San Miguel De Allende's Biblioteca Pύblica: Among Books and Murals  24.Oct.2025 

While walking through San Miguel de Allende, I visited the Biblioteca Pύblica, which at first seemed to me much more than a library in the conventional sense. With its courtyard surrounded by stone columns and arcades, its central fountain and corridors opening into different rooms, the historic building felt like a small cultural centre in its own right. My visit coincided with the Day of the Dead season, so the courtyard was especially colourful. Strands of brightly coloured papel picado hung between the arcades, marigolds surrounded the fountain, and two large skeleton figures stood in the courtyard. The historic architecture of the building and Mexico's living traditions had become part of the same scene. Founded in 1954, the Biblioteca Pύblica de San Miguel de Allende has developed into much more than a place where books are kept and borrowed. Over the years it has become an important meeting place for education, art and cultural activities. Reading and study areas, workshops, exhibitions, events and a bookshop all share the same building. In my photographs, people working quietly at tables and visitors passing through the courtyard show that this is not a museum frozen in the past, but a place that continues to be part of everyday life. One of the spaces that impressed me most was the large room filled with books. Here, however, it was difficult to look first at the shelves; almost instinctively, I found myself looking upwards. A monumental painting spreads across the entire ceiling above the books. Indigenous figures, warriors, human bodies, animals and scenes of conflict flow into one another, creating a striking contrast with the quiet bookshop below. In some photographs I tried to capture the room as a whole; in others I moved closer to individual sections of the ceiling. Even with a wide-angle lens, it was not easy to take in the entire composition in a single frame. This large work is Cultura Chichimeca, by San Miguel de Allende artist David Leonardo Chavez. Created in 2011, it evokes the Indigenous history of the region and the Chichimeca world that existed long before Spanish domination. Looking more closely at the ceiling, I could see that its story was anything but still: bodies intertwine, warriors struggle, animals and human figures appear among scenes of conflict, and different moments seem to merge into one continuous movement. The painting is not something that can be understood from a single viewpoint. As I walked between the bookshelves and looked upwards, a different part of the story revealed itself each time. Perhaps what I liked most about the Biblioteca Pύblica was being able to see very different images of Mexico within the same building. In the courtyard were the skeletons, marigolds and colourful paper decorations prepared for the Day of the Dead; only a few steps away, above the books, Chichimeca figures told the story of a much older past. Between them, people were reading, working, talking and simply going about their daily lives. I had already encountered this constant meeting of past and present in the murals I photographed on the streets of San Miguel de Allende. At the Biblioteca Pύblica, I found the same feeling once again. The past was on the ceiling, tradition was in the courtyard, books were on the shelves, and life continued to flow among them all.