CHOPO
Result
Typeface inspired by the structure of the building that currently houses the Museo Universitario del Chopo, designed by Bruno Möhring in 1902 in the Jugendstil style—a German analog to the French art nouveau—and by the repression of Mexican youth in the 1970s and 80s.
The building became one the main spaces that allowed for the growth of rock bands in the 80s, after a decade of being marginalized for a lack of venues, especially in universities, following the controversial Avándaro festival and the tragic Jueves de Corpus massacre. In 1980, the first record and book fair was set up in the building’s main nave, a fair that would later become the current Chopo flea market, an informal exchange of objects that relate to popular music, particularly rock and other sub- and counter-cultural genres. During those years, live concerts by groups like Botellita de Jerez, El Tri, MCC, Kenny y los Eléctricos, or Ritmo Peligroso had the place at capacity, as well as the live debut of Las Insólitas Imágenes de Aurora, now known as Caifanes.
“Later, in the blink of an eye, I became a part of the museum, but in the form of music. Las Insólitas Imágenes de Aurora [Aurora’s uncanny images] floated about in a venue where freedom in creating was valued and praised over everything else.”
—Saúl Hernández, “Santuario” in El Chopo año por año.
Between the years 2002 and 2004 the Chopo cultural project grew as contemporary art integrated the technological advancements and aesthetic discourses of the time. This circumstance, added to the Chopo Museum’s vocation for innovation and the avant-garde made it clear that there was a need to renew its facilities and make the spaces more adequate to the new forms of artistic expression it promotes.
