Enrique del Moral

For over fifty years, Enrique de Moral was the designer and builder of over 100 public and private works in large metropolitan areas such as Mexico City, as well as his hometown of Irapuato.

but is primarily known for his role in the overall plan of the Ciudad Universitaria (1947–1952), site of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), along with the architects Mario Pani and Salvador Ortega.

All this meant a definitive break with the traditional architecture of academicism which was limited by its tendency to outright copy the French or Spanish colonial styles, with facades adorned with Greco-Roman, Neoclassical moulding.

A few months later, after winning the lottery, Enrique del Moral undertook a trip to Europe for a full year in order to better understand the architectural expressions there, traveling to England, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands and Belgium.

Emulating Le Corbusier, who studied with pencil in hand the styles of the classics of European architecture, Del Moral created a series of drawings and watercolors of houses and buildings that possessed what he felt was an extraordinary quality.

However, there were contemporary public works projects that Del Moral collaborated on or oversaw; austere solutions that favored the use of local materials and avoiding waste.

Del Moral's interest in the architectural heritage and contemporary developments in Mexico led him to enroll in the Seminar on the History of Ideas and Culture in the Eighteenth Century, conducted by Dr. José Gaos at the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM).

Between 1943 and 1946, Del Moral, along with Gaos and other intellectuals such as Edmundo O'Gorman, Leopoldo Zea, Bernabé Navarro, and Justin Fernández, engaged in discussions focused on understanding Mexican culture through philosophy, science, and art.

While at Harvard he met Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus, and at the Illinois Institute of Technology, he formed a friendship with Mies van der Rohe (c. 1948), who provided ideas that served as the basis for a new curriculum.

With Mario Pani, Del Moral developed the master plan based on the draft of the students Teodoro González de León, Enrique Molina,r and Armando Franco.

[2] Del Moral's association with Pani began shortly before the contest for the project of building the Mexican Insurance (1946), later adapted for the Ministry of Water Resources, where their entries tied for first place.

In 1948, Del Moral designed what is considered one of his most emblematic examples of functionalist architecture, a family home in Tacubaya, Mexico City, located next to the residence of fellow architect Luis Barragán.

[3] The buildings of the Attorney General of the Federal District (1958) and Criminal Courts of Lecumberri, in association with the architect Hilario Galguera (1961) involved a solution with maximum efficiency for the movement of lawyers and inmates, as well as for the proper performance of legal work.

Del Moral's work on specialty and research hospitals, funded and supported by the Ministry of Health in 1955, highlights his focus on innovative and socially impactful architectural projects.

It is worth mentioning that during these years, Del Moral did not abandon teaching and trips to study abroad to see recent work or give lectures at conferences.

From 1959 to 1963 he was a professor of Mexican Architectural History at the Universidad Iberoamericana, and in the period from 1955 to 1978, he visited countries in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.

Trials and Testimonies, 1983 Architect Pedro Ramirez Vazquez "Both as a student, and in practice, [Del Moral's] teaching always impregnated with deep concepts; technical rigor and critical judgments are always open, honest and generous.

In the chair of composition at the School of Architecture, I had the opportunity to be a student directly, although each teacher had a limited number of learners and when Del Moral was quoted, I did not come on time to their group, but always attended as a listener to the correction process with my peers.

The Del Moral method of teaching was the workshop and the classroom, in his works, in traveling with him or at any meeting where he was with one or more architects and people interested in architecture and in every manifestation of art or culture in general ...