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The plan
A palace planned for the 1910 centennial was hardly begun by 1913
The old theatre was demolished in 1901. The Italian architect Adamo Boari began the new Gran Teatro de Ópera, and Porfirio Díaz placed the first stone in 1904. By 1913 the building was hardly begun, with only a basic shell.
Soft ground
The heavy building sank into the spongy subsoil and kept sinking
The project became more complicated than anticipated as the heavy building sank into the soft spongy subsoil. Since construction began in 1904, the theater has sunk some four meters into the soft soil of Mexico City.
four meterssunk into the soil since construction began in 1904
Twenty years
Work stopped in 1913 and resumed in 1932 under a new architect
The Mexican Revolution suspended construction, and Adamo Boari returned to Italy. In 1932 work resumed under Federico Mariscal, who updated the interior to Art Deco. The building was inaugurated on 29 November 1934.
The curtain
The stage curtain is a glass panel made by Tiffany's in New York
The stage curtain is a stained glass foldable panel made of nearly a million pieces of iridescent colored glass by Tiffany's in New York. Its design has the volcanos Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl in the center.
24 tonsthe weight of the glass curtain
The murals
Diego Rivera recreated a mural here in 1934 after New York painted it over
Man, controller of the universe was commissioned for New York's Rockefeller Center in 1933. It was controversial for including Lenin and a Soviet May Day parade. The incomplete work was painted over, and Rivera recreated it here in 1934.
Day 1, afternoon
It comes after Templo Mayor. Then Alameda Central.
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The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article Palacio de Bellas Artes, and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.