Church of Santo Domingo de Guzmán

The Church and Convent of Santo Domingo de Guzmán in the city of Oaxaca de Juárez is an example of New Spanish Baroque architecture. The first construction projects for the building date back to 1551, when the Antequera de Oaxaca's City Council ceded a total of twenty-four lots to the Dominican Order for the construction of a convent in the city. However, it was not until 1608 that the conventual complex of Santo Domingo was inaugurated, still unfinished.

Throughout its history, the Convent of Santo Domingo has been the scene of several important events in the history of Mexico: it was converted into a military warehouse, a stable, closed to Catholic worship in times of Jacobin secularism of the governments emanating from the Reform War, and then returned again to the Church by agreement of Porfirio Díaz. In 1979 it received the visit of the Catholic pontiff John Paul II, and was later declared —along with the entire Historic Center of Oaxaca— a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.