JSa Retrofits 17th-Century Mexico City House into Museum of Cacao & Chocolate

Architecture firm JSa, led by Javier Sánchez, retrofitted a 17th-century house steps from the Zócalo in Mexico City to create the Museum of Cacao & Chocolate. The project was commissioned in 2013 by Agustín Otegui's family. The museum is part of a network across the Americas and Europe devoted to chocolate history. JSa had previously designed an extension of the Spanish Cultural Center nearby, completed in 2012, where pre-Hispanic ruins were uncovered. For the chocolate museum, the architects suspected another ancient structure beneath, supported by the building's slant—caused by the settling of the underground lake bed—which suggested something below propping it up. The museum opened in the historic core, where Aztec ruins lie beneath colonial and 19th-century buildings.