The Fabrica at San Augustin Etla

I promised you a view of the old textile mill at San Augustin Etla and here it is, perhaps in too great a detail. Below is the front of the factory. It was built in the time of Porfirio Diaz, a Mexican president who is in bad odor today, but who led the push to industrialization in Mexico. He did much of it on the backs of helpless peasants and many of Mexico's ills can be traced to the brutality with which he put down peasant uprisings. The beaux artes style of architecture is often seen to its best advantage in factories, just as it was in the henequin factories in the Yucatan. I find the style appropriate for opera houses, but I boggle a bit at factories being so ornate.

On either side of the grand staircase are red--or red/pink--painted steps which are also water falls. These are part of the extensive water works that begin on the grounds of the mill, now the cultural/art center called CaSa.

Below is inside the mill on the second floor. The loom room runs the whole length and most of the breadth of the central part of the second floor. Kent is in the center with a couple of the original power looms.

These windows, on the front of the building, look out over the valley.

Behind the main building is the remains of the boiler which ran the turbines which ran the looms.

Again behind the main building. You can see the bottom of the boiler, a shallow pool, and part of the falling water that is redirected in many ways, one being the red steps lower down in front of the building.

A glimpse of the factory building across the pool seen above, but from a different direction. I think that tree is safe from climbing children.

In the photo below is another pool slightly above the boiler--the boiler would be to your left. The church, seen in a previous blog, is in the background and to the left and below are present day classrooms and offices.

A bit farther up the hill behind the main building, we could see some new pools being built. Keeping everything level was of great importance.

One of the goals of the group restoring the mill is to make as little impact on the environment as possible.

These are steps to a door in the boiler.

A staircase behind the office building.

These are what I assume are left over after a puppet workshop.

A woman photographer had been taking individual portraits of members of a workshop. She left briefly.