La Casa de los Azulejos

La Casa de los Azulejos (Tile House) is one of the most beautiful pieces of novo-spanish baroque civil arquitecture. It is a work of art framed by talavera that fully covers its facade. It was said to be a refuge for supporters of the conquistador Hernán Cortés. Its first owner was Hernando Avila, followed by Damian Hernandez. It was the residence of the Valle de Orizaba counts, in fact one of the descendants decided to coat the exterior with polychromatic mosaics in the eighteenth century.

From 1881 the building became the Jockey Club and later the Casa del Obrero Mundial. At that time the calle 5 de mayo was the most elegant avenue in Porfiriato. It is a Sanborns since 1919. Two murals are preserved inside: Pavorreales by Palcologne in 1918 and Omniscience by José Clemente Orozco in 1925.

The building and its tiles. The house as it stands today was begun in 1793 by the counts of Valle de Orizaba, who had owned earlier houses on the corner. What makes it famous is the skin: blue-and-white Puebla talavera covering the whole facade, a display of wealth in a city where tile was normally reserved for church domes. The facade was reworked in 1904, when Avenida 5 de Mayo was widened, and the courtyard keeps its Baroque fountain, slender columns and a tiled staircase skirting.

The art inside. Two works are worth walking in for even if you are not eating. On the landing of the main staircase is José Clemente Orozco's mural Omnisciencia, painted in 1925 — one of the few muralist works in a commercial building in the Centro. In the dining courtyard, a peacock mural by the Romanian painter Pacologue dates from 1919, under the stained-glass roof that was added when the patio was covered.

From palace to department store. The house has been many things: steam baths, the seat of the city's Jockey Club, and the Casa del Obrero Mundial during the revolutionary years. In 1919 the Sanborns brothers, who had started with a soda fountain and drugstore on nearby Calle Tacuba, moved in and remodelled it over roughly two years. The restaurant and store have operated here ever since, which is why the building is open and free to walk into.

Visiting. It is at Avenida Francisco I. Madero 4, a short walk from Bellas Artes and Allende metro stations, on the pedestrian stretch that links the Alameda with the Zócalo — part of the city's Alameda–Madero walking route. The doors open early, from around 7:00, and breakfast is the best moment: the courtyard fills up from midday and queues form at weekends. Next door stands the Torre Latinoamericana, so the two combine naturally.