On Friday’s friendship walk you will pass the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center. Make sure you stop to look at the amazing mural above the entrance to the Lila B. Cockerell Theater.
“The Confluence of Civilizations in the Americas” is the work of Mexican muralist Juan O’Gorman. It was installed in 1968 as part of HemisFair, the World’s Fair that opened in San Antonio that year.
The five-ton mosaic measures 2,600 square feet and consists of 540 numbered panels, each weighing about ninety pounds. The panels were produced at O’Gorman’s studio outside Mexico City and trucked to San Antonio for installation at the newly constructed convention center. On the mural’s far left Quetzalcóatl, the ancient god of Mesoamerica, is resplendent in his cloak of colored feathers and jade. The plumed serpent undulates across the landscape, embodying the spirit of Latin America. On the far right another drama begins in ancient Macedonia as Zeus travels toward the center, past the influences of Europe, the Industrial Age, and religion. Everything is connected along the bottom of the mural by a great river symbolizing change and growth.
