Museo del Caracol

This guide to Museo del Caracol in Mexico City opens with a mismatch: in November 1960 the president marked both the 150th anniversary of independence and the 50th anniversary of the revolution on the same afternoon, in the same building. It follows architect Pedro Ramirez Vazquez and education secretary Jaime Torres Bodet as they raced to build the spiral-ramped gallery, nicknamed the snail, in about ten months, and traces what visitors actually find lining its dioramas as they walk the ramp down. Notice how the light in each scene is angled to make the clay figures come alive.