Visit to Museo Universitario del Chopo

The building that nowadays is known as Museo del Chopo is a piece originally designed by Bruno Möhring in a typical german Jugendstil (similar to French Art Noveau but in Germany). It is a steel structure with compacted bricks and inner pine wood ceilings created for the Arts and Textile Industry Exhibition in Düsseldorf, Germany in 1902. Before this use, the ideas was for the building to be the machine room for a metallurgic workshop.

Entrepreneur José Landero y Coss bought part of the building to install Compañía Mexicana de Exposición Permanente, S.A. in México, City to offer it for trade shows.

Mr. Luis Bacmeister was in charge of the assembly in what at that time was the first planned neighborhood of México City; Santa María la Ribera. This area used to be a symbol of modernity inside the city. The building was assembled with an industrial process in number 10 of Chopo Street, now called Enrique González Martínez street.

During the history of the building, it has been used as trade shows venue, Museum of Natural History, Japanese Pavilion for the Exhibition of Japanese Industrial Art, Rock Concert Hall, Cultural Flea Market, Art Museum, Cultural Center, Cultural Movie Theater, and today, just a Cultural Museum for the Arts.

From 2005 to 2010, the building entered into remodeling works leaded by Architects Enrique Norten and Felipe Leal.

This building is part of UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) since 1929.

The building in numbers:

Surface: 1500m2

Hight of the central block: 32m

Hight of lateral towers: 45m.

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