Fábrica La Aurora

The La Aurora textile factory was one of San Miguel de Allende’s most important industrial operations from its opening in 1902 to its closure in 1991. In 2004, it was reinaugurated in its current form as something of an art shopping mall. This iteration of La Aurora was spearheaded by Francisco Garay and a number of San Miguel’s North American migrant artists.

Among the most impressive industrial apparatuses you can still find on La Aurora’s grounds are looms, engines, and controls. Perhaps the most striking of these is the pair of massive green Zinser looms. Specifically designed for worsted wool production, these machines, also known as ring spinners, occupy about half the floorspace of one of the galleries and are used as something of a storage area for paintings.

A hallway features a metal behemoth of an engine, built by the Lang Bridge company of Accrington, England. One of the galleries has an industrial boiler in its storage room. The green of the Zinser looms reappears in one of the former factory’s control areas, located below floor ground level and with tiles in this shade. Bright red pipes and metal tubes flow along the white walls, tracing the path that electrical power followed and continues to follow to light up the space.