Centro Cultural Metropolitano

The land where the Metropolitan Cultural Centre is located today, once belonged to the order of the Society of Jesus which in 1622 built the San Gregorio Magno University.
When the Jesuits were expelled from the territories in 1767, the university passed into the hands of the Spanish crown, which merged it with that of the Dominicans under the name of the Royal Public University of Santo Tomás de Aquino.
In this historic building, the patriot Eugenio Espejo would plant the libertarian ideals of the future Ecuadorian nation that in 1809 would unleash the first calls for independence.
Also, in its classrooms and laboratories he installed and worked the Geodetic Mission that drew and defined the equinoctial line. Finally, on May 13, 1830, the Separation Act of Gran Colombia was signed in its main hall, from which the new state of Ecuador was constituted.