50 years of the building for Amalia Hernández Folk Ballet School

Like the Camino Real Hotel, the building, built ex Professo for the Amalia Hernández folk Ballet school, celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2018. Let's get to know a little more about this work and the ideas behind Agustín Hernández ' Architecture.

 

In his entry speech to the Academy of arts, the architect Agustín Hernández Commented: "architecture is the historical bridge, the dialogue that communicates to all times, the formal language of history that requires us, through collective memory, to be the factor Decisive in defending our cultural Identity. "

This is verified in each work carried out by this great figure of the national architecture, whose visionary talent resulted in a creative and daring architectural legacy. Works such as the Architect's workshop, designed in 1972, or the meditation center of Cuernavaca, Morelos (1984) are clear examples of the Above. The strong pre-hispanic reminiscence linked to the new technological and constructive possibilities made that, according to the pre-hispanic art researcher Beatriz de la Fuente, Agustín Hernández will renew "the meaning of ancestral monuments by incorporating, Updating them, parts of Them. "

To show the building that concerns us today, a work that seeks to understand the importance of non-european ancient cultures for the genesis of modern architecture of the twentieth century in our Country. This building, in turn, materializes another story, the folkloric Ballet of mexico, founded by Amalia Hernández, choreographer, dancer, cultural broadcaster and sister of the architect, whose vision to enrich the dance in our country, led to conceive a new site Educational.

Although it did not have its own space, the school started working with two halls that the National Institute of Fine Arts offered the ballet with the aim of creating professional dancers of high performance capable of executing to perfection different Styles of dance and that in turn could be integrated into the COMPANY. there, the dancers rehearsed and classes were taught to children and young people; however, very soon this space proved insufficient because of the growth that the company began to experience and the number of applicants who wanted to study There.

This is how Amalia Hernández decided to create a space that would cover all the requirements of a formal school and to carry out such an important task, the talent and extraordinary vision of the architect Agustín Hernández was Necessary.

"Amalia was a woman with an incredible spatial consciousness: all her choreography was space and movement, and I inspired to do the school." I would comment on the architect time After.

In 1966 began the construction of the school in a land located in the street of Violet Corner with Riva Palacio, in the Colony Guerrero, Mexico City and two years later, on March 26, 1968, was inaugurated by then President of Mexico Gustavo Díaz Ordaz . The building is to date, an avant-garde construction by its architectural design, a modern interpretation of neo-pre-hispanic style emerged at the beginning of the twentieth century with prominent authors such as Manuel Amabilis. It retakes the structure of slope and board typical of pre-columbian pyramidal bases: a formal solution of great plasticity to house in its interior two large rehearsal rooms, a theatre and an office Section.

Classified by the critic and art historian Louise Noelle as a "habitable sculpture", where "the movement of pre-hispanic inspiration was the conditioning of design"; According to Beatriz de la Fuente's evaluation, only details, such as the change of the lattices with the smooth walls, reminiscent of the Ph'uc style; The moldings similar to those found in Monte Alban Las alfardas, as in a late Postclassic temple, and perhaps the lineaments and contrasts of light, evoke Mexico's past before Spanish Acculturation.

So let's celebrate with music and dance to this building that, at 50 years of its inauguration, it checks the phrase of the architect Hernández "today's architecture must have something of yesterday, but much of tomorrow".