Sala Nezahualcóyotl

The Sala Nezahualcóyotl is a major performance space and concert hall. Historically, it has acted as the centerpiece to the UNAM University Cultural Center since it was dedicated at the end of 1976. The building went up as headquarters for the UNAM Philharmonic Orchestra and since then it has hosted many of the most important musical organizations in the country and from across Latin America.

Design of the building was trusted to architect Arcadio Artís (1946-2018). He’d graduated from the UNAM Faculty of Architecture only five years before. The project was completed in just one year and Artís went on, seemingly immediately, to design the the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and Juan Ruiz de Alarcón theaters, the Salas Miguel Covarrubias and Carlos Chávez, the Cinema Unit, plus the bookstore and the fountain on the patio. All of them are deliberately integrated into the volcanic landscape of the Pedregal. Later, the MUAC (Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo), by the extraordinary architect Teodoro González de León, was incorporated into the Cultural Center’s space and inaugurated in 2008.

The Sala has a stage of 240 square meters and took some inspiration from the Berlin Philharmonic, opened in 1963. The theater provides seating for some 2,229 arranged in seating on all sides of the stages. The arrangement of sound panels is intended to reflect music to all parts of the auditorium.

The Sala Nezahualcóyotl, for all its external bulk is a surprisingly intimate performance space. An essential part of the University Cultural Center, it remains a cultural treasure and reassuring anchor for its neighbors.