When Carlos Lazo began to sketch out the Secretariat of Communications and Public Works (SCOP) - now the Secretariat of Communications and Transportation - one of the first things he told his collaborators was "let's avoid the timeless and the anecdotal. Look for symbols that are positive and eternal".
The Secretariat of Communications and Public Works in 1954.
Almost 70 years have passed since that speech, and the truth is that the architect Lazo fulfilled his intentions. Located at the intersection of Xola and Eje Central, at the height of the Narvarte neighborhood, still stands one of the most important public buildings of our times. Conceived as a sort of extension of the University City, the former SCOP Center, now the Secretariat of Communications and Transportation, with all its magnificence, refuses to yield to the whims of time and clings to fulfill the wishes of its creator: to endure through time.
The Secretariat of Communications and Public Works in 1954.
After building the majestic Ciudad Universitaria in only two years, Carlos Lazo continued with his proposal to decentralize government agencies and concentrated all the offices of the Secretariat of Communications and Public Works -of which he had recently become a magistrate- in the same place. He occupied the site that had once been destined to be the southern headquarters of La Raza Hospital, and turned it into an authentic exhibition of architectural modernism, closely linked to the idea of progress and nationalism of the time. Naturally, the Secretariat of Communications and Transportation was never intended to be an ordinary office building: it was a superb and definitive statement of the State's rise, under the administration of Adolfo Ruíz Cortines in the mid-1950s.
The Ministry of Communications and Public Works in 1985.
Obeying the distinctive elements of modernism, the current Secretariat of Communications and Transportation swept away all the neoclassical and Renaissance reminiscences it still retained and reinvented itself in functionalism. The principle of this trend is to design buildings so that they are useful, comfortable and respond to the needs of their users. Thus, in addition to a 10-story tower, the complex also included large green areas, multiple accesses, a kitchen/dining room, a nursery and even a housing unit for its workers.
The current Ministry of Communications and Transportation
The skeleton of the Secretariat of Communications is made of glass, steel and concrete; however, its greatest treasure really lies in the walls. There are 6,000 square meters of murals, an area slightly larger than a soccer field. They were made using the mosaic technique, and it took 18 months of work to complete the pieces, which were assembled at the Ciudadela Artisans Workshop.
Seeking to repeat C.U.'s feat, as well as to please Ruíz Cortines in his desire to include works that transmuted the tradition-modernity duality, Lazo invited Juan O'Gorman to continue exploring his work as a muralist, now in the SCOP project. He was joined by other outstanding visual artists, such as José Chávez Morado, Francisco Zúñiga and Rodrigo Arenas; and together they designed the 14 murals that adorned the magnificent façade of the capital's Secretariat.
Pictorially speaking, the murals tried to introduce the ideal of a modern nation from the indigenous worldview. Several pre-Columbian elements stand out, as well as key events in Mexico's progress, such as the Independence or the Revolution. Other iconographic elements, including post offices, roads, air networks and electrical devices, extolled the potential of the flourishing communications.
Unfortunately, the dream of immortality of the Secretariat of Communications and Transportation is fading day by day, as it is currently abandoned and waiting to know what they will do with it and its precious murals. The 1985 earthquake left important structural sequels in its wake and, as in a chronicle of death foretold, the #19s meant the final blow making it uninhabitable. Since 2018 some removal works have been carried out, dismantling more than two thousand mosaics from murals such as 'Conquest and Freedom'; 'Independence and Progress'; 'The Mayans' and 'Four Centuries of Communications'.
It is true that there has been some tension since then, as artists and experts in the field fear that the architectural heritage of the Secretariat of Communications and Transportation, certainly on the verge of a new collapse, may be demolished from its foundations. A different fate will befall the murals of O'Gorman and company, as they may be dismantled and displaced.
Amidst the crowds and the maelstrom of the CDMX, the Secretariat of Communications and Transportation still resists, a gray and silent monster that, even in its misfortune, continues to conjure spells and fulfill the promise it made to perenniality.