From Luis Barragan House, I continued my modernist journey to UNAM or Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, another UNESCO listed modern architecture site in Mexico City, by metro. I started from Copilco Station, but since I arrived almost 5 PM, there were no students for me to follow for direction; I had to walk to the direction where students came from instead. Luckily, I found the gate of the university and the car park area of Faculty of Medicine. The university was in full swing with late evening activities like group studying, meditation class, English club, drama play rehearsal, soccer, basketball etc. At first, I was quite awkward to walk around as I felt that it was not a place for tourists, but after watched those students for a while, it reminded me my university or even high school times, and that made the visit more personal than I thought.

The first interesting building I saw was the Cosmic Ray Pavilion, since there was a basketball competition on the foreground of this interesting looked building, the whole area was full with spectators and team supporters, so I only saw the pavilion from the other side of basketball field, but still I was able to admire the nearby giant mural of Franciso Eppens, the corn is probably the think that I like most from this mural. The next one was the mural at auditorium; personally, I did not like this one for its strange depictions, but it is still a nice art. Then I was in the large open area, the most impressive site I saw was the very long building for university classrooms, this building probably the longest university building I have ever seen. The famous central library building and the Rector Tower were my next places to see. These two buildings and surroundings are the true highlight of my trip. The library wall is really beautiful with pre-colonial style mural, while the mural on the rector tower is very eye-catching. I also impressed the stone walls and stairs that look like the ancient ruins of Maya or Aztec. Then I crossed the street and saw the really interesting designed Olympic Stadium.

All in all, UNAM is a collection of nice, designed buildings with interesting art works. The building complexes in some respects look very strange as I believed all those architectures who designed the building tried to put their signatures at least in one building, resulting in an interesting mix of many types of modernism from straight lines, curve and cubic forms, but strangely that it turned out to be harmoniously look good. The mural arts also help the university complex looks more interesting than other modern styled universities. Anyway if you are not interested in architecture or plan to study here, visiting UNAM is just a strange idea to travel far from Mexico City center to see university, but again if people can travel from London to see university in Oxford and Cambridge for beautiful buildings there, UNAM which is equally impressive but in the different architectural style can be a good idea, so why not?