The Conjunto Urbano Nonoalco Tlatelolco, celebrates six decades. On this historic milestone, we took the task of touring its corners with Rodrigo Torres, director of Mirador Tlatelololco and an expert in living, questioning and reinterpreting this mega housing unit.
Rodrigo Torres, director of Mirador Tlatelololco, invites us to reflect on the challenges and possibilities of this unique space, which remains a blend of history, architecture and daily life. Tlatelololco is not only a place; it is a mirror of the dreams, contradictions and struggles that have defined Mexico City.
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I arrived in Tlatelolco weeks after the 2017 earthquake. That day the bell tower of the church of Santiago fell, and the memory of the collapse shook again the imaginary of the neighbors. With the fundamental difference of constructive stability, people returned - albeit fearfully and gradually - to the spaces that some have inhabited for six decades.
At that time, living in Tlatelolco meant for me an experiential exercise of research. For years I had been trying to inhabit the site that I consider the most powerful representation of the notion of palimpsest, a space written and rewritten for more than half a century where the evidence of the past inhabits with the same naturalness the present.
A small apartment in the 2 de Abril building was the first space I inhabited. The emptiness of the Plaza de las Tres Culturas dominated the southern views -my bedroom and living room-, a permanent reminder of the event that determined the life, use and perception of the housing unit. From the window of the Coahuila building there now lingers another void, the footprint of the only building to fall in the 1985 earthquake, the Nuevo Leon. The presence of absence has accompanied me since my arrival.
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The nearly one hundred buildings that make up the Conjunto Urbano Presidente López Mateos are containers of stories that, for the most part, have a generational continuum originating in 1964. These stories are what articulate the narrative of what Tlatelolco was and is today, and are among the aspects that most attract my attention. In the same way, there is still much to investigate about art and architecture in Tlatelolco, in addition to contemporary projects that reformulate what it means to inhabit this space.
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Sixty years after its inauguration, the neglect by the changing administrations of the mayor's office is visible, but even more so is the neighborhood organization to counteract that institutional vacuum. Thus, improvements gradually appear in the interiors of buildings, but above all they materialize in the quality of public space, the most important component for the construction of a sense of community.
I hope that in the coming years we can continue to exercise - from the personal but also through projects and associations - the idea of the commons, to work collectively for improvements in both housing interiors and public space.
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People who are transforming the unit:
● Reyna Barrera, Mishel Altamirano, Percibald Garcia
● Organización Ciudadana Tlatelololco, Huerto Urbano Tlatelolco, Vivir en Tlatelolco, Unidos por
Essential spaces:
● CCUT, Jardín Santiago, Tecpan, Archivo SRE
Artistic and cultural projects: