The building is located at #10 Doctor Enrique González Martínez Street in the Colonia Santa María la Ribera, a neighborhood of Mexico City.

[3] After the exhibition fair was over, three of the building's four halls[2] were purchased by José Landero y Coss for the establishment of the Compañía Mexicana de Exposición Permanente,[4] shipped to Mexico, and reassembled between 1903 and 1905 at the Colonia Santa María la Ribera site,[5] under the auspices of the engineers Hugo Dorner Bacmeister and Aurelio Luis Ruelas.

[6] In 1905, Landero y Coss' company went bankrupt and in 1909, a lease was signed with the then Department of Public Instruction and Fine Arts, to allocate the building to the National Museum of Natural History.

It was at this time when the building was known as the Crystal Palace, due to its steel beams, columns, and windows, which resembled the 1851 structure in London,[2][7] There is no record of any other activity carried on the premises until the December 1, 1913, when it opened as the National Museum of Natural History, whose founding collection came from the collection of Culture Museum, located in the City Centre, with sections in Botany, Zoology, Biology, Mineralogy and Geology.

The museum offers exhibitions and performances, including contemporary music and dance, theater, film screenings and lectures.