Palacio de Cortés (Museo Regional Cuauhnáhuac)

Palacio de Cortés was built in the 1520s on the orders of conquistador Hernán Cortés atop the remains of a Tlahuica pyramid in what is now downtown Cuernavaca, making it one of the oldest surviving colonial civil structures in the Americas. Constructed as a fortified residence and administrative seat for Cortés's Marquesado del Valle de Oaxaca, the building's thick stone walls and crenellated roofline reflect its dual role as both palace and defensive stronghold during the early colonial period. Over the following centuries it served variously as a prison, a legislative building, and the seat of the Morelos state government before being converted into the Museo Regional Cuauhnáhuac in the mid-20th century. The museum's permanent collection traces the region's history in roughly chronological order, from Tlahuica and Xochicalco-era artifacts and colonial-era religious art through the sugar-hacienda economy and the Mexican Revolution, with galleries dedicated to Emiliano Zapata and the agrarian movement centered in Morelos. The building's most celebrated feature is the second-floor open corridor mural painted by Diego Rivera in 1930, commissioned by Ambassador Dwight Morrow, depicting the Spanish conquest, colonial exploitation of indigenous labor in the sugar and mining economies, and the peasant uprisings that culminated in the Revolution. INAH-led restorations have stabilized the original masonry and preserved sections of exposed pre-Hispanic stonework visible in the ground-floor galleries. The palace's plaza-facing facade and courtyard remain largely as built in the 16th century, giving visitors a rare direct view of continuity between pre-Hispanic, colonial, and modern Mexican history within a single structure.