Center for arts, culture and people The Gabriela Mistral Center, GAM, is a contemporary cultural center, located in a historic building in the heart of Santiago. It is located between Alameda, the capital's main avenue, and the Lastarria neighborhood, a circuit with cinema, art, design, gastronomy, bookstores and parks. The building that houses it was the emblematic construction of both the government of Salvador Allende, which built it for UNCTAD III, and of the dictatorship, which occupied it as the headquarters of the military junta. GAM was inaugurated in September 2010, to bring culture closer to all audiences. Its mission and name are inspired by the Gabriela Mistral Metropolitan Cultural Center, inaugurated in 1972 and named in honor of the poet and first Nobel Prize winner from Chile.GAM is a diverse and open meeting place. Today it has 22 thousand m2 in which there are ten rooms for theater, dance, circus, classical and popular music, visual arts, popular art and conferences. There are also five plazas and a library, BiblioGAM, specialized in performing and visual arts, with open shelving and study and reading rooms. It also has a recording studio. The building has universal and free access, from Monday to Sunday. You can access BiblioGAM, plazas and exhibition halls free of charge. Along with its contemporary artistic programming and open spaces, GAM works to develop audiences with meetings, workshops, talks and special functions that promote the participation of audiences with less access to culture.