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The ceremony for laying the first stone of the construction was led by President Michelle Bachelet, accompanied by her Ministers of Public Works, Alberto Undurraga, of Culture, Ernesto Ottone, Ernesto Ottone, along with members of the GAM Board of Directors, and was full of symbolism: there was music by students of the Teresa Prat Girls' Lyceum 6, of which Lucila Godoy Alcayaga was director in 1921; and the Franciscan Order, executors of the poet's legacy, delivered a replica of the Nobel Prize for Literature medal that Gabriela Mistral received exactly 70 years ago, and which was buried in the concrete cube that was left at the base of the construction.
"With this second stage, an area that begins in the Vicuña Mackenna sector will be strengthened, with the recently inaugurated Violeta Parra Museum, the future headquarters for the CEAC groups and some schools of the University of Chile and the planned Mercedes Sosa Cultural Center; it continues through San Borja Park, passing through GAM, the Lastarria neighborhood with the MAVI and other cultural epicenters, and ends at the Museums of Fine Arts and Contemporary Art in the Forest Park." added the Minister of Culture, Ernesto Ottone.
The civil works of the second stage of the Gabriela Mistral Center, the most emblematic infrastructure that the State has developed for the benefit of the world of culture, entail an investment of $29,626 million and involve practically doubling the current surface area of the facility, going from 22 thousand to 37 thousand square meters.
The great attraction of this second stage at the GAM will be the provision of a large performance hall, with capacity for an audience of approximately 1,800 people, which exceeds, for example, the capacity of the Municipal Theater of Santiago. In addition, this large room contemplates the use of a system of retractable seats, which will allow the audience to adapt to the type of show being held. This will open up the possibility of presenting international works that, due to their characteristics, require an infrastructure that is currently not available and a capacity that allows recovering the investment of bringing them to the country. In addition, this room will allow different shows to be staged in parallel, allowing the presentation of up to two creations in one day. It can also be configured for 700, 900 or 2,000 spectators.
In parallel to this construction, the purchase of stage equipment will be made, with the highest technology, to be installed in 2017, in the final phase of the civil works. In total, the GAM Second Stage project involves an investment of about $41,000 million pesos and is expected to be completed in the second half of 2017.
The GAM is one of the most important infrastructure and access to cultural assets projects in the country, with more than 5 million visits in its 5 years of operation and an average of 115,515 visitors per month.
The execution of the works is in charge of the Architecture Directorate of the Ministry of Public Works; The contracting company is the Spanish ECISA and the architectural work corresponds to Cristián Fernández.