International Baroque Museum and Ecopark

When I think of Baroque, I think of the 17th and 18th centuries - Versailles, Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Caravaggio, Rubens, Cervantes and Milton. Also lots of gold, light and darkness, water…

If there is anything that characterizes Puebla, it is that it is Baroque. What a fitting Mexican city to build a museum featuring Baroque art in an incredible building made by a prize-winning Japanese architect, Toyo Ito.
The entry fee for us was $3.50 each. What a bargain.

This museum is not intended to showcase artifacts from the Baroque period, but rather to describe how art, literature, music, technology and science were influencing each other during this time.

We took an Uber to get to it as it is on the outskirts of Puebla, about 8:km away. The 10 year old building, known for its curved white concrete walls, fluid, minimalist design, and surrounding water features, bridges modern architecture with Baroque art. Absolutely lovely!

Inside there are eight permanent and three temporary exhibition halls joined by wavy staircases and curved walls symbolizing the water motif that many Baroque works of art focussed on. All around the building there are water views and fountains.

In the upstairs education area, we could look into a huge art restoration room. No one was working there when we were there but we could see what they were working on.

English explanations, modern audiovisual exhibitions, recreations of famous works of art and the architecture itself of the building made this museum one of our all time favourites.

And to top it off, there was a rooftop restaurant where we were able to get a Cafe de Olla and a French pastry with cream and berries while enjoying the view.

Around the museum, there was a dog friendly ecopark. It was a lovely green place to walk through, with trails sitting areas and lots of shade.

We would highly recommend visitors to visit this place.Read more