El museo

As a site museum, the ground floor immerses us in the convent life of the friars who inhabited the building during the colonial period. The former convent stands on what, before the arrival of the Spanish, was the lordship of Huitzilopochco . Founded around the 12th century, it was part of the confederation of the "four lords" or "Nauhtecutli," an alliance that also included Colhuacan, Ixtapalapa, and Mexicalcingo. After the founding of Tenochtitlán, the settlement was incorporated into the Mexica lordship, which, as a crossroads between the lakes and the Coyoacán region, acquired a strategic position that allowed it to establish important trade relations. The space where the National Museum of Interventions is located today was formerly the "house of Huitzilopochtli."

After the conquest, a Franciscan convent was built where the inhabitants of the region were evangelized, thus founding the church and its clerical residence, taking the name San Mateo Huitzilopochco. In 1599, with the establishment of the Province of San Diego, Churubusco came under its jurisdiction, leading to the expansion and consolidation of the settlement as the Convent of Santa María de los Ángeles de Churubusco . In the mid-19th century, the friars were forced to vacate the site, as in June 1847 it was declared a prison, barracks, and fortress. Two months later, on August 20, 1847, the battle that would etch the former convent into history took place. In 1856, based on the law of disentailment of civil and ecclesiastical corporations established by Lerdo de Tejada, President Benito Juárez proceeded to nationalize the convent in 1861. Between 1877 and 1904 and 1908, the property was used as a military hospital for contagious diseases.

After the Revolution, the building remained abandoned until August 20, 1919, when, thanks to the efforts of Jorge Enciso, it was inaugurated as the "Churubusco Museum ." The museum also housed the Héroes de Churubusco Primary School and, starting in 1924, the Open-Air Painting School, an institution for middle-class girls and children from low-income families. On February 18, 1935, the building officially became the "Churubusco Historical Museum ." In 1950, thanks to various donations of antique carriages and automobiles, the museum began exhibiting them on its ground floor, a space that became known as the "Transportation Museum ." From 1965 until the 1980s, the museum housed the National School of Restoration and Museography of the INAH (National Institute of Anthropology and History). Thus, from the 1970s to the 1990s, the former convent housed the Museum, the School, the Directorate of Restoration of Cultural Heritage, and the Directorate of Historical Monuments, known as the Churubusco Complex. After remaining closed for almost five years, thanks to the efforts of Don Gastón García Cantú (then Director General of the INAH), the National Museum of Interventions was inaugurated on September 13, 1981 , a name and social, cultural, and historical function that the former Churubusco Convent maintains to this day.

Tania Arroyo, researcher