic architecture (although most certainly not originally planned as such) which demonstrates just how isolated and distant tje monuments of Washington really are. Here again are some great murals I missed (in this case, because of time and an ineptitude of the local lanugauge, at least I think).
Anyhow, it's late, and I have practice tomorrow. Hasta luego.
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