Hospicio Cabañas

Site information

• Official name: Hospicio Cabañas, Guadalajara
• Location: Guadalajara, State of Jalisco, Mexico
• Type: Cultural
• Year of Inscription: 1997

When Bishop Juan Cruz Ruiz de Cabañas y Crespo arrived in Guadalajara in 1796, he had a charge from King Charles IV to create a shelter for foundlings, but when he saw the city's poverty, he expanded his purpose to provide a hospice for many kinds of needy people. To build that institution, he engaged one of the country's finest architects. Construction began in 1805. The result was a monumental complex whose neoclassical grace and humanistic design became emblematic of the city.

The complex included a chapel of exceptional beauty and harmony. In 1874, the hospice came under the control of the national government, ending its religious use, and in 1937, the state government invited one of the leading muralists of the time, José Clemente Orozco, to paint the interior of the chapel. He spent two years creating a work considered one of the most important of his career, depicting the dual nature of humanity within the history of Mexico.

By 1980, the building's facilities as no longer adequate as a shelter for children, who were moved to a newer site, and the hospice was rededicated as a cultural institution for museum exhibitions and an art school. This combination of history, architecture, and art have made the Cabañas Hospice a unique site that illustrates the humanitarian purpose of its founder and masterworks of expression in both building and painting.

History

Bishop Cabañas of Guadalajara wanted to build an institution to shelter orphan children, elderly men and women, and people with handicaps or chronic illnesses. He turned to a leading architect at the time, Manuel Tolsá, to design it. Tolsá had come from Spain in 1790 and opened an academy in Mexico that introduced the neoclassical style in architecture, replacing the baroque. His major works included the completion of the cathedral in Mexico City.

Work soon began on a rectangular complex measuring 538 by 476 feet. The building was a single story, except for the main chapel, so people could move easily among its parts. Six Greek columns at the entrance marked an otherwise plain exterior. Inside, twenty-three courtyards of various sizes were flanked by seventy-two covered passageways bordered by arches and Tuscan-style columns to connect 126 rooms and two chapels. The complex could hold up to three thousand residents. All this was meant to convey an atmosphere of light and airiness, and for its time it was modern and classically sedate.

Built on land a little outside the city limits, with construction financed by private donations and income from the bishop's lands, the hospice opened even before work was complete in 1810, but almost immediately its use was converted to a military headquarters during the War of Independence. In 1828, Bishop Cabañas again took control of the building, which he had rehabilitated, and it was opened for humanitarian purposes in 1829. The large main chapel was the final part of the building to be completed in 1845, with a central cupola dome that rose 107 feet tall. Its windows were flanked by columns inside and out.

In 1837, Orozco, by then one of Mexico's most important muralists, was invited to Guadalajara to paint three buildings, among them the chapel, which had been deconsecrated. He created fifty-seven murals over the space of two years on the walls and vaults. They reflect both positive and negative events in Mexican history, including a portrait of Bishop Cabañas. The central image in the cupola, the Man of Fire, may represent an ascension, although Orozco, as usual, offered no explanation of its meaning.

From time to time the building's use, operation, and ownership changed in accordance with political developments in the country. In 1910 it housed troops and cavalry during the Mexican Revolution before being returned to the housing and education of orphans. The use of the complex as a hospice ended in 1980. The building was restored and reopened in 1983, the centennial of Orozco's birth, as a cultural institute.

Significance

The Cabañas Hospice represents several unique cultural accomplishments. Its original intent as a shelter for people who were ill, infirm, or orphaned met its purposes with an especially humanistic focus, a testament to the spirit of Bishop Cabañas. For its time, its architecture was new and specifically dedicated to the needs of its residents. It provided them with light and air in an attractive setting to promote their comfort, wellness, and mobility.

The building itself marked a shift in architectural styles from baroque to neoclassical. This was an intentional change on the part of the architect and an example of his unique approach anchored in simplicity, which he brought from Europe to the Americas.

Mural painting had enjoyed a renaissance in Mexico in the 1920s, and their political and social content helped define the country after the Mexican Revolution. Orozco was one of the three most important muralists, along with Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros. Orozco's murals at the Cabañas Hospice typify this movement at its finest. They include, for example, a critique of the military and religious conquest of Mexico, while they celebrate the introduction of Spanish culture and Christian charity. They also express concern with growing mechanization. The Man of Fire is the most famous element of the murals and invites a variety of interpretations that add depth to the work as a whole.

Relatively few changes have been made to the hospice complex since its construction, which began more than two centuries ago. An earthquake in 1875 required some repairs, and the building, especially the cupola, have been reinforced against future quakes. It is now open to the public and offers art exhibits and cultural events, including access to Orozco's murals.

Bibliography

Connaughton, Brian F. Clerical Ideology in a Revolutionary Age: The Guadalajara Church and the Idea of the Mexican Nation, 1788-1853. U of Calgary P, 2003.

Delpar, Helen. "Mexican Culture, 1920-1945." The Oxford History of Mexico, edited by Michael C. Meyer and William H. Beezley. Oxford UP, 2000, pp. 543–72.

Hospicio Cabañas, Guadalajara. World Heritage List. World Heritage Cultural Centre, UNESCO, 2016. whc.unesco.org/en/list/815.

McEnroe, Sean F. From Colony to Nationhood in Mexico: Laying the Foundations, 1560-1840. Cambridge UP, 2012.

Orozco, José Clemente. José Clemente Orozco: An Autobiography. Translated by Robert C. Stephenson with an introduction by John Palmer Leeper. U of Texas P, 2014.

Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, 1910-1950. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2016. www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/840.html.

Rochfort, Desmond. "A Terrible Beauty: Orozco's Murals in Guadalajara 1936-1939." ¡Orozco! 1883-1949, Council of the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, 1980, pp. 74–91.