Project
In 1943, during the rectorship of Rodulfo Brito Foucher, the appropriate site was chosen to build the University City: the Pedregal de San Ángel. The area is the product of volcanic eruptions, mainly from the Xitle volcano, which occurred more than 2,000 thousand years ago.[2] It is believed that the decision was made by Foucher because the area seemed aesthetically beautiful to him, although the original project proposed its construction in the Huipulco hospital area.[3].
During the administration of the then President of the Republic, Manuel Ávila Camacho, and the rector of the UNAM, Genaro Fernández MacGregor, the University presented to the federal government a proposal for the Law on the Foundation and Construction of the University City, which was approved by the Congress of the Union on December 31, 1945. The following year, the rector Salvador Zubirán managed the acquisition of the chosen lands of approximately seven million square meters, and on September 11 In 1946, President Ávila Camacho issued the decree expropriating the land intended for the construction of the University City (CU).
The University did not have the financial resources to continue with the construction plan and it was not until the end of 1946, with the arrival of Miguel Alemán to the presidency of the Republic, that it had the necessary means to solve the economic problem. With this, the work that would lead to the formulation of a basic program for the general preliminary project of the work was reactivated.
The respective Commission organized a preliminary project competition for the realization of the overall plan of the CU, in which it invited the National School of Architecture "Faculty of Architecture (National Autonomous University of Mexico), the Society of Mexican Architects") and the National College of Architects of Mexico to participate.[4]
Due to its direct relationship with the creation of the new campus, the National School of Architecture decided to hold an “ideas contest” among the professors to develop the overall plan, based on the general ideas of the program that the Commission had defined and that were transmitted by the architect Enrique del Moral, director of the School. Prominent architects such as Augusto H. Álvarez, Mauricio de María y Campos"), Enrique del Moral, Eugenio Peschard, Xavier García Lascuráin"), Marcial Gutiérrez Camarena"), Vladimir Kaspé, Alonso Mariscal"), Mario Pani and Augusto Pérez Palacios, among others, participated in the competition.
The jury, made up of the participants themselves, ruled in favor of the works presented by the architects Mario Pani and Enrique del Moral, who were entrusted with directing the final project, as had been agreed in the competition. It should be noted that the architect Mauricio M. Campos joined the group, who was invited due to the interest he had long shown in the construction of this university space.
The enthusiasm generated in the National School of Architecture led not only to the development of the overall preliminary project, but also to the design of each of the buildings that would comprise it. In this way, for the preliminary project of each building, a team led by one or two teachers was appointed with the intervention of the most advantaged students. The participation of the then students of the last years of the degree, Teodoro González de León, Armando Franco Rovira and Enrique Molinar"), was of such importance that the directors of the project decided that the overall sketch made and proposed by them would serve as a basis for the development of the respective preliminary project.
The university works and the project prepared by the Society of Architects were presented before the jury made up of the representative of the rector of the UNAM, and the presidents of the National College of Architects of Mexico and the Society of Mexican Architects. The jury ruled in favor of the School of Architecture project.
A few months later, Rector Zubirán organized and chaired the Technical Director Commission that replaced the Commission that had been in place until the end of President Ávila Camacho's regime. It was made up of the architect José Villagrán García, as its executive representative; Mr. Díaz Cánovas, as personal representative of the President of the Republic; the engineer Alberto J. Flores, director of the National School of Engineering, and the architect Enrique del Moral, director of the National School of Architecture.
This Commission ratified the architects of Moral, Pani and Campos as directors and coordinators of the Joint Project, and granted them the power to designate all the architects who would be in charge of the projects of the various faculties, schools and institutes and the other buildings required by the University City. Likewise, it carried out the necessary arrangements for the university departments to designate advisors and consultants in charge of determining the requirements programs for each building.
