At the beginning of the Regina walkway is the temple which, in addition to giving the street its name, evokes the prayer “Regina Coeli”, which refers to Mary with her son, the risen Jesus. Its present dimensions, still cut out, outline the presence of the viceroyalty convents in Mexico City.
Regina Coeli owned and rented sixty-two houses, although her livelihood also came from charities and pious works. The second façade, which leads to the cloister now occupied by the hospital, shows the remodelling at the end of the 17th century.
Its baroque architecture alludes to the monarch sobriety of the interiors, even though the altarpieces and canvases of its chapel became one of the most praised of its time. In 1863, because of the Reform Laws, the nuns were cloistered and their property expropriated, but they were reinstated during the reign of Maximilian.
In November 1967, President Juarez evicted them again and handed over the convent to the army. Without things being clear, it is known that four years later, the building served as a payment to Ramon Obregon (who was in 1887 mayor of the Santiago Valley, Guanajuato), so that when circulating among individuals, its facilities or parts of them, exempted the Juarista demolition.
Location: Calle de Regina 7, Centro, Cuauhtémoc, 06080 Mexico City.
Contact: Tel. 01 55 5709 3124 and 01 55 5709 7580