Patricians and Patricides, Mural in the Old Customs Building, Mexico City, Mexico.

Patricians and Patricides is a mural covering multiple walls of the Old Customs Buildings, rendered in bold colors and dynamic compositions. The surfaces display figurative scenes and elements created through industrial materials and bold formal techniques.

Siqueiros began the mural in 1945 and worked on it intermittently until 1971, when it was left unfinished after repeated political conflicts interrupted the project. It covers the vault, walls and lower arches of the monumental staircase of the Ex Aduana building, today the seat of the Secretaría de Educación Pública.

The title draws on Roman patricians and on "patricide", the killing of a father, so the staircase sets patriots against traitors to the homeland. Siqueiros painted the western arches with an eagle in warm tones and a grey mythical animal, allegories of Mexico's recurring ideological struggles.

The mural is publicly accessible inside the Old Customs Buildings in the central district, situated near major transportation connections throughout the city. The location is easily reached by public transit and positioned close to other central attractions.

The mural covers 447.50 m² of the stairwell vault, walls and lower arches of the Ex Aduana, painted in acrylic and pyroxylin on celotex over a frame of manta de cielo, fibreglass cloth and plywood. Siqueiros worked on it from 1945 to 1971, interrupted by political conflicts, and never finished it. Look for the reddish abstract design at the centre of the vault and, on the west lower arches, an eagle in warm tones beside a grey mythical animal.