Category: Institutions
Region: Mexico
Year: 1992
Location: MEXICO CITY, MEXICO
FT2 Construction: 13,993 sq ft
FT2 Ground: 0 sq ft
Involved Areas: Architecture, Interior Design, Remodeling

Collaborators:
ARQUITECTURA Y DISEÑO DE INTERIORES: LEGORRETA^®
Ricardo Legorreta
Noé Castro
Gerardo Alonso
Max Betancourt
Joaquín Pineda
Erika Krayer

Consultants:

STRUCTURAL DESIGN: Ing. Alfredo Salas, DIRAC
ELECTRICAL DESIGN: Ing. Alberto Ríos INGENIERÍA RIM
MECHANICAL DESIGN: Ing. Jorge Armando Perez ICA
GENERAL CONTRACTOR: Ing. Jorge Armando Pérez ICA Ing. Roberto Heatley TUGA

Photographer:

Lourdes Legorreta
Ma. Dolores Robles - Martínez


As people, most of the buildings have alterations through their life and the Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso is not an exception. Those modifications are in some cases right, others arent, and must of them cant be recovered. This building has suffered the history scars because of the different uses and important alterations it has had: the building construction towards Justo Sirra at the beginning of the century, the Jose Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, David Alfonso Siquieros, Fernado Leal, Jean Charlote, Fermin Revueltas and Ramon Alva de la Canal murals painting,the changes in chambers and arcades as the addition of metallic canals and earthquake reinforcements, modified the original concept that included pavements, ceilings and quarry details. The adaptation of the College Universitarian Museum has been a very interesting professional experience because of it ?s process. It ?s hard to gather a multi-disciplinary team with so different specialists as the one that made this adaptation work. The National Culture and Arts Council used the exhibition “Mexico, thirty centuries splendor” as a publicity element of this project. The Distrito Federal Department financed this works and the UNAM (Mexican National Autonomous University) donated the building and watched the project process as its works and the museum operation. To free the building of elements that had modified and harmed it, has been the restoration criterion, fixing what can be fixed, because is impossible to get it to its original state. In other words, the target is to show a master architectonic work with dignity but without denying the history scars. The new elements have been handled with discretion without pretending to impose new criterions and respecting the building, with the intention to deliver to the UNAM a building that recovers the dignity that deserves. The main Legorreta + Legorreta objective was to make the College work as Universitarian Museum, first and most important need required by the UNAM. Two areas that were not changed or modified were the littlest building yard that is still being used as a filmic library and the greenhouse that is over the Simon Bolivar amphitheater.