About the ex-hacienda La Pila (a heritage site from the 18th and 19th centuries) located in the western area of Toluca, it was decided to build a state cultural centre by converting the hacienda’s main house into the Museum of Popular Cultures and Charrería, and adapting a building originally designed as a planetarium to become the State Museum of Modern Art. The State Library and the Museum of Anthropology, both designed by the architect Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, complement the cultural complex.
The lobby space of the Museum of Modern Art contains a wonderful 22-meter-long mural made of carved basaltic stone, titled “The Bed of the Universe,” a work by master Nishizawa.
The urban intention of creating this cultural pole in the far west of the city seeks to counteract the current trend of growth to the east.
GDU was in charge of restoring and adapting the hacienda into the mentioned museums, as well as the project for the Museum of Modern Art (in collaboration with the architect Gonzalo Gómez Palacio). The large Central Plaza is inspired by the complex of pre-Hispanic ruins of Teotenango that ascends towards the Nevado de Toluca as the guiding axis of the complex. In the centre of the Plaza, a water mirror was designed with huge basaltic stones that recall pre-Hispanic steles (in collaboration with the master Luis Nishizawa).
