The National Museum of World Cultures launches a book for its 60th anniversary

The National Museum of World Cultures (MNCM), of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), begins this November 15th the celebration of the 60th anniversary of its foundation and two centuries of the creation of the National Museum, which are celebrated on next year, with the publication of the agenda book World Cultures 2025.

In interview with The Day, The archaeologist and director of the facility, Alejandra Gómez Colorado, explained that the work includes articles about the museum’s permanent exhibitions, one per month, in the preparation of which all the institution’s researcher-curators participated.

80 percent of the photographic material of the most outstanding pieces of the museographic collection was also selected by the person in charge of the photo library, Joaquín Vega González. The images accompany data about the venue’s headquarters, located at Moneda 13, in the Historic Center of Mexico City.

The archaeologist explained that information was included about three new rooms, two of which will open in December 2025, in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the facility. The third, dedicated to North America, It is not ready yet; It is a future project. It will take at least another two years of planning, since the collection is enormous and a lot of research is needed..

Gómez Colorado announced that the exhibitions that are planned to open next year are one dedicated to Africa and another titled From the historical cabinet to the Museum of International Anthropology, This with the support of the National Coordination of Museums and Exhibitions of the INAH, the body that was in charge of the design and museography, with the participation of curators and restorers from the MNCM.

This exhibition will expose the origin of museums from how they began to be those study cabinets with archaeological, ethnographic, paleobotany and stuffed animals collections, in which everything was studied and which were true cabinets of wonders.

Trousseau of Queen Puabi, who ruled Mesopotamia in the 26th century BC. Photo courtesy Joaquín Vega González

Likewise, the exhibition will explain the moment in which the study of history became specialized, which led to the division of the venues by disciplines. We are going to explain this entire transition to reach the moment when the Museum of World Cultures was founded, in 1965..

A sui generis space

60 years after the foundation of the museum, he added, its origins are relevant, since two of the main founders, Julio César Olivé and Beatriz Barba, conceived at the beginning of that institution a space to appreciate and value human cultural diversity.

This is what Olivé wrote in a book published in 1967: the then National Museum of Cultures was looking for show Mexicans the opportunity to get to know the world’s civilizations without having to leave the country.

For Alejandra Gómez, since its creation There has not been another venue of its type in Mexico; It is the only one in the entire country and one of the very few in Latin America. It is one of the only ones that protects, investigates and disseminates collections that are not national; So, it is a very important sui generis museum, because in today’s world cultures are no longer foreign, we live in the so-called global village, we go out into the streets and we can live with people from very diverse origins..

Also celebrated in 2025 will be the founding, 200 years ago, of the National Museum, an institution that had as its first home the halls of the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico.

By 1965, the Moneda 13 building became the second headquarters of the National Museum. As the years went by, the pieces were moved to other locations. In 1909, materials on comparative anatomy, botany, geology, mineralogy, paleontology, teratology, and zoology were sent to the Museum of Natural History. Later, in 1940, the objects from the colonial era went to the National Museum of History, in the Chapultepec Castle.

Once the building of the old mint housed only archaeological and ethnographic collections, its name changed to the National Museum of Anthropology, which ended up being moved in September 1964 to the new facilities in Chapultepec, on Paseo de la Avenue. Reform.

From that moment on, the Moneda 13 property remained empty, which allowed the authorities to rethink another function for the building. On December 4, 1965, the MNCM opened its doors to the public, which since then has safeguarded collections from other parts of the world that were gifted due to the good relations between Mexico and other nations, as well as foreign loans.

The agenda book World Cultures 2025 It was published in collaboration with the company Agendas Culturales de México.

The copy will be available at the MNCM facilities on Friday, Saturday and Sunday from November 15 to December of this year.