Story outline
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Inside Durango’s Living Museum
As you move through the courtyards, murals, and themed galleries of the Palacio Escárzaga, now the Museo 450, you’ll see how Durango’s identity is expressed through craft, creativity, and everyday traditions. The voices you hear add a behind-the-scenes layer, showing how preservation and pride go hand in hand. -
Stop 1. Escárzaga Palace, Still Telling Durango’s Story
This palace has shifted from private home to civic hub to city museum, proof that a building can keep serving the community while changing its purpose. The recent restoration isn’t just repair work; it’s a collective act of pride that keeps Durango’s history alive for families to experience together. -
Stop 2. The Courtyard: Light, Memory, and Murals
Born from Durango’s mining-era prosperity, this courtyard now turns that history outward, an open gathering space with seven murals. Recent conservation work, from a seamless new canopy to strengthened railings, keeps the space safe and welcoming, allowing families to reflect on Durango’s identity across past, present, and future. -
Stop 3. Durango in three acts
Montoya de la Cruz’s 1952 mural tells Durango’s evolution in three scenes—from discovery and mining, to the colonial city through Independence, to the destruction of 1913 and rebirth. It also points to his wider impact: by founding the university’s art school, he helped spark a lasting mural movement in Durango. -
Stop 4. Where City Life and Museum Life Meet
These first-floor corridors connect the museum’s galleries with former government rooms, showing how the palace has long served the public in different ways. The restoration now allows staff to welcome visitors with warmth, keeping Durango’s heritage present for children and future generations. -
Stop 5. What Makes Durango, Durango
These galleries aren’t meant to be read like labels—they’re meant to be experienced: Durango as a film landscape, a kitchen of remembered flavors, mezcal and living Indigenous traditions, and the scorpion as a shared symbol. Taken together, the rooms show how pride in place is built from the creative and the everyday. -
Stop 6. An Open Invitation to Durango
The museum is more than a building or a collection—it’s a shared expression of Durango’s values, traditions, and identity, strengthened through local commitment and international partnership. The voices here turn the tour into a warm invitation: visit in person to notice the small details, feel the space firsthand, and take Durango’s history and culture with you.
Voices
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Lucero Guadalupe Acosta Moreno
Museum Director
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Milton Escalier
Architect
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Carlos Cárdenas Reyes
Visual Artist
Gallery
Partners
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About the Project
This virtual tour of the Escárzaga Palace (Museo de la Ciudad 450) was created to celebrate the successful completion of the museum’s restoration, funded by the U.S. Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation.
The 3D model was generated by collecting thousands of images during documentation led by Bambam Hernández, in collaboration with the Municipality of Durango. These images were processed together to create a high-resolution digital twin of the museum.
The script and interviews were developed by Director Lucero Moreno, Karen Pizarro, and the team at the Museo de la Ciudad 450. The tour features perspectives from Museum Director Lucero Moreno, architect Milton Escalier (who led the restoration efforts), and local artist Carlos Cárdenas Reyes, whose work is showcased in the museum.
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Credits
This project was made possible with support from the US Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation.
A special thank you to the Municipal Directorate of Economic Development and Tourism of Durango for their leadership and support on this project. Additional thanks to Director Lucero Acosta Moreno, Architecto Milton Escalier, and local artist Carlos Cárdenas Reyes for sharing their expertise via video on this project.