views of Santo Domingo from a rooftop terrace—a ritzy harbinger of what agave
hath wrought. When I checked into Hotel Azul de Oaxaca, there was a bottle of
house mezcal waiting for me.
Hotels like these are evidence that money is, indeed, pouring into Oaxaca.
But I’m heartened to note that the buildings are not showy new constructions;
they’re human-scale rehabs of existing structures that fit seamlessly into the
streetscape. They whisper rather than shout. This is modernism, Mexico-style,
where new motifs are juxtaposed against the exposed brick, smooth white-
washed walls, and graphical floor tiles of old.
As fancy hotels have multiplied, so too have the number of mezcalerías and
regional palenques. Today’s most coveted bottles are those made in the tradi-
tional way, without slick marketing or expensive equipment. In the downtown
area alone, I count more than a dozen tasting rooms, boutiques, and bars; their
names show an almost academic reverence for the drink: Mezcalogia, La Mez-
calerita, Archivo Maguey.
The city looks much the same as I left it, mostly unscathed by the earthquakes
that rocked central and southern Mexico more than a year ago. Freshly painted
buildings sit side by side, like neatly iced cup-
cakes, and the church casts a long shadow un-
der a heavy 4 o’clock sun. Teenagers wearing
school uniforms gather in the shade to flirt. The
leafy zócalo, or main square, is the nucleus of
public life, a place where kids ride Big Wheels,
boot polishers shine shoes, and vendors sell
large bunches of mylar balloons. The difference
is that people now spend more time interacting
with smartphones than with one another.
Looking around, however, one can see evi-
dence of catharsis. It shows up in the stencils, murals, and posters hastily
wheat-pasted up in the street. The walls are a canvas where indigenous women
are lionized alongside revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, U.S. President Donald
Trump is vilified, and the memory of 43 missing students—whose disappear-
ance in 2014 caused international outrage—lives on.
A light drizzle begins to fall as I make my way back to my hotel. Couples
huddle under umbrellas and duck into doorways, and just like that, the streets
empty. For all its festive parades and bustling plazas, Oaxaca is a city of inte-
riors, of private courtyards glimpsed through momentarily open doors. Behind
one of them, a craft brewery is cooking up a batch of IPA, and the wafting aroma
of warm cereal mingles with the wet-dust smell of the rain, another sign of
21st-century trends encroaching on 486 years of tradition. This captivating
blend of old and new is replicated everywhere. Later, I’ll venture into a court-
yard of one of these artfully crumbling buildings and find Boulenc cafe, where a
thoroughly modern millennial brunch was in full swing, complete with avocado
toast and cardamom-spiced kefir.
The next day, I head to one of the institutions that kicked off Oaxaca’s turn:
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca, or MACO. This contemporary art
museum was founded in 1992 to present fine art that is both cosmopolitan and
avant-garde. The influx of Mexican creatives behind these works helped to at-
tract international talent, who were drawn to the city’s colors, textures, rich
heritage, and communal spirit.
“People still see Oaxaca as a curiosity of decorative handicrafts, but with this
migration of artists and local contemporary artistic production, the image is
changing,” says museum director Cecilia Mingüer. “There’s an interest in
This is modernism,
Mexico-style, wherenew design motifs are
juxtaposed againstold-world mainstays.
68 OCTOBER 2018 ❖ SUNSET