ANTIGUO COLEGIO DE SAN ILDEFONSO

Running along the north side of the Templo Mayor is the imposing red-brick facade, divided by three baroque portals, of the Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso, first begun by Jesuit friars in 1588. Originally it was only a small school, but the Jesuits steadily expanded the building and the number of students until 1767, when the Spanish crown expelled the Jesuit order from New Spain and seized their properties. Shortly thereafter it served as a law school and medical school before undergoing a mid-19th-century conversion into the Preparatoria Nacional, an institute that groomed students for the Universidad Nacional.

  In 1922, shortly after the end of the Mexican revolution, idealistic Education Minister José Vasconcelos hired a number of young, then-unknown Mexican artists to paint the walls of the Antiguo Colegio with murals depicting their vision of the revolutionary nation, thus beginning the mural movement that would become so important to 20th-century Mexican art. Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, Davíd Alfaro Siqueiros, Fermín Revueltas, Ramón Alva de la Canal, Fernando Leal, and Jean Charlot all painted different sections of the old school. On several occasions while the painters worked, the school had to be barred and guarded by the police to protect the artists and murals from citizens who disagreed with the artists’ sensibilities and leftist ideals.

  At the entrance to the Patio Principal (Main Patio), you’ll see the first mural painted, Alva de la Canal’s El desembarque de los españoles y la cruz plantada en tierras nuevas, depicting the beginning of mestizaje (the cultural and genetic mixing of the Spanish and Indian peoples) and the birth of modern Mexico. Directly in front is Alegoría de la Virgen de Guadalupe, by Revueltas. The Orozco murals on the walls of the main patio are famed for their intensity, particularly Cortés y la Malinche, showing the conquistador and his lover/interpreter naked and holding hands.

  In the Anfiteatro Bolívar, an addition built in 1911 at the front of the school and intended to copy the rest of the building’s baroque style, Diego Rivera painted his first mural, La creación. He had just returned from living in Europe, and the artistic influence of the Old Continent can easily be spotted in the cubist elements and hints of Italian fresco style seen in the mural. Rivera’s early interest in Asian symbolism is also apparent in the way an angel in the mural holds his hands in a classic Zen meditation pose. (A preliminary sketch for this detail in the private Gelman Collection is labeled Wisdom, indicating that the hand gesture was no coincidence.)

  In 1992 the Antiguo Colegio was converted into a museum and cultural center (Justo Sierra 16, tel. 5792-5223 or 5702-6378, 10 a.m.–6 p.m. Sun.–Fri., 10 a.m.–9 p.m. Sat., admission $4), and it often hosts exhibits and events of cultural interest. On weekends, music and dance groups from around Mexico frequently hold concerts in one of the two large courtyards. A small café on the 2nd floor of the main patio is a fine spot to take a rest and drink in the atmosphere along with refreshments.