Zoë Sheng

Chinese-Canadian - 03-Feb-21 -

I'm biased towards great architecture (coming second after nature) and the National Schools of Art is no exception. Also, don't you just love a site that you can park right in front even in a country's capital, walk in and look around for 30-60 minutes and move on? Well then this site is for you. The guard did ask me if I study here because I walked in with my camera but he didn't really care as long as you seem nice and tell them what you are doing.

You can already see the brick domes peaking over the walls. I was hoping for something great, and while I wasn't disappointed with the marvelous designs, the bad news is that this place is pretty much on it's last leg. Built between 1961-65 and still incomplete of what it was intended to be like, it hasn't received funding to restore and maintain any of it's building in a long time. There was recently been some discussions of rescuing the schools but discussion lead to nothing because some people do not want to open the school to international students and others are afraid of privatization (this is communism after all). To sum it up, it doesn't look good.

A very enjoyable walk around campus, and if the Mexico City university is a WHS so I think this should easily get onto the list too. It does need to update it's criteria a little because it sounds more like a intangible cultural heritage at the moment and doesn't focus enough on the architecture that is supposed to encompass the schools and it's students.