The UNAM’s mission to preserve, disseminate and promote artworks from all ages and of all kinds is evident in both the invaluable collection of artwork and the broad diversity of museums and exhibition spaces under its custodianship. As part of this vital mission, the Cultural Dissemination Coordinating Office operates the Old College of San Ildefonso Museum, the Chopo Museum, the University Museum of Science and Art and the recently acquired Echo Experiential Museum. The crowning piece in this array is the monumental, recently inaugurated University Museum of Contemporary Art (MUAC), designed by Architect Teodoro Gonzalez de León specifically to house the UNAM’s vast collection of contemporary art.

By 2003, the high visibility of contemporary Mexican art worldwide provided sufficient impulse for the erection of a new museum devoted to consolidating and broadening the public’s understanding and appreciation contemporary artwork, its history and the new plastics arts languages emerging both here and abroad. The University Contemporary Art Museum, which opened on Novembers 27, 2008, is the result of this urge.

This cutting edge museum project endeavors to become an essential hub of knowledge and production in the field of visual arts in Mexico and Latin America. It also aims to take on an important role on the world stage in terms of the evolution of the function and purpose of the art museum itself. To these ends, the museum carries out innovative programs oriented toward creating knowledge and impelling significant educational involvement, while encouraging the inclination of persons for aesthetic pleasure and experience. The museum also directs important acquisitions and curatorial programs aimed at enhancing the Nation’s holdings of modern and contemporary artworks.

In line with the UNAM’s vision of excellence and leadership, Mexican Architect Teodoro Gonzalez de León (doctor Honoris Causa UNAM, 2001) conceived the museum holistically and ensured it was equipped with cutting edge infrastructure that brings together the best features found in contemporary art museums the world over. In terms of architecture and the museographic, curatorial and educational methodologies privileging the stance of interpretation, the museum is a key component to UNAM’s efforts to fulfill and sustain its leadership role in the field of culture within the country and abroad.

The museum’s orientation provides a spectacular view of the volcanic landscape lying to the southeast. Circular in design and covering an area of 13,947m2, the museum stands in contrast to and in intimate dialogue with the harder edge designs of surrounding structures. Its exhibition areas are located in the eastern portion of the building on the ground floor access level. These rooms are organized without any evidence of hierarchy and offer diverse characteristics of light and overhead space. Three interior patios and two terraces, which also can serve as exhibition spaces, complete the building configuration.

This sublime disposition of spaces allows each to serve an individual curatorial purpose with minimal need for special adaptations. Moreover, each exhibition space enjoys ample natural lighting and is also equipped with artificial illumination in order to achieve exhibits of high technical quality.

The two floors on the western side of the building are devoted to visitors services, which include a museum shop-bookstore, the El Agora educational outreach space, the sound experience room, conference rooms, the auditorium, the Arkheia documentation center and the cafeteria-restaurant located on the lower floor.

The museum’s operational and administrative areas are confined to the lower floor, beneath the exhibit halls. These areas are accessed through a single door on the building’s north side and contain the museum’s control and security operations, and personnel entrance. Registry of incoming and outgoing works also occurs in these areas as does packaging, crating and storage operations. Adjacent to the latter is an area devoted to safekeeping and preservation of the museum’s permanent collection and works in transit.[Web site]

Founded by Jesuits in 1588, the Old College of San Ildefonso was one of the most important educational centers in the capital of New Spain. In 1867, during the Benito Juarez administration, the national preparatory School was housed within its walls. In 1910, this school was absorbed by the National University. For more than six decades, it continued to be the cradle of generations of leading intellectuals and personalities. By 1978, the building was no longer the headquarters of the National Preparatory School and remained closed to the public until 1992, when it was finally restored and reopened to host the Mexico, Splendors of 30 centuries exhibit. Since that time, the Old San Ildefonso Museum has hosted innumerable outstanding exhibits. The museum is managed by a council with representatives of the UNAM, the National Arts and Culture Council and the government of Mexico City.[Web site]

The University Museum of Science and Arts, located just south of Rectory Tower, provides 2,400m2 of open, adaptable floor space for local and international expositions that strive to integrate art, science and humanities. Its founder and first director, Daniel Rubin de la Borbolla, cut the inaugural ribbon on February 26, 1960. This noteworthy museum space employs an adroit system of movable partitions and adjustable natural light wells complemented by artificial lighting.

Since its foundation, the museum has hosted a wide array of expositions, from painting, sculpture, print works and photographs to exhibits on astronomy, biology, and graphic and industrial design. Additionally it has accrued an important permanent collection that cuts across artistic disciplines and genres. This collection includes important archeological artifacts, traditional crafts and contemporary artwork by Mexican and foreign artists. As such, it has become an essential player in promoting artistic creativity here and abroad. The museum also boasts the oft-commented Lado B (Side B) exhibit space where projects in interactive art, robotics, web art, video installation and other cutting edge proposals find an outlet. [Web site]

The University Museum of Science and Art in the Colonia Roma is ensconced in the neighborhood art corridor at No. 73 Tabasco Street, where it provides a venue for a broad spectrum of artistic proposals, mostly by young, aspiring artists. With eight exhibition rooms, the museum has become a center for reflection, debate and experimentation in innovative expression, conceptual art and installation. The museum’s curatorial thrust seeks to generate dialogue between artistic proposals of all kinds and the public.[Web site]

The UNAM recently acquired and restored the long abandoned El Eco museum planned and designed by architect Mathias Goeritz more than fifty years ago as a space for multidisciplinary artistic exploration. In the words of Goeritz, this “experimental museum” gathers under one roof the central concerns of the artist’s endeavor: synthesis of aesthetic talent, spiritual aspiration, philosophic curiosity and the conviction that diversity in creative processes is the way for man to seek and find his emotional core. As such, the El Eco museum provides a venue for the convergence of experimental, cross-disciplinary proposals involving dance, theater, music and visual arts.

Located in the working class neighborhood of Santa Maria la Ribera in northern Mexico City, the Chopo Museum is a vital venue for guaranteeing respect for plurality and expressive freedom. Originally built in Germany more than 100 years ago, this art nouveau palace of steel girders, glass and compressed concrete was erected in Mexico in 1903 as an industrial exhibit hall. In 1913 it housed the National Natural History Museum, which exhibited an array of geological and archeological artifacts, including the skeletons of an imperial elephant, a whale and a reproduction of the Jurassic era dinosaur Diplodocus Carnegii.

In 1929, the government entrusted the National Natural History Museum to the UNAM, which kept the operation going until 1964. In 1973, the UNAM decided to restore the Chopo building in order to use it for cultural and artistic extension activities. With this new mission, the Chopo Museum was reopened on November 25, 1975. Since then, it has been the scene of countless exhibitions and presentations and many innovative, often experimental, artistic proposals from Mexico and around the world.[Web site]

UNAM is one of only a few universities worldwide to sponsor a prestigious philharmonic orchestra. Moreover, this orchestra enjoys a permanent home in the Sala Netzahualcoyotl concert hall, a purpose-built auditorium engineered to provide optimal acoustics. In the many venues available on the Campus, the Directorship General of Music of the UNAM ensures a full slate of concerts representing the broad spectrum of genres and composers from around the world.

The UNAM Philharmonic Orchestra is Mexico’s oldest and most prestigious symphony orchestra. Founded in 1936 as the University Symphony Orchestra under the co-direction of Jose F. Vasquez and Jose Rocabruna, it originally performed in the Simon Bolivar Amphitheater of the Old San Ildefonso College. Today, the OFUNAM performs an impressive repertory ranging in styles from baroque to contemporary, and often executes works by Mexican composers.

With the appointment in 1966 of orchestra director Eduardo Mata, the OFUNAM began a new and brilliant period lasting nearly ten years. In 1975 Hector Quintanar took over the baton and the following year the orchestra took up residence in the Sala Netzahualcoyotl. Between 1981 and 2005, the OFUNAM has been led by directors of renowned stature, including Enrique Diemecke, Eduardo Diazmuñoz, Jorge Velazco, Jesus Medina and Ronald Zollman. Since the 2002 season, the orchestra has been under the direction of Zuohuang Chen.[Web site]

The Mining Palace Symphony Orchestra is a labor of love by the alumni association of the Faculty of Engineering, who have brought back the old custom, lost in the nineteenth century, of holding concerts in the Mining Palace, which at the time was the headquarters of the National Mining College and forerunner of the Faculty of Engineering. At the time, these concerts -- called “Academies”-- were immensely popular among a public avid for classical music.

The Orchestra of the Mining College and its Academies, as it was known, performed a wide variety of contemporary classical music and introduced Mexican Society to leading composers such as Haydn.

Headquartered in the hallowed halls of the Mining Palace, one of the most remarkable neo-classical buildings in America, the non-profit Mining Palace Music Academy, A.C. has reestablished the prestige and vitality of this rich musical tradition. Moreover, the Association is devoted to enriching the cultural horizons of students and society in general, especially those from the engineering school community.

Currently in its twenty-seventh season, the Mining Palace Symphony Orchestra works in close conjunction with the Mining Palace Music Academy to provide full scholarships for coming generations of Mexican musicians.[Web site]

Its advanced acoustic engineering and sublime architecture covering 9,500m2 make the Sala Nezahualcoyotl one of the world’s foremost concert halls. Designed after the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the Usher Hall of Edinburgh and with a seating capacity of 2311 spectators, the Nezahualcoyotl hall was inaugurated on December 30th, 1976 and has since hosted every kind of musical performance, from jazz and blues to opera and symphonies. Over the years, many orchestras of world renown have performed here, including the New York Philharmonic, under the direction of Kurt Masur; the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra; the Philharmonic of Berlin; the Philharmonic of Israel; the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, and the Philharmonic of Vienna.[Web site]

Soloists and chamber ensembles of world renown have delighted innumerable audiences in its intimate confines, as not one of the hall’s exceptional seating for 163 spectators is more than 11.6 meters from the stage. Used mainly for the performance of chamber music, this theater is also exploited for conferences, music courses and diverse presentations.[Web site]

The Simon Bolivar Amphitheater was built between 1902 and 1910 on what was once Montealegre Street, since renamed Justo Sierra Street. Consisting of three naves with a proscenium arch stage at one end, the theater is graced with neocolonial vaults, columns, doors, windows, cornices and railings that are in perfect harmony with the architecture of the Old San Ildefonso College. The theater is also celebrated for Diego Rivera’s mural titled Creation, painted in 1922 with the help of Carlos Mérida, Jean Charlot, Amado de la Cueva and Xavier Guerrero. This allegorical work covers more than 100m2 and alludes to the formation of the Mexican race springing forth from the tree of life. On the left of this central figure is a woman surrounded by personifications of Music, Dance, Song and Comedy.[Web site]

Since the first half of the twentieth century, the Theater Directorate of the UNAM has promoted a revival of Mexican theater and productions of cutting edge proposals from around the world. Held annually, the UNAM National Theater Festival showcases up-and-coming actors, directors and other professionals in the field of theatrical production.

Inaugurated in 1979 with Juan Jose Gurrola’s production of La prueba de las promesas (The proof of the promise, by the theater’s namesake), the Juan Ruiz de Alarcon Theater seats 430 spectators and is furnished with a large Italian stage measuring 12m2 and a proscenium arch eight meters in height. The theater serves for productions of classical theater and musical comedy. The stage platform, moreover, can be completely disassembled, allowing for a wide variety of scenery and staging choices.[Web site]

The Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz Forum provides seating for 120 spectators distributed vertically in four levels. The forum’s layout makes little emphasis in the distinction between performance and public areas. As such, directors are free to explore innumerable and unique staging possibilities.[Web site]

Situated on the Santa Catarina Plaza in Coyoacan, the Santa Catarina Theater is equipped with up-to-date technology that allows for staging of a wide range of experimental chamber productions.[Web site]

The work of rescue, preservation, dissemination and promotion of film, making by the UNAM are known worldwide. UNAM university has the oldest and largest film collection in Latin America. In its large laboratories routinely restores gems of world cinema; and in its cinema programs every day the best of the universal film production.

Since its founding in 1960, the UNAM Film Library has become Latin America’s largest film depository, holding a growing collection of more than 31 thousand titles in its catalogue. The UNAM’s efforts to preserve, restore, disseminate and promote cinema, which have earned it worldwide recognition, are underpinned by an in-house laboratory. UNAM’s many projection venues offer the public a rich variety of the best of world cinema. Additionally, the Film Library has earned the trust of private producers, who commend their collections to the UNAM film vaults, where these invaluable materials are properly stored and intellectual rights ensured.

Among the many historically significant gems in the Film Library collection are those documenting the Mexican Revolution filmed from 1910 to 1926. Another collection in the vaults, titled “Great divas of Italian cinema”, includes remarkable materials unknown even to Italian film archives. A vast collection of bullfighting films provides an overview of the timeless parade of Mexican and Spanish bullfighters from 1910 to 1970. The vaults also hold the Gregorio Walerstein Fund’s private collection consisting of 200 hundred films, many of these Mexican classics. Other private collections held in the UNAM vaults include those belonging to Rubén Galindo, the National Producers Association, Gonzalo Elvira, the Anda Brothers and producers such as Altavista Films, Televisa and Titan.

Additionally, the entire collection of materials of Clasa Films Mundiales, founded in 1930 with the production of the film "Vámonos con Pancho Villa", are held in trust by the Film Library.[Web site]

The Julio Bracho and Jose Revueltas movies theaters are functional, comfortable spaces for enjoying the best of world cinema. With respective seating capacities of 345 and 260 spectators, these movie houses are situated on the main vestibule of the University Cultural Center. Both theaters carry out film cycles organized around theme, director and country. Twice a year, they host the International Film Festival, while the summer months feature the UNAM Film Library’s Summer Film Festival. [Web site]

Located in the Old San Ildefonso College, this movie theater holds regularly scheduled film cycles of the best of world cinema.[Web site]

Located in the Chopo Museum, this theater offers a variety of cycles of alternative and experimental film.[Web site]

The UNAM’s contribution to Mexican dance can be gauged by the prestige earned over the last two decades by its dance companies, Danza Libre Universitaria, Danza Contemporánea Universitaria and the Choreography Workshop. The Dance Directorship has played a fundamental role in promoting a wide variety of dance genres by bringing the world’s most prestigious dance companies to Mexican audiences.

Sala Miguel Covarrubias The Sala Miguel Covarrubias Theater was designed primarily for dance, but its features allow staging of other presentations such as opera, concerts, musicals and drama. The high pitch of the seating provides a capacity of 725 spectators with a view of the stage that is free from extraneous distractions. The stage measures 13m across x 15m in depth and is flanked with wide eaves and fitted with a 25m high curtain.

Moreover, the Miguel Covarrubias Theater is the home of the UNAM Choreography Workshop and has been a venue for performances of prestigious international dancers and companies, including Martha Graham, the Twyla Tharp Dance Company, Mario Moya, Drama Dance Katakhali of India, the Louis Falco Company, the Maurice Bejart Ballet of the 20th Century, the Classical Ballet Company of Spain, Compagnie Marie Chouinard and the Vuyani Dance Theatre. The Mexican National Dance Company and other major contemporary Mexican companies also perform here frequently.[Web site]

Publishing nearly 700 new titles, reprints and internal publications, with printings amounting to nearly two million volumes every year, the UNAM is the largest editorial concern in Latin America. The Directorship General of Publications and Editorial Foment oversees the edition, distribution and sale of these materials throughout the chain of university book stores.

Situated within the main plaza of the University Cultural Center beneath the Blue and Gold Cafeteria, the Julio Torri Book Store covers 200m2, which at any one time exhibits 4,000 titles published by diverse Mexican and international publishing houses. The store also has an area for book presentation and signing events.[Web site]

Located within the University campus at No. 3000 University Avenue, the Jaime Garcia Terres Book Store occupies 475m2 of which 300 are devoted to book shelves, habitually exhibiting up to 5,500 titles.

The store offers university students and professors a wide array of literature in every discipline as well as UNAM promotional merchandise. The music and video section is stocked with music and film for every taste, including hard to find titles, and the store’s 100m2 multipurpose room is used for a variety of literary events, conferences, round tables and book signings.[Web site]

The literature of Mexico has long been associated with the National University, which since its founding has sponsored Mexico’s most prominent authors. The UNAM, moreover, supports up-and-coming authors, while disseminating works by international writers and carrying out a wide range of reading and literacy endeavors within the university community and society at large. The Literature Directorship organizes literary contests and writing workshops, and regularly publishes books by new authors and preserves the work of prominent authors in its series Living Voices of Mexico and Latin America.

The Literature Directorship currently publishes twelve specialized collections under the following headings: Anthologies, The Big Tent, Diagonal, The Study, The Bridge, International Hopscotch, National Hopscotch, Reading Material, Contemporary Short Story, Modern Poetry, Co-Editions, Special Editions, Periodic Editions, Living Voices of Mexico and Latin America and Audio Books.[Sitio Web]

Published by the Literature Directorship of the UNAMLiving Voices of Mexico and Latin America Cultural Dissemination Coordinating Office, the Living Voices of Mexico and Latin America Collection is very likely the largest and most important audio series in the Spanish language. This series is proud to offer readings by prominent writers, including Mario Vargas Llosa, Rafael Alberti, Alfonso Reyes, Jaime Sabines, Carlos Fuentes, Octavio Paz, Miguel Angel Asturias, César Vallejo, Juan Carlos Onetti, Alejo Carpentier, Pablo Neruda, Rosario Castellanos, Elena Poniatowska and Jorge Luis Borges.

This vital collection, which currently contains voice recordings of 200 authors, was launched in 1959 by Spanish writer Max Aub (1903-1972) with a recording of Alfonso Reyes.[Web site]

The UNAM’s radio and television production endeavors have been active for more than half a century. The UNAM can take credit for launching Mexico’s first cultural radio station. Both TV UNAM and Radio UNAM serve as windows into the UNAM itself, providing the general public a privileged view of the university’s cultural and academic project.

TV UNAM began broadcasting in 1960 with a series of didactic and research oriented programs. From these modest origins, TV UNAM has consolidated its profile as a producer of cultural programming. In 1988 it launched broadcast operation from a modern building equipped with studios, editing rooms, laboratories, warehouses and offices. Currently, it produces new programs, serves as a medium of record for important university events and provides a variety of services to the UNAM and other institutions.[Web site]

Radio UNAM launched broadcast operations on June 14, 1937 and soon established itself as a pioneer in cultural extension broadcasting in Latin America. The 1960s are now widely considered the station’s golden decade, for it was in this period that Radio UNAM broadcast voices from a long list of prominent personalities who were enthusiastic about the station’s cultural project. Carlos Fuentes, Fernando Solana, Rosario Castellanos, José Emilio Pacheco, Sergio Pitol, Gabriel García Márquez, Juan García Ponce, Emmanuel Carballo, Carlos Monsiváis, Raúl López Malo, Elena Poniatowska, Luis Cardoza y Aragón, José Antonio Alcaraz and Juan Vicente Melo, are among many who have loaned their voices to Radio UNAM.

Installed since 2004 in the Palace of Autonomy in downtown Mexico City, which once housed the Rectory and several faculties of the UNAM, the UNAM’s new FM broadcasting operation broadcasts musical content, which constitutes a new thrust for the venerable radio station. Moreover, the station broadcasts 24-hours a day, 365 days a year on both AM and FM, with each frequency covering 12-hour slots.

The station also operates the Alejandro Gomez Arias Audio Library, which contains a vast archive of voice and music recordings stored in specially designed vaults to ensure their preservation. [Web site]

The University Film Studies Center was founded by Manuel Gonzalez Casanova in 1963, making it Latin America’s oldest film studies center. The Center’s mission is to train filmmakers across the broad range of genres and techniques in order to ensure the vitality of the Mexican film industry. This goal has been materialized in the numerous directors, photographers, script writers, producers, art directors, editors and sound engineers currently working in the bourgeoning feature film industry. Before Latin America had many film school alternatives, the CUEC received countless students from Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Puerto Rico and Uruguay, who returned to their countries to work in film, television and publicity, as well as in cinematography education. The Center has also been privileged to receive students from Germany, Denmark and Spain[Web site]

Equipped with diverse studios, classrooms, a specialized library and a theater with a capacity of 80 spectators, the University Theater Center is devoted to training actors. Over the years, the Center’s faculty has included prominent actors and directors such Hector Azar, Hector Mendoza, Juan Jose Gurrola, Luis de Tavira, Ludwik Margules, Jose Caballero, Jose Luis Cruz, Jesusa Rodriguez and Mauricio Jimenez.[Web site]

Built in the 1970s to provide dedicated venues for every genre of the performing arts, the University Cultural Center is a unique complex among university cultural projects, both in terms of architecture and scope.

The complex consists of the Netzahualcoyotl Concert Hall, the Juan Ruiz de Alarcon Theater, the Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz Forum, the Carlos Chavez Chamber Music Hall, the Miguel Covarrubias Dance Forum and the film projection halls named after Jose Revueltas and Julio Bracho. The complex is complemented by Julio Torri Book Store, the Blue and Gold Cafeteria and the Bibliographic Unit standing adjacent to the Sculpture Trail.

On any given day, visitors to the Center find a rich offering dance, theater and film, as well as regularly scheduled concerts by the UNAM Philharmonic Orchestra and the Mining Palace Orchestra, which offers a season in the summer months.

The University Cultural Center in Tlatelolco (CCUT) is housed in the old Foreign Relations Secretariat building complex that was turned over to the UNAM in 2006 for the express purpose of creating a project of broad scope to enrich the cultural and academic options in Mexico City’s northern region. This Center is flanked on the south by the Nonoalco-Tlatelolco Housing Projects, on the north by the Tlatelolco archeological site and the Plaza of Three Cultures, on the west by Lazaro Cardenas Avenue and on the east by a service area of the aforementioned housing projects.[Web site]

This iconic, graceful mansion, with its white façade and granite balustrades, stands on the shore of the Lower Lake of Chapultepec Forest. For more than four decades it has served as an important cultural center of the UNAM. Built in 1906 by order of Porfirio Diaz as the headquarters of Mexico’s first auto club, over the course of a century it has been used for social events, an official residence and administrative offices. In 1929 it was turned over to the care of the UNAM and served as the headquarters of the Institute of Biology. When the Institute was provided a building on the Central Campus in 1958, the Lake House became what it is today: a center for cultural dissemination and educational extension. Its first director was Juan Jose Arreola, one of Mexico’s most prominent men of letters, who left his indelible stamp on the Lake House, making it a model for cultural centers across the country.

Since its foundation as a cultural center, the Lake House has been in the eye of the storm of important artistic movements in the fields of theater, literature and plastic arts. Virtually the entire history of the Mexican vanguard can be traced to its doorstep, including the Poetry Out Loud movement protagonized by prominent personages including Octavio Paz, Carlos Fuentes, Elena Garro, Juan Jose Gurrola, Hector Mendoza and Juan Soriano.

It was also the epicenter of the so called “Rupture Generation” led by painters Manuel Felguerez, Lilia Carrillo, Vicente Rojo, Juan Soriano, Roger Von Gunten, Carlos Merida, Fernando Garcia Ponce and Jesus Reyes Ferreira, among others. Similarly, contemporary artists Jose Luis Cuevas, Arnold Belkin, Sebastian and Rafael Cauduro presented their early work in the Lake House galleries.

After undergoing a seven-year restoration and conservation process, the Lake House looks as if it were newly built.

The Lake House currently boasts of six stages for theater presentations, five exhibition rooms and five alternative spaces for artistic and cultural workshops and is surrounded by 16 thousand square meters of grounds in which children and adults can enjoy dance hall and folk dancing, concerts, children’s theater, puppet shows, storytelling, chess and gardening classes, crafts and science workshops, and myriad other activities ranging from environmental awareness seminars to hands-on courses in plastics arts. These activities attract more than three thousand participants every weekend. In addition to the Lake House itself, a recently restored annex has been added to the cultural center’s infrastructure. This building houses several galleries and workshop spaces, in addition to the center’s administrative offices.[Web site]