Torre Mayor
A 225-meter tower that absorbed a 7.6 earthquake so cleanly that occupants inside had no idea it happened.
Coming soon on iOS — be first to walk Mexico City offline.
Built on the same lakebed zone that was devastated in 1985, Torre Mayor was engineered to withstand an 8.5-magnitude quake — nearly four times more efficiently than a conventional building. The proof came in January 2003 when a 7.6 earthquake struck and the building emerged undamaged. It held the title of tallest building in Latin America from its 2003 completion until 2010, and the engineering that makes it stand is visible from the street.
What to look for
- Diamond-shaped dampers running along the building's exterior perimeter — these are the 96 shock-absorber units that neutralize seismic resonance
- The south facade's 30,000 square meters of glass with thermal and acoustic insulation — the building's most distinctive visual feature
- The Paseo de la Reforma address: this site was previously occupied by the Cine Chapultepec cinema
On Paseo de la Reforma in Cuauhtémoc — walk the boulevard and the dampers on the perimeter are visible from street level without entering.
Torre Mayor is one of 29 sights worth the detour in Mexico City, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Mexico City pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Mexico City
- Mexico City Metropolitan CathedralTwo hundred and forty years of construction, built on top of the Aztec sacred precinct — every generation of New Spain left something inside.
- National Museum of AnthropologyThe stone that defined how the world pictures the Aztec calendar is here — and 3.7 million people came to see it last year.
- Autódromo Hermanos RodríguezA 4.3 km ribbon of asphalt where two brothers gave their names — and their lives — to Mexican motorsport.
- Aztec Sun StoneA 24-tonne disc of olivine basalt that spent centuries buried under Mexico City's main square — then mounted on a cathedral wall — before anyone called it art.
- Palacio de Bellas ArtesStarted in 1904, halted by revolution and a sinking city, finished in 1934 — thirty years of delay show in every detail.
- University Olympic Stadium (Estadio Olímpico Universitario)This is where Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists to the sky in 1968 — one of sport's most charged political moments, in a stadium that held 83,700 people.