Kiosco Morisco

The Morisco Kiosc is one of the most emblematic edifications of Santa María la Ribera. It was designed by José Ramón Ibarrola in the late XIX. Its structure is made of iron, melted in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

In its beginnings it was settled in the Alameda Central (Central Park of Mexico City), right in front the Corpus Christi former abbey, and it was the headquarters for the National Lottery draw. Later, Porfirio Díaz commissioned the construction of the Hemiciclo a Juárez (Juárez Memorial Momument), within the celebrations for the 100 anniversary of the Mexican Independente, in the place where the kiosco was established. Is was then transported to the neighborhood that requested it, Santa María la Ribera, its current location.

What it was built for. It was not made for this park, or for this city: the kiosk was Mexico's pavilion at the 1884–1885 World Cotton Centennial Exposition in New Orleans, where it was called the Palacio de la Alhambra. The iron pieces were cast and assembled in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and shipped from there. The style is neo-Mudéjar —horseshoe arches, lattice screens and a dome— the Spanish-Moorish vocabulary fashionable at the world fairs of the period.

How it reached Santa María la Ribera. Back in Mexico it was installed in the Alameda Central, where it stood for some twenty-five years and was used, among other things, for the national lottery draws; in 1902 it travelled again, to the St. Louis exposition. In 1910, with the celebrations for the Centenary of Independence, its space in the Alameda was given to the Hemiciclo a Juárez, and Santa María la Ribera —then a prosperous neighbourhood— asked for the kiosk for its own garden. It has stood there ever since.

What else is on the square. The Alameda de Santa María is one of the city's oldest public gardens, laid out on a European geometric plan with four octagonal tiled fountains; the whole park was rehabilitated in 2010. Within two blocks are the UNAM Geology Museum —worth it for the staircase and the period display cases alone— the neighbourhood cultural centre and several small galleries.

Getting there and when. The kiosk stands on Salvador Díaz Mirón, in Santa María la Ribera. San Cosme station on metro Line 2 is about six blocks away, and Buenavista, with both metro and the suburban train, is a little over a kilometre. This is a neighbourhood park: weekend afternoons bring skaters, ice-cream sellers and families, while weekday mornings are the best time to photograph it empty.