Monday 29 September 2008
Monday 8 September 2008
VISITA CASA BARRAGAN
SE LES RECUERDA A TODOS LOS ALUMNOS MEXICANOS QUE LA VISITA PROGRAMADA PARA EL DÍA DE MAÑANA 9 DE SEPTIEMBRE A LA CASA LUIS BARRAGÁN POR EL ARQ. JAVIER PEREZ GIL ES OBLIGATORIA Y CONTARÁ COMO PARTE DE LA CALIFICACIÓN PARA APROBAR EL CURSO.
ATTE.
LORENZA CAPDEVIELLE
ATTE.
LORENZA CAPDEVIELLE
Sunday 7 September 2008
Friday 5 September 2008
Thursday 4 September 2008
Confirmada Platica "Patrimonio Histórico de la Ciudad de México"
La conferencia del Arq. Rogelio Álvarez se llevará acabo el próximo viernes 5 de septiembre a las 9:00 en el aula k3.
Tuesday 2 September 2008
Confirmada Platica "Proyectos Estratégicos: Plaza de la República"
La platica del Arq. Felipe Leal será el miercoles 3 de septiembre a las 9:00 en el auditorio del taller Jorge González Reyna.
about CU by Javier Perez-Gil
texto sobre CU.
The National Autonomous University of Mexico’s Central Campus in Mexico City locally known as "Ciudad Universitaria" or “CU”, was built between 1950 and 1954. On 2007 this icon of Modern architecture in Mexico, was declared a Heritage Site by the UNESCO (honor shared by not more than five modern buildings or group of buildings throughout the world). There is still on the site a feeling of being in an island, a balmy, green and peaceful island, installed in the belly of a nervous beast.
The area, a plot of 1853 acres in the once south outskirts of the city, was completely forlorn and covered with the expressive lava from the eruption of the nearby Xitle, a now extinct volcano.
All the different schools of the oldest University built in the continent, once scattered throughout adapted old palaces, hospitals and convents in the Center of Mexico City were included in this vast project. It was inaugurated in 1952 by President Miguel Alemán.
A group of students of the School of Architecture proposed schematic solutions for the enterprise. The architects Mario Pani (1911-1993) and Enrique del Moral (1906-1987) developed the Master Plan and directed a group of around 150 architects and engineers. One of the longest and most important roads of the City, Avenue Insurgentes, runs through the compound as part of the urban project. On one side of the avenue a magnificent stadium was constructed signaling the main east-west composition axis of the new campus.
The stadium by Augusto Pérez Palacios, Raúl Salinas and Jorge Bravo, is completely covered in volcanic stone. On its main facade a mural by Diego Rivera depicts emblematic eagles that protect the youth, and figures that carry torches, like a premonition of its grand destiny, for this stadium hosted the Olympic Games in 1968. The surface of the surrounding parking space slopes down and then the stadium arises in terraces that make it look like a great pyramid, or the emerging volcano’s crater.
From the stadium one can cross under the avenue and access the central pedestrian plaza. One can also move around by "Puma-buses" (Puma is the Spanish name for panthers, the name of the University soccer team) that run around the gigantic block to the different schools. Another means of transportation is bicycles that are available in several booths, and free for the use of students and professors.
The main plaza is enormous; one has a sense of being at the archeological sites of Monte Albán or Teotihuacán.
The landscape project was done by no less than Luis Barragán, it has plenty of green areas shaded by old ashes and pines, colorful bougainvillea and jacarandas, scented wax and pepper trees and the autochthonous vegetation so dear to Barragán. Geometrical water reservoirs and monumental stairs, all covered with the volcanic stone slightly changed the topography but preserved the natural environment.
Placed strategically on different parts of the campus are the many murals with which the "Muralists" wanted to spread the nationalist propaganda. The history of Mexico and the "mission" of each school, as seen by David Alfaro Siqueiros, Diego Rivera, Jose Chávez Morado, and many others. These eloquent Murals are applied on the buildings exterior. Sometimes the surfaces emerge with the mural, adding force, movement and dramatic gesture but surprisingly, never affecting the interior space.
Facing the stadium, Rector’s Tower reigns over the main plaza. It is the tallest building on campus. It’s foyer, once the admissions office, let’s the light pour in through façades of alabaster.
The indisputable highlight is the Main Library building to the north of the plaza. An almost windowless box covered completely by murals. With gray, yellow, white, brown and red stone Juan O´Gorman depicted masked deities, churches on top of pyramids, open books, conquerors on horses, serpents, devils and warriors, the sun, water, and fire, Copernicus, Ptolemy.... Mexican and human history.
Each School has its own building, designed by a different team; the arrangement of the buildings is asymmetrical with a succession of masses and voids that allow to different smaller plazas between the schools. But the buildings have great movement by themselves. The beautiful Cosmic Ray Laboratory by Jorge Gonzales Reyna and Félix Candela adjacent to the School of Sciences, looks like an alien star-ship of very light concrete. The ramps in the School of Medicine float back and forth like paper origami connecting the floors of the two towers covered in mosaic. The skylights of the School of Engineering are little igloos from the outside and tiny observatories from the inside. The movable parasols of the School of Medicine make the building vibrate like a caterpillar. The use of glass blocks overlapped with the transparent glass in the School of Architecture eloquently express the different needs of the spaces that the materials enclose. There are only four towers, the rest of the fifty seven buildings have a more horizontal shape. The Schools of Philosophy, Letters and Political Sciences congregate to the north of the Campus. They stand on Modernist ¨pilotis¨, leaving a huge elongated arcade on the ground floor, where often political discussions take place. Every building speaks its message out, every School plays its role in the vociferous orchestra.
Sports facilities group to the south, outside the main loop. There is the open swimming pool with its daring diving boards and seating platforms. The eight pelota courts "frontones" by Alberto T. Arai, slightly pitched walls covered with volcanic stone resembling the "juegos de pelota" that can be seen in almost every archaeological site in Mexico.
New additions to the original project have been skillfully integrated in the more than fifty years that have passed. Most of the new buildings added are outside from the main original super block: post-grad buildings, investigation institutes, a cultural compound with theaters and state of the art concert halls, transportation facilities and a new museum to be opened soon. There is also a botanical garden and the natural reserve where one can still see the undulating topography and the endemic vegetation growing between the extravagant lava formations.
Throughout the day this great site surprises us from its different angles. Shifts of students stroll around, playing "cascarita" (an improvised soccer game), moving from one activity to the other, or gathering around the many cafeterias. By night the lighting project makes everything even more dramatic, the main buildings emerge from a vast dark void towards the sky. On Sundays the campus becomes a park for strollers, roller skaters and families with dogs.
The landscape is meticulously preserved and the interior facilities updated periodically. One can sense the dynamism provided by the youth, but also a pride of belonging to their own free, civilized realm. It is a magical, soothing space, so unlike the hectic City that surrounds it.
The National Autonomous University of Mexico’s Central Campus in Mexico City locally known as "Ciudad Universitaria" or “CU”, was built between 1950 and 1954. On 2007 this icon of Modern architecture in Mexico, was declared a Heritage Site by the UNESCO (honor shared by not more than five modern buildings or group of buildings throughout the world). There is still on the site a feeling of being in an island, a balmy, green and peaceful island, installed in the belly of a nervous beast.
The area, a plot of 1853 acres in the once south outskirts of the city, was completely forlorn and covered with the expressive lava from the eruption of the nearby Xitle, a now extinct volcano.
All the different schools of the oldest University built in the continent, once scattered throughout adapted old palaces, hospitals and convents in the Center of Mexico City were included in this vast project. It was inaugurated in 1952 by President Miguel Alemán.
A group of students of the School of Architecture proposed schematic solutions for the enterprise. The architects Mario Pani (1911-1993) and Enrique del Moral (1906-1987) developed the Master Plan and directed a group of around 150 architects and engineers. One of the longest and most important roads of the City, Avenue Insurgentes, runs through the compound as part of the urban project. On one side of the avenue a magnificent stadium was constructed signaling the main east-west composition axis of the new campus.
The stadium by Augusto Pérez Palacios, Raúl Salinas and Jorge Bravo, is completely covered in volcanic stone. On its main facade a mural by Diego Rivera depicts emblematic eagles that protect the youth, and figures that carry torches, like a premonition of its grand destiny, for this stadium hosted the Olympic Games in 1968. The surface of the surrounding parking space slopes down and then the stadium arises in terraces that make it look like a great pyramid, or the emerging volcano’s crater.
From the stadium one can cross under the avenue and access the central pedestrian plaza. One can also move around by "Puma-buses" (Puma is the Spanish name for panthers, the name of the University soccer team) that run around the gigantic block to the different schools. Another means of transportation is bicycles that are available in several booths, and free for the use of students and professors.
The main plaza is enormous; one has a sense of being at the archeological sites of Monte Albán or Teotihuacán.
The landscape project was done by no less than Luis Barragán, it has plenty of green areas shaded by old ashes and pines, colorful bougainvillea and jacarandas, scented wax and pepper trees and the autochthonous vegetation so dear to Barragán. Geometrical water reservoirs and monumental stairs, all covered with the volcanic stone slightly changed the topography but preserved the natural environment.
Placed strategically on different parts of the campus are the many murals with which the "Muralists" wanted to spread the nationalist propaganda. The history of Mexico and the "mission" of each school, as seen by David Alfaro Siqueiros, Diego Rivera, Jose Chávez Morado, and many others. These eloquent Murals are applied on the buildings exterior. Sometimes the surfaces emerge with the mural, adding force, movement and dramatic gesture but surprisingly, never affecting the interior space.
Facing the stadium, Rector’s Tower reigns over the main plaza. It is the tallest building on campus. It’s foyer, once the admissions office, let’s the light pour in through façades of alabaster.
The indisputable highlight is the Main Library building to the north of the plaza. An almost windowless box covered completely by murals. With gray, yellow, white, brown and red stone Juan O´Gorman depicted masked deities, churches on top of pyramids, open books, conquerors on horses, serpents, devils and warriors, the sun, water, and fire, Copernicus, Ptolemy.... Mexican and human history.
Each School has its own building, designed by a different team; the arrangement of the buildings is asymmetrical with a succession of masses and voids that allow to different smaller plazas between the schools. But the buildings have great movement by themselves. The beautiful Cosmic Ray Laboratory by Jorge Gonzales Reyna and Félix Candela adjacent to the School of Sciences, looks like an alien star-ship of very light concrete. The ramps in the School of Medicine float back and forth like paper origami connecting the floors of the two towers covered in mosaic. The skylights of the School of Engineering are little igloos from the outside and tiny observatories from the inside. The movable parasols of the School of Medicine make the building vibrate like a caterpillar. The use of glass blocks overlapped with the transparent glass in the School of Architecture eloquently express the different needs of the spaces that the materials enclose. There are only four towers, the rest of the fifty seven buildings have a more horizontal shape. The Schools of Philosophy, Letters and Political Sciences congregate to the north of the Campus. They stand on Modernist ¨pilotis¨, leaving a huge elongated arcade on the ground floor, where often political discussions take place. Every building speaks its message out, every School plays its role in the vociferous orchestra.
Sports facilities group to the south, outside the main loop. There is the open swimming pool with its daring diving boards and seating platforms. The eight pelota courts "frontones" by Alberto T. Arai, slightly pitched walls covered with volcanic stone resembling the "juegos de pelota" that can be seen in almost every archaeological site in Mexico.
New additions to the original project have been skillfully integrated in the more than fifty years that have passed. Most of the new buildings added are outside from the main original super block: post-grad buildings, investigation institutes, a cultural compound with theaters and state of the art concert halls, transportation facilities and a new museum to be opened soon. There is also a botanical garden and the natural reserve where one can still see the undulating topography and the endemic vegetation growing between the extravagant lava formations.
Throughout the day this great site surprises us from its different angles. Shifts of students stroll around, playing "cascarita" (an improvised soccer game), moving from one activity to the other, or gathering around the many cafeterias. By night the lighting project makes everything even more dramatic, the main buildings emerge from a vast dark void towards the sky. On Sundays the campus becomes a park for strollers, roller skaters and families with dogs.
The landscape is meticulously preserved and the interior facilities updated periodically. One can sense the dynamism provided by the youth, but also a pride of belonging to their own free, civilized realm. It is a magical, soothing space, so unlike the hectic City that surrounds it.
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