Museo Jumex

Across the plaza from the Soumaya's silver swirl sits its architectural opposite: David Chipperfield's Museo Jumex, a calm travertine box under a saw-toothed roof of north-facing skylights, opened in 2013 to show the Coleccion Jumex - the most important holding of contemporary art in Latin America, built by the juice-fortune collector Eugenio Lopez. The galleries rotate rather than fix: expect museum-grade exhibitions drawing on the collection's Warhol, Koons, Gabriel Orozco, Damien Hirst, Cy Twombly and a deep bench of Mexican and Latin American conceptualists, alongside visiting international shows. The building does quiet work - a raised plaza floats the museum above the street, daylight falls evenly through the roof teeth, and a top-floor terrace frames the Soumaya like a sculpture. With free Sundays and a compact footprint, it pairs naturally with its flamboyant neighbor: one hour of spectacle, one of substance.

History

Eugenio López Alonso bought his first work of Mexican art in 1994 and that year co-founded the Chac Mool Gallery in Los Angeles, the symbolic beginning of the Fundación Jumex; the museum opened in November 2013 in a building by David Chipperfield, and the collection now holds around 2,800 works (Wikipedia, Colección Jumex).

What you'll find

• The Chipperfield building - travertine, saw-tooth roof and a floating plaza.
• Rotating exhibitions - Warhol-to-Orozco material from a top-tier collection.
• The daylight galleries - even northern light through the roof teeth.
• The terrace view - the Soumaya's scales framed from above.

When to go

Weekday mornings for quiet rooms; check the current exhibition first, since the whole museum turns over between shows. Free Sundays bring families and queues.

Practical notes

There is no permanent display - if the current show does not appeal, the visit shrinks to the architecture. Galleries are few and curated tight, so an hour can suffice. Closed Mondays.

Nearby

Museo Soumaya across the plaza and Polanco's Masaryk avenue restaurants a short ride west.

Key facts