Cortés rebuilt a large palace-fortress on the site of Moctezuma II’s "New Houses"; it later became the core of the viceregal and then national seat of government on the Plaza Mayor’s east side.
After the conquest, Hernán Cortés ordered the city rebuilt with a European-style grid centered on a main plaza, establishing the urban framework for the viceregal capital.
Spanish builders reused stone from the razed Templo Mayor and other sacred structures to form the new Plaza Mayor (today’s Zócalo), anchoring colonial political and religious power around the square.
The Spanish Crown bought the palace property from the Cortés family, establishing the Palace of the Viceroy as the administrative center of New Spain facing the main plaza.
Viceroy Martín Enríquez de Almanza and Archbishop Pedro Moya de Contreras ceremonially placed the first stone for the new cathedral project, signaling a long-term monumental rebuilding of the plaza’s north side.
Work on the present cathedral commenced, gradually replacing the early post-conquest church and making the Plaza Mayor’s north edge a continuous monumental façade over the following centuries.
Viceroy Luis de Velasco II ordered the creation of the Alameda Central, an early major planned public green space that helped define the western edge of the colonial city and its civic leisure landscape.
Following severe early-17th-century flooding, the Crown escalated the Desagüe (lake-drainage) effort, redirecting water out of the basin—an infrastructure program that shaped Mexico City’s urban growth and building stability.
A catastrophic flood began after intense rains, submerging much of the city (with water reported around two meters deep in places) and disrupting building activity and urban life until the mid-1630s; it underscored the urgency of drainage and flood-control works.
Even as major construction continued, the cathedral was consecrated, reinforcing the Plaza Mayor’s role as the ceremonial heart of New Spain.
Amid food shortages and social tension, a major riot erupted in the Plaza Mayor; crowds set fire to the Palace of the Viceroys and other government structures, prompting later rebuilding and new efforts to regulate commerce in the square.
The stone-built Parián (a formal market of shops) opened as a post-riot response—both to replace burned stalls and to reorganize elite commerce—reshaping the plaza’s southwest corner.
Manuel Tolsá’s bronze equestrian statue of Charles IV ("El Caballito") was inaugurated in the Plaza Mayor, marking an ambitious late-colonial program of monumental sculpture and neoclassical urban display.
After being built in stages for nearly 250 years, the Metropolitan Cathedral was completed, finalizing the largest ecclesiastical building project on the Plaza Mayor and a defining landmark of the viceregal capital’s center.
Urban development of Mexico City: cathedral, plazas, and the viceregal capital (1521–1800)
