It is just the sort of question that might come up on a TV quiz show or a question and answer board game. “What is the oldest university in the Western Hemisphere?” Most North Americans would probably say that it was Harvard. After all, 1636 is a very early date in U.S. history, but 1553 is even earlier. That is the year a Spanish royal charter was granted for the establishment of a Mexican university in the old Aztec capital. This was not long after the fall of the city and conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1521 by Hernan Cortes the Spanish conquistador.

Mexico was then known as New Spain and the new Royal University was intended to follow the pattern of the 300 year-old University of Salamanca in Spain. Great emphasis was placed on the teaching of theology and the liberal arts. With Papal approval in 1597 this first university in the New World came to be known as the Royal and Pontifical University of New Spain. Following independence from Spain in 1821 its name was changed to the National and Pontifical University of Mexico.

From independence onward, the history of Mexico has been turbulent. The University has had its ups and downs during this period, being caught up in the struggle to separate church and state. After the Revolution of 1910 it became secularized and called the National University of Mexico. By 1929 it achieved self-government and the name since then, the National Autonomous University of Mexico, reflects that fact.

Until the 1950’s, the University was physically located in various places in central Mexico City. A plan for the construction of a new campus with plenty of room for future expansion had gradually taken form. In 1946, the President of the Republic, Avila Camacho, set aside about 2.8 square miles of the Federal District for the future campus. It was located in an area of old lava beds known as the Pedregal, some ten miles south of the center of Mexico City. Following a ground- breaking ceremony in June of 1950, some 10,000 manual laborers went to work under the direction of the University Building Committee. This collaboration of Mexico’s leading architects and artists has produced a monumental, functional and unique campus, which visitors to Mexico City will not want to miss.

Works of some of the greatest Mexican muralists decorate various buildings all over the campus and this is one of its main attractions. Dominating the sky-line on the west side of the main quadrangle stands the Central Library, a ten-story structure without windows. Juan O’Gorman covers all four sides, of this cube shaped building, with mosaics. The theme is Mexico and change and each wall tells a part of the national story. On the north is depicted the Pre-Hispanic culture of the Aztec and other indigenous groups. The south wall is devoted to the Spanish colonial impact of culture and religion on the native people of Mexico. The west wall shows the shield of the National University and stands for the present while the east wall has a depiction of an atom and represents the future.


Inside this work of art is a functioning library with a capacity for 2,000,000 volumes. Students are everywhere, reading, checking out books and working computers. With an official enrollment of more than 270,000 full and part time undergraduate and graduate students, all the other buildings as well as the library are full of people. Virtually all of them commute to the University. There is a campus, but there are no dormitories as such.

The Administration Building is a short walk from the Central Library and is decorated with murals by David Alfaro Siqueiros. He was one of the giants of contemporary Mexican art during the period of construction. The south wall of this building is decorated with a mural on the importance of education to the Mexican nation. His title for this work was “The people to the University; the University to the people, for a national, neo-humanistic culture of universal depth.” It is an unusual combination of painting, sculpture and Mexican mosaic and is the largest of several others by Siqueiros decorating this building. The huge mural generated some controversy when it was finished and Siqueiros replied as follows: “For exterior muralism, there is now a new type of spectator, an active spectator, frequently a motorist, who may be traveling at sixty miles an hour. Consequently, special principles of composition are required”. To the east across the great quadrangle, the eye is drawn to the tall wall of the medical school. Here, Francisco Eppens Helguera has executed a mosaic in Mexican stone full of pre-Hispanic symbolism on the subject of Life and Death. At the center is a triple-faced mask symbolizing the ancestral heritage of modern Mexico. The right profile is that of the Spanish father while the left profile is the native-American mother. The face in the center represents the son, a Mexican mestizo of the new race.

Around every corner, one encounters mosaic murals on the ultra-modern buildings. Across the Avenida Insurgentes Sur stands the Olympic Stadium decorated by a mosaic of colored rocks, depicting human endeavor in sports, executed by Diego Rivera, another giant of the Mexican art world. The structure resembles the crater of a volcano and seats more than 100,000 people. It was rebuilt and enlarged for the 1968 summer Olympics. So, there is much to be seen at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. The easiest and quickest way to get there from anyplace in Mexico City is on the subway, or Metro, as it is called. Get on to Line 3 and go to either Copilco or Universidad stations at the south end of the line. Wear good walking shoes, but also be aware that the University operates a free bus system anyone can ride. I can guarantee that you will come away from your visit with a new and altered idea of what Mexico is all about.