Guadalajara is considered one of the three most important cities in the Mexican Republic. The state capital of Jalisco offers a wide variety of interesting and beautiful places.
The "Plaza Tapatia" is famous for its generous hospitality and inhabitants, who show in their food, music, art, and culture, the most peculiar aspect of Mexico. The most austanding
places are the Guadalajara Cathedral, Hospicio Cabaņas, Teatro Degollado, Templo Expiatorio and the the towns of Zapopan, Tlaquepaque, and Tonala, now ppart of this city, with their typical artcrafts.
Cabaņas Cultural Institute
Location:Plaza Tapatia. Is an admirable architectural work that undoubtedly distinguishes the city of Guadalajara of Bishop Don Juan Ruiz de Cabaņas y crespo who originally
planned in this place the construction of an orphanage and asylum, that besides being a shelter, also operated as a workshop where the children learned skills that could offer them a better future.
The Cabaņas Cultural Institute was conceived to become a center where people can sociolize, symbolized by its architecture, "a poem carved in stone". This extraordinary symmetric building has 23
courtyards, 160 rooms, 78 corridores and 2 chapels, its long corridors lead placidly to the coutyards and gardens that provide pure air clear light to the halls that once where bedrooms and currently
are exhibit rooms or classrooms where new generations learn what love art means.
Teatro Degollado
Location: Calle Belen between Av. Hidalgo and Morelos.
The jaliscan architect Don Jacob Galvez designed the building constructed between 1855 and 1866. The portico boasts 16 columns supporting and entablature with Apollo and the 9 Muses in high relief. The
main hall is horseshoe-shaped with five leves of blaconies soaring above the main floor. The area is capped by an oval dome painted in 1861 by Jacob Galvez and Gerardo su rez with a theme inspired by the Canto
IV of Dante's Divine Comedy.
The Degollado opened in 1866, with the opera "Lucia de Lamermorr," by Donizetti, starting the "Mexican Nightingale" Angela Peralta. It seast 1477 people.
Metropolitan Cathedral
The construction of the Metropolitan Cathedral in Guadalajara began in 1551 under the directiom of the Architect Don Martin Casillas and finished 67 years later (1618). Few changes were made to it during the seventeenth
century, but in 1808, BIshop Cabaņas entrusted to the Spanish architect Jose Gutierez the completion of the Sacrarium.
In 1818, a strong earthquake destroyed the towers, which were reconstructed 30 years later by Manuel Gomez Ibarra, who also built the choir dome, following the instructions of Bishop Diego Aranda. Its architecture
is of Doric and Gothic style, the central portal is of quarry stone with three Renaissance-style floors under a middle-point arch. The cathedral has several artistic treasures. It has a two century-old organ, sculptures,
and oil paintings by Cabrera and Paez, among others.
Its towers are supported by thick polygonal buttresses, with two bodles and a pinnacle. It has half-point arches made of quarry stone and volcanic rock. The interior of the temple has three naves the shrine area with vaults
in Gothic style.
Templo Expiratorio
The temple face south and has three naves, the central is higher than the laterals and its exterior walls are the original ones. The domes are of tracery, being the lateral ones of tierceron, and the central ones composed.
The windows of the central nave are circular-style rossetes, and the ones of the lateral naves are the ones included in Boan's project.
Towns and Churches
