In the center, daily life does not bow down to history; the past is not a source of wonder or praise, but is confused, adapts and submits to the present. Its architecture is the product of permanent cycles of oblivion, decadence and then nostalgic recovery: next to the kitsch historicism of a 17th century building, converted into Sanborns -like the old house of the Counts of Xala-, we can find a functionalist building split in half by a crack, improvisedly occupied as a showroom for evening gowns or an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet. On the remains of buildings that collapsed in 1985 -or if not, that disappeared due to the rescue of the Historic Center almost 20 years ago- new office or apartment towers rise, without a second thought. For example, the Bamer Hotel -one of the few on Juárez Avenue that survived the earthquake, but not the real estate ferocity-, seems just a ghost of its former self, with its sad façade and all-white window frames, instead of woolly carpets, Arturo Pani's built-in furniture or mambos resounding in the Bamerette discotheque.
Tlatelolco
Unless you are the Palacio de Bellas Artes or the Palacio de Correos, if you are a building in the Historic Center of Mexico City -especially one less than 100 years old- you are at permanent risk. Who cares about the old storefronts and bookstores on 5 de Mayo, 16 de Septiembre or 20 de Noviembre, those that were there before the very successful pedestrian interventions of the Public Space Authority? Who remembers the aquarium on the 38th floor of the Torre Latinoamericana? Who remembers the coral-colored booths of the Café Continental? Who will save the Fru Fru Theater and its golden ceilings with portraits of Valentino, Sara Bernhardt and La Tigresa? Who remembers that where the Pino Suarez Market is today, the three towers of the old Conjunto Pino Suarez were built and demolished? Who misses the great hall of Cine Teresa, with its Greco-Roman allegories and its mural of the female luminaries of the golden age of Mexican cinema? Who knows anything about the dark past of Plaza Tlaxcoaque, with its innocent fountain illuminated with colored LEDs? Who remembers the room where Rock Hudson slept when he stayed at the Hotel Virreyes? Or the green waffled facade of the Viana on Eje Central and Izazaga, which matched so well with the rainbow foil of the neighboring Butterfly's? Who is counting how many tile-clad piqueras, or executive bars with their gray marble walls and wine-colored carpets disappear per year, along with the old LP record stores on Juárez and Aldaco, the boneterias and men's underwear stores, the Asian import bodegas, the ficheras bars bathed in a seemingly eternal red light?
No one.
The truth is that indifference to our surroundings, that virtue of architecture to go unnoticed -as Walter Benjamin understood- is sometimes what saves it. Perhaps vitalistic insensitivity is the hallmark of architecture in Mexico City, the way we design and build (or destroy) our surroundings, our true mark of the city. Thus, the very old house at number 25, Calle de Manzanares, in La Merced -they say it is the oldest still standing in the whole city- remains by accident, or the snake's head peeking out of the façade that was installed as a decorative touch in the old Palace of the Counts of Calimaya, today the City Museum, without anyone turning to see it.
Manzanares 25, the oldest house in the city
Nor does anyone stop in front of the reliefs of Jesus F. Contreras, which once adorned the Aztec Palace at the Universal Exposition in Paris in 1889, and now rest in the Garden of the Triple Alliance (while others adorn the Monument to the Race, that cosmic mille-feuille of indigenist nationalism that also incorporated the eagle devouring the serpent that was to crown the Porfirian Legislative Palace, later transformed into the Monument to the Revolution). Only a few venture through the doors of the Justo Sierra Synagogue or the impressive foundry room of the National Numismatic Museum -the former Mint-, which in the midst of the sea of people passing by, is nothing. No one pays attention either to the San Jorge Building, by Juan Segura, which even in its dilapidated state captivates, or the low-income housing at Brasil 75, in front of the quiet Plaza de Santa Catarina, perhaps one of Enrique Norten's most sensitive and suggestive projects.
San Jorge Building
Brazil 75
In the center, in a strange way, the physical violence of modernism echoes the foundational violence of the Conquest, and perhaps that is why it is accepted as the natural order of things, as old and known. For this very reason, José Villagrán was able to build his Hospital de Jesús Nazareno on the remains of a 16th century lazaretto, which he lined with a mass of concrete and large windows. There the high-tech of the nineties is a delightful anachronism that shares the excessive ambitions of the baroque. In Luis Vicente Flores' Ex Teresa Arte Actual, both worlds collide and merge happily. Under Félix Candela's acrobatic canopies, in the San Lázaro and Candelaria subway stations, thousands of people continue to pass by day after day, just like that. Eje Central -formerly Niño Perdido- and its surroundings hide some exquisite examples of crumbling Deco architecture(El Cosmos, El Victoria), or contemporary jewels, such as Alberto Kalach's San Juan de Letrán building and subway station.
Folkloric Ballet
The truth is that downtown, monumental architecture with heroic pretensions - whether colonial or modern - surrenders to the sudden architecture of the tianguis and stalls that spill out onto the street, overflowing with flowers and vines and plastic butterflies, animal print T-shirts, panties, umbrellas, Hello Kitty backpacks, wristwatches, costume jewelry and mp3 discs.
Tlatelolco University Cultural Center // Tlatelolco Archaeological Zone
The crisp tension between collective memory and amnesia crystallizes, as nowhere else in the city, in the architecture of the Nonoalco-Tlatelolco Urban Complex. Not so much in the affected and deceptive architectural jingle of the Plaza de las Tres Culturas - as if centuries of conflict and clashes could be calmly appeased in the same space without shaking cosmic energies - but because in these buildings one can read the merciless passage of time, through the echoes of displacements and massacres, earthquakes and abandonment, false promises of well-being, justice and modernity, palpable in the concrete. And yet, here too there is cause for optimism due to initiatives of critical reappraisal, such as the Centro Cultural Universitario Tlatelolco, which with its alternative programming focused on reviving memories and the dramatic luminous intervention of Thomas Glassford, Xipe Tótec, inspires something remotely resembling hope.
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Text by Mario Ballesteros for LOCAL, Special architecture edition, Travesías Media, 2016.