Casa de Cultura Jesús Reyes Heroles

The name above the entrance does not mean that Jesús Reyes Heroles lived here. Until the early nineteen eighties, this large estate with gardens belonged to the Armida family. Its last owner, Francisco Armida, sold it to the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which set up the election campaign headquarters of its candidate Miguel de la Madrid here. He was seeking the presidency and conducted part of his campaign from here.

De la Madrid won the nineteen eighty-two election. His former university instructor—historian and lawyer Jesús Reyes Heroles—returned to government with him. Reyes Heroles had once taught de la Madrid theory of the state, and now the student appointed his teacher Minister of Education.

By then, Reyes Heroles was known far beyond the classroom. He studied the history of Mexican liberalism, and in nineteen seventy-seven he prepared a political reform that gave previously excluded parties the opportunity to take part legally in elections and obtain seats in parliament. At the ministry, he intended to reshape the education system, but did not have time to complete the work. On March nineteenth, nineteen eighty-five, Reyes Heroles died while still serving as minister.

Four months later, de la Madrid's government transferred the former campaign headquarters to the Coyoacán administration for a cultural center. On September second of the same year, the house opened under the name of the president's recently deceased teacher.

Now dozens of theater, dance, music, literature, and painting workshops operate here; concerts, exhibitions, and book presentations take place. A monument to Reyes Heroles stands in the garden. He himself never occupied the rooms of this estate, while about fifteen hundred people take classes simultaneously today in the former headquarters of his student.