Palacio Clavijero (Centro Cultural Clavijero)

The Palacio Clavijero began as the Jesuit College of San Francisco Javier, one of the most architecturally ambitious baroque civil buildings constructed in New Spain, organized around a vast arcaded courtyard that remains the building's defining spatial feature. The college functioned as a center of higher education under Jesuit administration until 1767, when King Carlos III ordered the expulsion of the Society of Jesus from all Spanish territories, abruptly ending the order's educational and missionary activity across Mexico, including at this college. The building takes its modern name from Francisco Javier Clavijero, a Veracruz-born Jesuit historian who taught at the college before the expulsion and later, in exile in Italy, wrote the Historia Antigua de México, one of the first major scholarly histories of pre-Hispanic Mexico written from a broadly sympathetic perspective toward indigenous civilizations, making his association with the building a direct link between colonial Jesuit education and the early historiography of ancient Mexico. Following the expulsion the building passed through various institutional uses before its 20th-century restoration and conversion into the Centro Cultural Clavijero, now the state's principal exhibition hall for temporary art, history and cultural exhibitions. The arcaded courtyard, with its two levels of stone arches enclosing a large open plaza, remains the architectural centerpiece and is used both for exhibition circulation and public cultural events. Restoration work has preserved the baroque stonework of the courtyard and facade while adapting interior rooms to modern gallery standards including climate control and lighting suited to rotating exhibitions rather than a single permanent collection.