Museo Flor de Chinampas | Chinampaxochitl

The Museo Flor de Chinampas is the centerpiece of the Xochimilco Ecological Park. By the time one gets to the museum, one’s passed innumerable gardens, canals, and the shores of the enormous lake. The entire area is part of an UNESCO recognized Heritage of Humanity site. The museum is dedicated to presenting some of the best of that heritage.

The building was designed in the late 1980s and completed in 1993. It served the Chinampa Xochitl cultural center, and later an environmental cultural center under that name. The Nahuatl language allows words to be combined, and so the new name simply appended to the old as a single word: Chinampaxochitl. That word can be translated to something like chinampa, or floating field, where flowers are planted.

The building was designed by landscape architect Mario Schejtnan who’d also designed most of the layout of the surrounding park. He went on to contribute to other important Mexico City parks like Tezozómoc and the Parque Bicentenario in subsequent years. But in 2019, though, Schejtnan returned to work on a major rehabilitation to the park and to the museum. It re-opened in August of 2022.

Today the park covers some 165 hectares.  It’s rightly famou for hosting both aquatic and temperate forest ecosystems. The Museo Flor de Chinampas houses representative plant and animal life including ornamental plants, ahuejotes, pines, and a few snakes, rabbits, and birds. The endangered ajolote, the famous amphibian unique to the region, is also at home in the museum.

Hours: Tuesday through Sunday, 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.