Ciudad del Conocimiento

Ciudad del Conocimiento is the main campus of the Autonomous University of Hidalgo State, in the Carboneras neighbourhood of Mineral de la Reforma. It covers 304,434 square metres with 38 modules, 216 classrooms, 9 workshops and 75 laboratories. The first stone was laid on 9 December 1971 on land of the El Álamo ranch donated by Javier Contreras, and it was officially opened on 26 October 1976. It should not be confused with Pachuquilla, the municipal seat: that is a different place with its own church and its own history.

The buildings tell the story in stages. The first four, by CAPFCE, have a rectangular plan with classrooms on two levels and a central courtyard under a reinforced-concrete paraboloid; the 1980s added the Central Library, an open-plan block on columns (now 134,751 volumes), and the 1990s the CEVIDE with its glass-skinned front. The Carlos Martínez Balmori Polifórum, a steel structure with a pyramidal roof, opened on 14 February 2001 and holds 6,000 people; since 2011 it has hosted the University Book Fair. The Plaza Pabellón Universitario, from 2014, gathers 21 businesses (a restaurant, a café, a bank and the Librería Carácter bookshop with over 5,000 titles), and the 18-storey Torre de Posgrado began construction in 2018.

The campus doubles as an open-air gallery. At the 2014 International Image Festival, 26 murals on childhood in times of war and peace were painted, and in 2019 the mural "Minotauro e ihuiteco" was added on the Architecture building. There are also five stainless-steel sculptures from a 2004 symposium in Tultepec, donated to the university in 2006.