It went from being a dairy farm, a hacienda, to a scale recreation of the Valley of Mexico in pre-Hispanic times, have you visited Tezozómoc Park in Azcapotzalco? We tell you the story of this fantastic green area north of the city.
In the midst of factories and capital traffic, in one of the most densely populated areas of the city, is Tezozómoc Park; an ecological area that has been recognized for its landscape design and that takes advantage of almost 30 hectares in the north of the CDMX, combining the recreational with the utilitarian.
Opened to the public in 1982, the Tezozómoc Park project was carried out by Mexican architect and landscape architect Mario Schjetnan Garduño and his partner José Luis Pérez Maldonado. The Azcapotzalco Delegation contacted Schjetnan in 1979 to reuse the space of what used to be a dairy farm, taking into account the needs of the neighbors. The two conceived to recreate the splendor of the Valley of Mexico in the 15th century to scale using mounds, obelisks and plazas with historical information.
Changing the landscape of what is now Tezozómoc Park (named after a Mexica governor) took the GDU firm four years, "it is a sample of the delicate work involved in urban architecture. In an interview Schjetnan tells that the hills that resemble the Anahuac Valley, 200,000 cubic meters of earth from the excavations of the subway line 6 were used, while the lake was filled with recycled water from a treatment plant of the housing complex El Rosario.
Tezozómoc Park is an ecological reference that has undergone some modernizations, the most recent being in 2018, when a chinampa was added, representing the precuahutémica planting model. Mario Schjetnan and the GDU firm returned to this project more than 30 years after it was inaugurated.
The chinampa has an extension of 17 meters and was created on an area superimposed by layers (one of stone, another of reeds and another of earth), in which vegetables and flowers are grown. Tezozómoc Park has a bicycle path, a jogging path, rest areas, an informal amphitheater, a skating rink, children's games, tennis courts, and flat and winding paths to add a three-dimensional factor. In the center of the lake is a sculpture that recreates the eagle devouring a snake from the national coat of arms.
Tezozómoc Park, Calzada de las Armas and Hacienda de Sotelo, Azcapotzalco. Open from 6 am - 6 pm. Closed on Mondays.
