Teatros junto a los hospitales : los conjuntos de seguridad social del IMSS en la presidencia de Adolfo López Mateos 1958-1964 / Enrique X. De Anda A.

Primera edición.

Ciudad de México : Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Facultad de Arquitectura : Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas : Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social : Fundación ICA, 2020.

441 pages : illustrations, facsimiles, plans, portrait ; 25 cm

Since the creation of the Ministry of Public Education (1920), an innate relationship was established between education and culture (in its sense of cultivation of the fine arts) in such a way that in the structure of said Ministry it was always considered a Department of Fine Arts , became General Directorate of Aesthetic and Extracurricular Education until the current National Institute of Fine Arts. This link between education and fine arts was somehow disrupted when on December 1, 1958, Adolfo López Mateos assumed the presidency of the Republic for the period 1958-1964. An artist by nature (he had participated in José Vasconcelos's campaign for the presidency where he stood out as a speaker) and personally interested in cultural activities, from his protest speech he raised the general guidelines of his administration in the following terms: "Constantly raising the people's living standards to achieve greater freedom, more culture and better well-being, as attributes of the dignity of man, which is the essential object of social institutions ". (Speech by lawyer Adolfo López Mateos when protesting as President of the Republic before the Congress of the Union, December 1, 1958) This opened the door for Benito Coquet, head of the Mexican Social Security Institute, to implement a policy that contemplated cultural and artistic and architectural activities in the field of social security that would turn said institute into a kind of second backbone through which the State would implement its cultural policy. This policy would be carried out by Coquet from the application of two strategies: one, which implied the construction of a theatrical infrastructure without precedent in Mexico or Latin America and not surpassed today; and two, through a program that will contribute to raising the cultural level of the insured population and their families. The first was part of a State policy to increase its public works, which in this six-year term included communication routes (roads, bridges, etc.), schools (statistically a classroom was built every two hours), public services (lighting, sewerage ), markets, sports centers and clinics in the health field, hospitals, rural sanatoriums and hygiene centers, already dependent on the Ministry of Health and Assistance or the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS). All with a view to "fighting ignorance, unhealthiness and poverty." Defined as an autonomous center - administratively - the IMSS obtained its resources from a tripartite system whose amount was equivalent to 12 percent of the salaries paid: 3% from the government, 3% from the contributions of the insured, and 6% from the employer. , which together with the obligation of the latter to register his workers, allowed him to obtain a surplus, determined fundamentally by the constant increase of quotas (an average of 628 thousand insured per year during the six-year term) and the ratio of 4 to 100 of the pensioned population. In keeping with the aforementioned motto (to which should be added the statements of President López Mateos that these were not isolated works but different aspects of the same social concept), the construction of 26 closed theaters and 42 open-air auditoriums, He enrolled in a broad program that included the construction of housing units, social security centers, clinics, sports facilities and recreational centers. Regarding the theaters, it should be noted that although most were built with the IMSS's own resources, for some a special subsidy was obtained from the Government and included in public investment expenses. I cite, by way of example, those built under the so-called National Border Program (Tijuana, Mexicali, Ciudad Juárez, Nuevo Laredo, Villahermosa and Chetumal) that was applied to both the northern and southern borders. This program was launched to "connect these urban centers with the center of the country, and to transform their appearance, so that visitors entering Mexico have from the first moment a notion of Mexican national values." (The popular, March 7, 1961) It was intended, in addition to urban improvement (an architectural balance with a functional sense), the construction of historical and artistic museums, exhibitions of handicrafts and industrial products; art schools, sports centers, theaters and libraries with the aim of exalting in the inhabitants of the area, the pride of being Mexican through the knowledge of their history and cultural identity. Within this framework of nationalist tendency, the IMSS theaters were registered, constituted as real estate assets that still exist today. Regarding the infrastructure, relative to Mexico City, it was made up of the Xola, Tepeyac, Legaria, Independencia, Morelos, Hidalgo and Cuauhtém theaters.

Conjuntos de seguridad social del IMSS en la presidencia de Adolfo López Mateos 1958-1964

Spanish

July 23, 2021

Includes bibliographical references (pages 429-440).

History.