Hoy cruzamos el charco, y viajamos a México. Cuando pensamos en México nos viene a la mente su gastronomía, su música, con la que tanto disfrutamos, sus más importantes artistas, Frida, Diego, Siqueiros o Dr. Alt, pero hoy nos centraremos en sus arquitectos, los que sentarían las bases de la arquitectura actual desde 1950 al 1980.
Desde 1934 con Lázaro Cárdenas en el poder se llevaron a cabo grandes obras a lo largo y ancho del país ornamentadas con obras del muralismo mexicano de Alfaro Siqueiros, Orozco y Rivera. El muralismo y la arquitectura de este momento conforman un todo inseparable, potenciándose y culminándose.
Today, we’ll travel to Mexico, its cuisine, its music, its most important artists, Frida, Diego, Siqueiros or Dr. Alt, come to my mind but today we will focus on its architects, which set the basis for current architecture from 1950 to 1980.
In 1934, Lazaro Cardenas as the president were carried out great buildings decorated with works by Mexican muralists such as Siqueiros, Orozco and Rivera. The murals and architecture of this time make an inseparable whole.
During the decade of the ’40s and ’50s the works were schools, hospitals, residentials and the university, the exemple is the Library of the University of Mexico City by Juan O’Gorman (1905-1982), a mural made from mosaic façade which remember us some of the sculptures in the Aztec pantheon.
Félix Candela (1910-1997), Spanish architect based in Mexico focused on solving structural problems looking at the flexibility economy and the adaptation of a stage for different uses. Example of his architecture is the bottling factory of Bacardi with individual modules that make up a single whole.
Carlos Obregón Santacilia (1896-1961) firmará alrededor de 150 obras, parte de una arquitectura historicista neocolonial para ser uno de los precursores del movimiento moderno en México. Veamos claramente su trayectoria: Pabellón de México en la Exposición Internacional de Río de Janeiro de 1922 a Edificio Guardiola (1947).
The National Museum of Anthropology and History of Mexico in Chapultepec Park, designed by Pedro Ramírez Vázquez (1919-2013) built in 1960, with open and closed spaces, volumetric and flat opposites that converge on a processional transition ordered by culture rooms with a helical ladder that remember us Wright at the Guggenheim in NY. I could stay hours and hours at both museums …
Carlos Obregon Santacilia (1896-1961) signed around 150 works, part of a neo historicist architecture to be one of the modern movement in Mexico. Let’s clear his career: Mexico Pavilion at the International Exhibition in Rio de Janeiro from 1922 to Guardiola Building (1947).
Mario Pani Darqui (1911-1993) pertenece a la tendencia formalista de la arquitectura, y a la par desarrolla planteamientos urbanísticos como la primera ciudad satélite que bien nos puede hacer recordar a Le Corbusier por su funcionalismo y su planteamiento más propio del estilo internacional. Sus bloques de viviendas rememoran las Unité d’Habitation del arquitecto suizo.
Y finalmente, Agustín Hernández (1924), Premio Nacional de Artes 2003, su arquitectura parte del movimiento moderno pero incluye un fuerte simbolismo mexicano que dota a sus obras de gran personalidad.
Another Mexican architect of the mid- XX century is Luis Barragán (1922-1988). Perhaps it is one of the best internationally knowned who was awarded with the 1980 Pritzker. Barragan’s architecture is characterized by its forms and colors that give to his works volumes which are defined by their strong austerity.
And finally, Agustin Hernandez (1924), National Arts Award 2003, he belongs to the architecture of the modern movement but includes a strong Mexican symbolism that gives his works a great personality.
This post summarizes Mexican architecture of mid-twentieth century and could inspire us with their details and forms, in the way that comes to the modern movement of Mies, Le Corbusier and Wright and national character architecture, sometimes it hadn’t be undervalued and as proof of this, it is the heritage’s destruction after property speculation.
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