Casa del Lago was instituted in 1959 as the first off-campus Cultural Center of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. It is characterized by its extraordinary ability to promote the cultural and generational encounter between the vanguard and tradition. It was established with Juan José Arreola as its founding director and is located in the Woods of Chapultepec, a traditional Sunday walk area for the inhabitants of the capital.
In each of the artistic disciplines, that have taken place in this multifaceted enclosure, the originality and experimentation have gathered together and allowed the creators to show how the contemporary is not incompatible with the large popular audience that visit it, turn it into an emblematic place in the cultural scene of the city.
Activities
As in the beginning, half a century ago, Casa del Lago, opens its doors to young, national and foreign artists with original and controversial proposals, with a cultural offering where emerging expressions are significant. Intense work is done in the field of visual arts, which provides the necessary means and space for artists of different ages to develop their ideas and their quality curatorial projects. It has also promoted the theatrical work of the younger generation of directors and actors. Dance has brought together the most diverse choreographic styles, all in unconventional spaces.
Alternative and emergent music has been present in diverse groups and soloists playing rock, jazz, tango, flamenco, new song, and new trends of the genres. Chess, driven by Juan José Arreola, is maintained through the various tournaments that are held annually. The Cinema Club has promoted the documentary form in a permanent way through its participation in festivals (Ambulante and DOCSDF) and has opened its spaces to young filmmakers in different film debate cycles. The program of courses and workshops has increased in over 30 disciplines, many with new and critical vision.
It revived, from a contemporary perspective, what initially was known as Poetry Out Loud, just a few years after the inauguration of this university forum in Chapultepec, through a festival that seeks to reclaim this tradition that called thinkers, intellectuals and artist of the time. It links national and international artists of today with prominent poets from different oral traditions, as the "decimistas jarochos", indigenous poets, and the recent generation of young Mexican artists, from new literary currents, where the new musical technologies are also present, the writing in relation to sound, rhythm and the lyric skills of the artist.
Casa del Lago has multiplied its cultural offers in the same way that the university community and the creators and public communities have increased, keeping alive that "dialogue between history and present as a basis of their identity", making permanent that spirit of risk, of its vocation in the search for the experimental, emergent and purposeful, becoming an alternative art site, ideal meeting place for young people and for the people, by their tastes and training. For example, from 27 August 2009 to 6 September 2009 Caso del Lago staged an exhibition of avant-garde installation art in its grounds featuring ¿Olvida usted algo? – ¡Ojalá! by artist Susana Rodríguez and Gloria Desierta by Emanuel Tovar.
Among alumni of the Case del Lago is painter Eva Laura Moraga.
History
The construction of the building began in 1906, but it was inaugurated as the headquarters of the first Automobile Club in Mexico until April 30, 1908. In 1929, it was home to the Biological Studies Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Development (la Dirección de Estudios Biológicos de la Secretaría de Agricultura y Fomento). University autonomy definitely influenced the fate of Casa del Lago joining it to the National University and housing the new Institute for Biology, until 1959 when it moved to the new facilities created in Ciudad Universitaria (University City). On 10 May 1959 the enclosure opened its doors as a center for the promotion and dissemination of culture, but the official opening took place on September 15 of the same year.
By agreement of the rector Juan Ramón de la Fuente 31 January 2002 it was given the name of its founding director: Juan José Arreola, who turned it into the model of the national cultural centre with deep roots and prestige in Latin America, and where, over the past 50 years, representatives of the artistic vanguard of the country have gathered.
