For Guayasamín, this space moved away from the religious to become a center of recollection to meditate on the trajectory of humanity from its beginnings to the present day.
The Chapel of Man is a Cultural Center that arose as a response to the need to pay homage to human beings, to their peoples, to their identity. It is a space that invites reflection on history from the point of view of Latin America, with its achievements and sufferings, in order to project itself into the future. A better, supportive and fair future for ourselves. It identifies with the dispossessed of the land, the discriminated peoples, women, children, the victims of wars and torture of all kinds.
In the surroundings of La Capilla del Hombre, its impressive architecture, paintings, murals, sculptures, its open spaces and the message of commitment to Human Rights, Peace and Solidarity are combined, which impact the visitor.
It was declared by UNESCO as a "Priority Project for Culture", as well as "Cultural Heritage of the Ecuadorian State" by the former National Congress.
Outside is the Plaza de la Integración Iberoamericana, a space for the exhibition of sculptures, informative gigantographies and events.
Architecture of the Chapel of Man
The Chapel of Man is the emblematic building of the cultural complex of the Guayasamin Foundation. It is a 30-metre-by-30-metre square building that is divided into two levels: one buried and the other at the level of the Plaza de la Integración Iberoamericana. Ordered in its design from its axial axis which, in the middle of the world and in half the time, allows the entry of the sun without shadow at the solstices and equinoxes.
In August 1995, the "first stone" was laid and construction began in 1996. The first phase of the project was inaugurated on November 29, 2002, and was carried out with contributions from Guayasamin himself, and from entities from Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia, Venezuela and the solidarity of artists -singers and painters- from Latin America with the donation of works and the realization of music festivals.
The Chapel of Man has an approximate area of 4000 square meters of construction. It is divided into 2 floors:The First Floor or PB corresponds to the Contemporary Room, it has a floor made of Chanul (wood used in America since the nineteenth century);
The Basement corresponds to the Pre-Hispanic Room, it has a floor made of Laja stone (black volcanic rock used in the Temples of the Sun). The floor of the corridors or side chambers of the Pre-Hispanic Hall has Tejuelo or Fired Clay Stoneware, which was the material used in Catholic temples and Chapels.
Positioned astronomically and with a clearly Andean architecture, which evokes the architectural precedents produced by our native peoples, more than three thousand years ago, the Chapel of Man has become one of the cultural buildings with the greatest identity significance in our continent, both for its architecture and for the work of art that is exhibited in it.
The Chapel of Man is like a large stone, of great symbolism, placed in the Andean landscape. It evokes the timeless presence of our cultures, the cultural resistance to alienation, and the permanence and persistence of our worldview and fundamental values, as peoples, as ethnicities, as cultures.
Its monolithic presence, its metallic cone-hill that wounds the landscape and the luminous Andean sky, through which sunlight enters, uniting the sky with the ground, the gods with humans and the sun with fire, constitute the arguments and at the same time the strength of this architectural proposal, an austere and silent container of the work of the master Guayasamin. in Quito, on the hill of Guangüiltagua, in the city of the sun, at an altitude of three thousand meters, in the middle of the world and of time.
The structure of the Chapel of Man is anti-seismic, it starts from the upper structure to the bottom, and from the foundations it is supported by pendulums that support and balance the movement.
It should be noted that the division between each floor is an articulated slab, without central supports, with a hole of 9 meters in diameter, and capacity for 1800 people. You can see the support beams, and a wooden handrail of singular beauty for its handmade construction.
The exhibition halls constitute "Blind Boxes", i.e. windowless spaces that allow the visitor to concentrate their attention on both the architectural and pictorial work, without being distracted by the elements of the outside.
Around 1985 Master Oswaldo Guayasamin conceived his greatest artistic project: "The Chapel of Man", which has a central, emblematic building. Likewise, he proposed that this Cultural Center be administered and maintained by the institution created by him in 1976 and of which he was its President for Life, the Guayasamin Foundation.
In 1989 this project was presented to UNESCO and the Director General at the time, Mr. Federico Mayor Zaragoza, welcomed it with great interest, and described it as "the most culturally important in the region". He also demanded international help to finance its construction in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, a city declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
"Sharing the dream since 1988, the Directorate-General of UNESCO enthusiastically promoted this project, convinced that it was a historic work of contemporary culture and creativity.
His murals speak and proclaim the cultural, social and political values of America, from prehistory to the present day, passing through the conquest, the mitas and the obraje, all projected - from the tearing of so many fabrics, from the multicolored threads and embroidered with the smiles of many others - towards a promising future.
What a marvel of permanent voice that of Oswaldo Guayasamín in La Capilla del Hombre!
Because, at the dawn of the century and millennium, silences hurt and shouts are missing. Oswaldo Guayasamín, a man committed to his time and humanity since always. "You have to be a man of your time to be a man of all times," proclaimed Simón Bolívar. "
I hope that solidarity, Guayasamín's expensive dream, will soon become the "Sistine Chapel of Latin American art". The light of his work will always remain and Oswaldo will not return... Because it's not gone away. In every stroke of his work of genius he has remained, while he, one fateful day, became invisible."
