UNAM Rectory Tower

From Avenida Insurgentes, you can see over the superior esplanade a rectangular building with a glass facade. And at the top, the university’s coat of arms appears: two eagles, a Mexican eagle and an Andean condor; in the center, a map of Latin America and, above the eagles, a quote from José Vasconcelos: “Por mi raza hablará el espíritu” (“Through my race the spirit will speak”).

It was built by the architects Mario Pani, Enrique del Moral and Salvador Ortega Flores. With a modern-urbanist vision, the tower was erected with a structure of columns and reinforced concrete slabs. The stairs, elevators and services appear like blind cubes, covered in glassy tiles. Its boasts an architectural style known as “lecorbusiano”, named this way after the French architect Le Corbusier, considered one of the most important exponents of modern urbanist architecture.

Three works by David Alfaro Siquieros decorate the tower. On the university council cube is the mural Nuevo Símbolo de la Universidad, and although incomplete, you can see a condor and royal eagle biting into a sun, which represents truth and knowledge. On its southern side is the sculpture/painting Del Pueblo a la Universidad, la Universidad al pueblo; which depicts a group of university students carrying elements in their hands that allude to their identity and they advance towards a town, ready to pass on their acquired knowledge. On the northern side is the concrete work of art Las fechas en la historia de Mexico; in it you can see an arm with two hands with interlaced fingers, a third which sticks out and a pencil pointing towards an open book, where some of the country’s most important dates are written.