Capilla Alfonsina-Alfonso Reyes House Museum

The Capilla Alfonsina is the former home of writer and diplomat, Alfonso Reyes. In the La Condesa neighborhood, today the museum is operated by the National Institute of Fine Arts (INBAL). The name is also used by the library system of the Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon.

• Alfonso Reyes Ochoa (1889–1959) was likely the most important literary figure in the first half of 20th-century Mexico. Nominated five times for the Nobel Prize in Literature, he’d served as ambassador to Argentina and Brazil in the late 1920s and 30s. His most prodigious literary period had been earlier in the 1920s. He retired to this house from the diplomatic service in 1938. The Argentinian writer, Jorge Luis Borges, famously remarked that Reyes was “the greatest prose writer in the Spanish language of any age.”

The home was designed by architect Carlos Rousseau based on a drawing made by Reyes. Construction finished in 1939. Reyes and his wife occupied the home for the next 20 years.

The home was famously nicknamed the Alfonsina Chapel by Spanish writer and translator, Enrique Diez-Canedo. This was to commemorate the many literary events and gatherings that took place here.

The Capilla Alfonsina is also a center for literary studies and the frequent site of conferences and seminars.

The library contains volumes of literature, history, and art, and the most notable part of it is the personal collection of Alfonso Reyes. The collection also includes photography, documents, paintings, lithographs, and objects from the author’s life and that of his family.

Hours: Monday, Thursday, Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday & Wednesday, 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. to 4  p.m. Guided tours are available by appointment.