Monumento a la Revolución

Monumento a la Revolución
Type	Monument
Location	Cuauhtémoc borough, Mexico City, Mexico
Architect	Émile Bénard Carlos Obregón Santacilia
Location of Monumento a la Revolución in Mexico City Central

The Monument to the Revolution (Spanish: Monumento a la Revolución) is a landmark and monument commemorating the Mexican Revolution. It is located in Plaza de la República, which crosses at the heart of the major thoroughfares Paseo de la Reforma and Avenida de los Insurgentes in downtown Mexico City.

The building was initially planned as the Federal Legislative Palace during the regime of Porfirio Díaz and "was intended as the unequaled monument to Porfirian glory." Considered the tallest triumphal arch in the world, it stands 67 metres (220 ft) in height.

The project was planned 1897, and the government allocated 5 million pesos for it. Since the building was a major public project, there was a competition to design it, ultimately won by a Frenchman, Émile Bénard. The government's selection of a Frenchman as architect, who produced a neoclassical design with "characteristic touches of the French renaissance,", points to government officials' aim to demonstrate Mexico's rightful place as an advanced nation. Díaz laid the first stone in 1910 during the centennial celebrations of Independence, when Díaz also inaugurated the Monument to Mexican Independence ("The Angel"). Rather than local Mexican materials used in the stone façade, the design called for Italian marble and Norwegian granite.

Although the Díaz regime was ousted in May 1911, President Francisco I. Madero, "the Apostle of Democracy," continued the legislative building's construction until 1912, when the money ran out. The structure remained unfinished until 1938, and completed during the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas. The open building was designed by Carlos Obregón Santacilia in an eclectic Art Deco and Mexican socialist realism style, over the existing cupola structure of the Palacio Legislativo Federal (Federal Legislative Palace). Oliverio Martínez designed a stone sculpture for the structure, with Francisco Zúñiga as one of his assistants.