A long-awaited science museum has quietly opened its doors in Mexico City’s Bosque de Chapultepec, giving visitors their first look at what promises to be one of the capital’s most ambitious cultural spaces.
The Museo Nacional de Energía y Tecnología — known as MUNET — has begun receiving visitors with an initial exhibition while it prepares for a full opening in the coming weeks. The museum occupies a revamped building in the second section of Chapultepec, situated between the Papalote Museo del Niño and the newer Parque Aztlán.
For now, the draw is Blow Up Experience, an immersive, interactive walkthrough through 8 diverse rooms with unique artistic installations. Tickets run from MX$210 to MX$286 (roughly US$10 to US$14) and are available through the museum’s official website.
The full museum, once open, is designed to do far more than display equipment behind glass. Its mission is to spotlight the different types of energy — and the technologies used to generate, distribute, and harness them — while sparking vocational interest among young people and showing off the country’s energy capacity and the workers who power it.
Thematic galleries will cover everything from hydraulic and geothermal energy to solar and wind power, alongside a deep dive into electricity and nuclear energy. A section dedicated to biotechnology and fossil fuels is also planned, framed around questions of ecological balance.
The building itself is part of the story. The architectural and museographic design was chosen through a competition among 11 prominent Mexican architects, with the winning project going to Enrique Norten, in collaboration with the firm of Ralph Appelbaum. Norten, who runs the Mexico City studio TEN Arquitectos, designed the structure to blend into the forest setting while serving as what one description calls “a lesson in energy efficiency and sustainability.”
The MUNET replaces the old Museo Tecnológico de la CFE — better known as MUTEC — which was inaugurated in November 1970 and shuttered in September 2015. It had been considered the first interactive science museum in Latin America.
For its development, Mexico’s Secretaría de Cultura recommended that the museum operate through a trust. That led to the formation of FIMUNET — the Fideicomiso del Museo Nacional de Energía y Tecnología — with Banco Mercantil del Norte acting as trustee. The CFE’s governing board authorized use of the property where the old Museo Tecnológico once stood, which remains CFE-owned land. A 15-member technical committee — drawn from both the private sector and government, including representatives from the CFE, Banobras, the Secretaría de Energía, and the Instituto Nacional de Electricidad y Energías Limpias — oversees the trust.
The museum will also serve as an event venue, with rooms equipped with interactive whiteboards and high-definition screens available for conferences and workshops.
The MUNET adds to an already dense constellation of museums in Chapultepec, which includes the National Museum of Anthropology, one of the world’s premier collections of pre-Columbian artifacts. The new science museum, though, is aiming at a different audience — families, students, and anyone curious about where the country’s energy comes from and where it’s headed.
The museum currently receives visitors Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and is closed Mondays. Holiday hours will be posted through official channels. A formal ribbon-cutting date for the full museum has not been announced, but the complete programming schedule will reportedly be shared via the museum’s social media accounts once confirmed.
MUNET at a Glance
- Address: Av. de los Compositores s/n, Segunda Sección del Bosque de Chapultepec, Alcaldía Miguel Hidalgo, CDMX
- Hours: Tuesday–Sunday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.; closed Monday
- Current attraction: Blow Up Experience immersive exhibition
- Tickets: From MX$210 (~US$10) per person; available at museomunet.com
- Metro: Constituyentes or Auditorio (Line 7)
- Cablebús: Los Pinos station (Line 3)
- Full museum opening: To be announced