New national theater
Between May 28 and June 27, 1901, the search for land for the new building was carried out, choosing a space that throughout history had different uses. The space in the century was occupied by the so-called tianguis of Juan Velázquez"), a name given to a market located near the house of an indigenous person of that name.[5] Starting in 1601, the convent of Santa Isabel would be built in that space&action=edit&redlink=1 "Convent of Santa Isabel (Mexico City) (not yet written)"),[6] which was confiscated and vacated after the Reform laws of 1857. The space between La Mariscala, Puente de San Francisco, Santa Isabel and Mirador de la Alameda streets (today called Hidalgo Avenue, Juárez Avenue, Eje Central Lázaro Cárdenas and Ángela Peralta, respectively) had part of the structure of the convent, partly converted into different spaces. Among them, the Torcida Moreau silk factory as well as precarious housing where factory workers lived. and single mothers, among other people; the Villar Institute and the Central House of the Telephone Company as well as the headquarters of the French Philharmonic Society.[3] The Government of the Federal District proceeded to expropriate the land where part of the original convent building was located, but used for shops and warehouses, among other uses.[4].
Boari requested a license to travel to the United States and Europe, where he would obtain more information about other theaters in the world, and meanwhile Garita continued with the respective calculations. On July 17, 1902, the project calculation reports were delivered to the authorities. Boari's preliminary study would be published in the Annals of the Ministry of Communications and Public Works.[2] Boari would disagree with working with Garita and Garita would accuse him of invading his professional competence, so he abandoned the project. The authorities, finally, rejected Garita's work and would stick to the Italian's project.[4] The structuring of the building was done at Boari's request to the American studio Miliken Brothers") with plans and calculations by engineer William H. Birkmire").[2] Such construction systems were common in the modernizing buildings of the time with a steel structure,[7] the same Milliken Brothers studio would work with Boari in the construction of the future Legislative Precinct (today Monument to the Revolution "Monument to the Revolution (Mexico)").[7].
The works on the Palace of Fine Arts began on August 2, 1904.[6] In February 1905, the excavations of the foundation were completed, which was carried out between 2.8 and 3.50 meters with an extremely arduous effort for the laborers who worked in humid conditions. Among other construction elements, a modern railway track was placed outside the work that helped extract the materials resulting from the work more quickly to two workshops outside the work, one in the vicinity of the work and the other on Puente de San Francisco Street. tezontle.[8].
The first stone of the enclosure was placed on April 2, 1905 by the then president, Porfirio Díaz.[3].
In 1906, the foundation platform of the future theater and the metal skeleton of most of the building were completed,[3] which arrived in the country on June 6 of that year from the United States.[8] Within its construction, both traditional construction and decorative processes were used as well as those considered innovative at the time. While workers carried out the fine carving of marble and other materials, crane and pulley mechanisms placed the elements in place through precise maneuvers.[3] On the other hand, progress was made in the work of the building based on the use of concrete and innovative steel structures that allowed new spaces and architectural solutions.[7].
The space in front of the palace was planned in Boari's project as a large open plaza that was intended to become a new space that would rival the Zócalo, which was planned under the name Guardiola Square, given the Guardiola House) that was located nearby. It was calculated based on provisions of the time that established a greater width in the exterior spaces of the buildings for a better appreciation of their facades.[8].
The process of covering the building took from 1907 to 1911.[8] The architect of the project decided to make a combination of national and international marbles provided, mixing on the one hand light sepia marble from the Cerro del Tenayo in the lower parts of the palace, and on the panels, marble from the municipality of Buenavista de Cuéllar, in the state of Guerrero. On the other hand, the 27 columns and cornices would be made with bianco chiaro altisimo and statuario arabescato marble with blocks from the companies Triscornia and Henreaux and Walton Goody and Cripps, a Carrara marble extractor.[2] In 1910, the year in which the main tympanum of the façade of the enclosure was placed.
In 1906 Boari traveled to Europe again to select the artists and works of the decorative elements of the building, a fact that he asked the government to do directly, without bidding involved. The exterior ironworks were designed by Alexandro Mazucotelli, an artist from Milan, and Luis Romero Soto, a Mexican artist; The sculptures of the sculptural program of the façade were carried out by the sculptor Leonardo Bistolfi, based in Turin, where he met the Hungarian sculptor Géza Maróti at an international exhibition), who was in charge of the sculptural group of the dome, the leaded glass ceiling and iron frames where Apollo and the nine muses are shown on Mount Olympus in the Main Hall[9] and a mosaic on the arch of the proscenium with 27 figures above the theater. Meanwhile, Agustí Querol Subirats received the work of some fountains that would be placed in Guardiola Square as well as the monumental sculptures of four pegasi. The original decorative arts projects were not completed as originally planned, for example, Querol's project included two monumental fountains that would flank the entrance, which were not completed. The ceiling and the Maróti mosaic would not be placed until the 4th. June 1924.[6].
Due to technical problems of ground subsidence, economic problems, Boari's departure from the country, and the Mexican Revolution, construction was suspended and resumed several times over thirty years, instead of being completed in the originally scheduled four years.
With the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, the pace of the work slowed down until it was finally suspended in 1916. Boari left Mexico and left more than four thousand documents in the country for the continuation of the project. An attempt was made to resume the work between 1919 and 1928, with little progress.
Adamo Boari would try to participate in the project again, presenting in 1927 a project to convert it into the Cinema México, a modern movie theater.[2] The architect would review his work as the most important of his career,[6] comparing it in importance with the Paris Opera.[2] When Mexico regained stability in economic and social terms, work resumed in 1931 under the command of architect Federico Mariscal; By then it took the name of the Palace of Fine Arts.
The first conductor to conduct a concert at the National Theater was José F. Vásquez, at the head of the Compañía de Ópera Mexicana S. C. L., Pro Arte Nacional, when presenting the opera, Atzimba, by Ricardo Castro, on September 18, 1928.