MEXICO: Water, Water Everywhere

To celebrate the Lerma River project, ending Mexico City's immemorial water shortage, the Mexican government commissioned Diego Rivera to decorate the handsome new building through which the water would enter the capital. Rivera covered the inside of the fancy distribution chamber with sumptuous murals, some of them under water but shielded from water damage by mixing polystyrene with his pigments and coating the whole with transparent rubber (TIME, June 4). For the outside, he designed a large pool (see cut), in which reclines a giant sculpture of Tlaloc, the Aztec rain god. Rivera calls...