Santuario de Guadalupe (Templo de San Diego), Morelia

The Santuario de Guadalupe occupies a colonial-era church building at the eastern end of the Calzada Fray Antonio de San Miguel, near the Aqueduct of Morelia, but its most notable feature dates not from the colonial period but from an early 20th-century renovation that entirely re-dressed the interior. During this remodeling, the vault, walls and arches were covered in moulded, painted and gilded plasterwork in a dense, continuous decorative scheme that departs sharply from the plainer interiors typical of colonial-era Michoacán churches. The design drew on Purépecha decorative traditions, incorporating motifs and patterning associated with indigenous craft rather than European ornamental vocabulary alone, producing an interior considered one of the most singular and visually distinctive church interiors in Mexico. The result is less a restoration than a reinterpretation, layering an early 20th-century decorative program, itself informed by contemporary interest in Mexican indigenous heritage following the Revolution, over an older colonial structural shell. The plasterwork technique used gypsum and paint applied directly to structural surfaces, a labor-intensive method requiring specialized artisans, and its scale across the entire vaulted ceiling and wall surfaces makes the church a significant, if lesser-known, example of applied decorative arts in a religious setting. The building functions as an active parish church, meaning normal service schedules govern the best times to view the interior without disrupting worship, and the plasterwork has required periodic conservation given its susceptibility to humidity and structural movement over the decades since installation.