This old and slanted building was for many years the glorious Teatro de las Vizcaínas, and now has been transformed into the homeo f the Gran Maqueta of Mexico City. The building’s renovated walls house the propelled project of the Agencia de Gestión Urbana, directed by Fernando Aboitiz, that consists in a 1:2,5000 scaled replica of the entire Valley of Mexico.
The model has a surface of 234 square meters and it’s a mini mirror of everything that is our city. The newest aspect of the project is that it has point technology to project videomapping over the model. It also boasts an audiovisual show that narrates the history of Mexico City, from the era of Tenochtitlán up to our current times. Futura CDMX functions as an information and learning center about the megalopolis. As such, they’ve developed 700 information layers that when projected over the model can show us facts such as the communication networks in the city (the subway and Metrobús lines, for example) and the most dense demographic zones. The goal is that Future will serve as a laboratory and a simulator that permits researchers, civil servants and politicians to make better decisions about what to do and what not to do in the urban centers.
Futura CDMX isn’t only a model, but a museum dedicated to the city. The third floor has interaction screens that compare Mexico City with other cities from around the world, in different categories such as education, GDP, and the number of cultural centers and theaters that are in each territory. It also integrates graphics, videos and tables about the same categories, but in each of the city’s 16 delegations. You’ll find interesting data such as which zones in the city have the highest levels of marriage and divorce.
In 2017, they launched a video project called “México-Tenochtitlan: El imperio de los lagos” in which the public can see the past civilizations such as Nahua, Tolteca-Chichimeca and Mexica. Furthermore, in the Panaoramic Mexico City section, you’ll see Stephen Wiltshire’s hand-drawn panaoramic of Mexico City.
Another important attraction is the Maqueta del Centro Histórico for people with a visual discapacity, and the interactive Mapoteca, in which you can see the transformation of the Valley of Mexico from the vision of pre-Hispanic codices which illustrate the ancient villages, to contemporary Mexico City.