Space and Place in the Mexican Landscape: The Evolution of a Colonial City [1 ed.] 9781603445085, 9781585445837

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Space and Place in the Mexican Landscape The Evolution of a Colonial City

number seven Studies in Architecture and Culture Malcolm Quantrill, General Editor

Space and Place in the Mexican Landscape The Evolution of a Colonial City By Fernando Núñez, Carlos Arvizu, Ramón Abonce Edited by Malcolm Quantrill

texas a&m universit y press College Station

Copyright © 2007 by CASA (Center for the Advancement of Studies in Architecture) Manufactured in the United States of America All rights reserved First edition The Studies in Latin American Architecture series of CASA’s Studies in Architecture and Culture is published with supporting grants from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Chicago, and the Office of the Vice President for Research, Texas A&M University. The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, z39.48-1984. Binding materials have been chosen for durability.

Translation from Spanish was assisted by Deirdre Cleary. For a complete list of books in print in this series, see the back of the book. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Núñez, Fernando (Luis Fernando Núñez Urquiza) Space and place in the Mexican landscape : the evolution of a colonial city / by Fernando Núñez, Carlos Arvizu, Ramón Abonce ; edited by Malcolm Quantrill.—1st ed. p.  cm.—(Studies in architecture and culture ; no. 7. Studies in Latin American architecture) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. isbn-13: 978-58544-583-7 (cloth : alk. paper) isbn-10: 1-58544-583-5 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. City planning—Mexico—Querétaro—History.  2. Urbanization—Mexico—Querétaro—History.  3. Public spaces—Mexico.  4. Landscape assessment—Mexico.  I. Arvizu García, Carlos.  II. Abonce, Ramón.  III. Quantrill, Malcolm, 1931–  IV. Title. ht169.m42q476  2007 307.1'2160972—dc22 2006033168

Contents

Acknowledgments  vii Introduction  ix

chapter

1. The Interaction of Space and Place: The Mexican Mixture, by Fernando Núñez  1 2. The Urban Evolution of the Colonial City: Queretaro, 1531–1910, by Carlos Arvizu  74 3. From Revolution to Industrial Society: Queretaro, 1910 to the Modern Age, by Carlos Arvizu and Ramón Abonce  106 Notes   157 Bibliography  163 Index   171

Acknowledgments

We are especially grateful to Malcolm Quantrill, who encouraged this project from the very beginning, when part of it was only a doctoral dissertation, and devoted countless hours in College Station and Queretaro to guiding it to completion. We thank him also for the academic exchanges he has promoted between our institutions, Texas A&M University and Monterrey Tec, for the many lectures he has given in our School of Architecture over the past six years, and, above all, for his friendship. Special thanks to the authorities of Monterrey Tec Campus Queretaro, who provided the initial funding for the project and maintained official support for it through the creation of the Research Center on Architecture and New Urbanism, where the authors found the ideal place to conduct their research. We also thank Martha Ramos Herrera, Pedro Mena, Nuria Hernandez, and Miriam Martinez for helping to prepare the graphic material and Arturo Pérez y Pérez for photographs of documents and archival materials. Deirdre Cleary assisted with the translation from the Spanish.

vii

Introduction

Mexico’s colonial cities retain many influences stemming from their pre-Hispanic and viceregal origins. These metropolitan centers are looking for ways to balance their historical heritage with modern themes of industrialization on a global scale and growth that, left unchecked, could destroy what is valuable from the past. The metaphysical implications of the many changes affecting Mexican space and places can best be examined through a variety of disciplines, such as urban geography, urban planning, sociology, and architecture. This book is an attempt to unveil the ideas and views that make the built spaces and places of a land what they are. These ideas and views are ultimately assumed to be philosophical and metaphysical because, according to our central thesis, human societies create the built world according to their conceptions of the metaphysical world. For this work, the built world is seen as a response to the human need to find meaning and establish order within earthly existence. The purpose, then, is to build a metaphysical archeology of space and place in the Mexican built landscape, identifying the intangible aspects of the spirit of this land and looking at how they have changed throughout the various phases of Mexican history as well as how the modern urban landscape is perceived by the Mexicans who travel through it today. All of this requires exploration of the philosophical nonmateriality of Mexican land-based culture, a blend of tragic historical narrative with the rich mythology and literature of the complex culture on which this country is based. In other words, this is an attempt to grasp the presence of the metaphysical in the physical, built world, discovering the reasons why the space and places of Mexico have become what they are. This is a search for philosophical-metaphysical essences, using literature as a method of analysis and taking advantage of the richness of Mexican poetry and prose; it is also a cultural-anthropological study, because it applies those concepts to a particular culture and uses ethnography to know what people think and do in space. The analysis identifies the essential organizing principles of Mexican space and shows how places

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 Introduction

typical of the Mexican landscape reflect those principles. Although most of the examples correspond to the state of Queretaro (where the underlying field studies were done), many references to the rest of the country are provided. Thus the conclusions are deemed valid for all of Mexico. Chapter 1 offers a general review of Mexico as the result of various cultures and identifies four principal elements on which Mexican space is built: religiosity, centralism, enclosure, and attachment to the land. Chapters 2 and 3 examine changes to the urban space, specifically of Queretaro as a representative colonial city, through the viceregal period, the War of Independence, the turmoil of the nineteenth century, the Mexican Revolution, years of economic stagnation, and finally successful efforts to industrialize the society and the landscape. Chapter 3 ends with a summary of a very recent study regarding the mental redimensioning process that allows people to live contentedly in ever-expanding urban space. Nonspecialized readers can use this work to familiarize themselves with the Mexican worldview through the study of the built environment, shaped by the ideas, values, beliefs, and myths of the culture. The hope is to show how these agents organize space in Mexico and how they determine the configuration of places that constitute the cultural landscape of this country. As an ultimate goal, this work intends to unveil the deeper influences that shape the human-built landscape all over the world. The Mexican culture of today is the result not only of those historic great roots and mythical similarities but also of the current worldwide trend toward globalization. This trend has resulted in the importation from abroad of many goods and customs that are used and recognizable worldwide and the accompanying tendency to dilute local historical identities. The impact of this influence is evident in many aspects of Mexicans’ daily lives: in the media, in shopping habits, in the language, and even in the architectural and urban patterns of our contemporary cities. Mexican space is simply a specific result of the universal process of organizing the physical world to establish order, provide a refuge, and bring meaning to earthly existence. In particular, Mexican built space reveals how Mexican culture has transformed and adapted the physical world to fit its vision of the metaphysical world.

Space and Place in the Mexican Landscape

The Interaction of Space and Place The Mexican Mixture Fernando Núñez

Historically, Mexico is the result of a combination of and symbiosis between two major cultures: the pre-Hispanic and the Spanish. The old cultures that flourished in ancient Mexico—Toltec, Olmec, Mayan, Aztec, and others—occupied Mesoamerica as far back as several centuries b.c., and many were still very active in the sixteenth century when the Spaniards arrived and subdued them all. From then on, the Spanish Crown established a kingdom called the Viceregency of New Spain, which endured for three centuries. Also through the Spaniards, Mexico was influenced by the classical world (represented by Greece and Rome), the Judeo-Christian tradition and religious faith, and the world of Islam (due to almost seven centuries of Arab occupation of Spanish territory). During the three hundred years of the viceregency, all these cultures melded together and produced a new one, eventually shaping a national identity as a result of the Mexican War of Independence in 1810. In every sector of today’s Mexican landscape—geographic, cultural, political, social, religious, architectural, and urban—all these cultures are manifested. For example, the pre-Hispanic world is present in many words, in still-active traditions, and in numerous indigenous groups who continue to live according to pre-Hispanic organization, customs, and myths told in song, dance, chant, and rituals of blood and fire. The GrecoRoman classical world is here, as almost everywhere, in the language derived from Latin, in philosophical and legal principles of organization, in the way most of the colonial cities were planned, and in the general way of thinking. The Christian world is omnipresent throughout Mexico where each city and town has a church and most of the population is Roman Catholic. The Arab legacy is seen mainly through the liberal use of patios, fountains, and other architectural elements taken from the Islamic world. Yet today’s Mexican culture is the result not only of these separate influences but also of beliefs and ideas that have been shared by more than one of the cultures mentioned, producing wonderful commonalities

Chapter 1

 Fernando Núñez

Figure 1.1. Quetzalcoatl, god of the Toltecs and Aztecs. Courtesy Miriam Martinez.

that suggest the possibility of a universal base for all human cultures. An example is the most important religious theme in both the pre-Hispanic and the Spanish-Christian worlds: human sacrifice as a means of salvation. In Christian belief it is the sacrifice of a single man, the son of God, that reestablishes communion with God; in the pre-Hispanic world, the sacrifice of many is needed to obtain the friendship of the supernatural through human blood that is supposed to feed the gods. Each faith also includes a figure who became central to the formation of Mexican culture: Christ and Quetzalcoatl. Both men were considered to have ascended into heaven upon their deaths: Christ to sit at the right hand of God, Quetzalcoatl to become the morning star for the Toltecs and Aztecs. Both were tempted by evil powers: Christ by Satan, Quetzalcoatl by the wizard-god Tezcatlipoca. And both were prophesied to one day return to Earth: Christ as the prince of the kingdom of heaven, Quetzalcoatl as a god-king, returning to claim his kingdom in Mexico.

Even the resurrection of Christ is paralleled in the Mayan world, in the southeast of the country, through the myth of Hun Ahpu, who defeated and sacrificed the Lords of Death, giving himself the chance to escape from the underworld with the bones of their murdered fathers, a metaphor for resurrection of the human soul after death.1 The final destiny of humankind is also similar in both beliefs, with an ascent to heaven in one case and, in the other, an ascent into the sky to become the sun and the moon. So, too, could the souls of humans survive the trials of the underworld and join their ancestors among the stars of the Milky Way. All these parallels may be the reason why the two major root cultures of Mexico, the pre-Hispanic and the Spanish-Christian, have blended so powerfully, and why these beliefs remained so precious to Mexican culture following the encounter between the two worlds.

Phases of the Mexican Landscape The first blending phase for the Mexican landscape was the pre-Hispanic age, which took place throughout Mesoamerica and lasted from several centuries b.c. until the first quarter of the sixteenth century. It was

Figure 1.2. The most important pre-Hispanic centers. Courtesy Fernando Núñez and Pedro Mena.

Figure 1.3. Schematic section of the Mexican landscape, first phase. Courtesy Fernando Núñez and Pedro Mena.

 Fernando Núñez

Figure 1.4. The most important colonial cities. Courtesy Fernando Núñez and Pedro Mena.

marked by the successive emergence and collapse of a series of theocratic societies, well accustomed to warfare and connected to the natural and metaphysical realms through many ceremonial rituals, including human sacrifice. This phase produced awe-inspiring ceremonial centers with monumental pyramids, such as Teotihuacan, Monte Alban, Chichen Itza, Uxmal, Palenque, Tenochtitlan, and others, as well as numerous smaller pyramids located all over central and southern Mexico. With the succession of kingdoms and the replacement of old civilizations, various cities and centers were destroyed and new ones appeared. Others ceased activity under mysterious circumstances, probably due to self-fulfilling religious myths and the depletion of natural resources caused by their urban development. This may have been the case with

Figure 1.5. Schematic section of the Mexican landscape’s second phase. Courtesy Fernando Núñez and Pedro Mena.

Teotihuacan, whose surrounding productive lands might very well have become depleted. Abandoned long ago, many of these sites are now restored and preserved for the sake of research and tourism. They create a unique profile in the Mexican landscape, marking the horizon with gigantic platforms ascending to the sky. The second blending phase began with the violent conquest that almost exterminated the Mesoamerican peoples and their cultures. It includes the period of the Spanish Viceregency, from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, culminating in the Mexican War of Independence of 1810 that eventually ended Spanish domination. This period resulted in the dismantling of the old pre-Columbian cultures; the imposition of Spanish-Christian beliefs, customs, and organizational structures; racial interbreeding (mestizaje); and cultural syncretism. During this phase, many colonial cities, founded by the Spaniards, were built by forced indigenous labor. Today, these colonial cities are characterized by beautiful historic centers, with church towers and domes around which modern urban growth has occurred. From this second phase we also have sixteenthcentury convents and haciendas (large country estates), which represent, respectively, the pious (and wealthy) presence of the church and the rise of private ownership of productive lands. The third phase, like the second, began violently, this time with the Mexican War of Independence of 1810. It marked the very beginning of the contemporary age in which Mexico came to be an independent nation. During this phase, the country passed through the continuous internal struggles and foreign interventions of the nineteenth century (Mexico was invaded successively by France and the United States, as a result of which the country lost half of its territory); the rupture between the Catholic church and the government; the modernization thrust of the twentieth century; and, most recently, the trend toward globalization. This period has transformed the Mexican landscape into a space that holds three metropolises of more than 3 million people each (including Mexico City with nearly 20 million inhabitants), more than ten intermediate cities of

 The Interaction of Space and Place

Figure 1.7. Schematic section of the Mexican landscape’s third phase. Courtesy Fernando Núñez and Pedro Mena.

 Fernando Núñez

Figure 1.6. The largest modern Mexican cities. Courtesy Fernando Núñez and Pedro Mena.

around 1 million each, hundreds of towns, and thousands of small communities of fewer than 2,500 inhabitants. This period has also changed the urban profile through the presence of high-rise buildings—mostly office towers and hotels—and the emergence of new places such as shopping malls and low-income housing developments.

Space The kind of space that is of interest here is not the objective and neutral space of mathematics or Cartesian geometry, but space that acts as a great scenario where things and acts are contained.

The Notion of Space Aristotle saw space this way, as the great container, the big vessel where things are and happenings occur. According to Edward Casey, space has also been seen as a rational and objective entity, but this is not our approach.2 As the container, stage and scenario that it is, space gets its meaning and justification through the things and acts that take place in it. In other words, space gets its essence and identity from events rather than from the spatial vacuum. It is not an empty container but a bowl filled with things and acts. From this perspective, the study of space is not the study of the existing void between things nor of things and acts by themselves, but of the entire set of voids, people, things, and acts. These components together produce a specific atmosphere particular to each space, similar to the old Roman concept of genius loci (spirit of place) that characterizes and identifies each space. Mythological Space The creation, evolution, and fate of the world in the vision of Mesoamericans and Christians provide important clues about the way the space and place developed in the Mexican built landscape. According to the Bible, the world originated in chaos when the earth was waste and without form, and “darkness was upon the face of the deep.”3 Genesis suggests that God made heaven and earth out of this deep disorder. According to the Popol-Vuh, the most important book written by the ancient Mayans, things were originally put in shadow and brought to light in the Creation. Then the water was removed and emptied out for the formation of the earth’s own plate and platform, and then came the dawning of the sky-earth.4 In the Aztec worldview, the world had been created and destroyed four times in the past, punishing humankind and giving it a new chance every time; the era that we are living in would correspond to the “fifth sun,” also destined to be dramatically destroyed in the future.5 In fact, the “fifth sun” ended suddenly for the Aztecs, whose population was almost entirely eliminated in the Spanish Conquest. The first phase of the Mexican landscape was also torn down at that time and its pyramids destroyed. For other Mesoamerican cultures, the end had come even earlier, with the abandonment of their ceremonial centers. For example, the great city of Teotihuacan had been abandoned centuries before the arrival of the Aztecs in the Valley of Mexico, and the Mayan centers in the Yucatan

 The Interaction of Space and Place

 Fernando Núñez

Peninsula had also been emptied long before the Spanish conqueror Hernan Cortes and his army set foot in Mexican territory. These mythologies convey primeval origins in chaos. Thus it is plausible to see the creation of the built world as a process of imposing order on chaotic origins and of searching for a place to live. In effect, the Old Testament’s account of the Creation says that when human beings became conscious of the dangers of the outside world (original sin), they were forced to flee from paradise, seeking an alternative refuge to shelter them. According to Quantrill, cities are the eventual product of this expulsion from Eden. The Garden of Eden was originally construed as refuge and home and the outer world as a place of mystery and danger. Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden because they ate from the Tree of Knowledge and acquired consciousness. Subsequently, after banding together for security, human beings sought communal shelter, which gave rise to cities, a direct consequence of the conscious need for shelter and refuge: “Cain founded a city . . . as a bastion against the wilderness and those murderous fugitives and wanderers who were lurking in the untamed darkness.”6 Myths were the foundation of the cities of the Mexican first and second phases. Pre-Hispanic Tenochtitlan began on an island surrounded by a lake, where the Aztecs caught sight of a rampant eagle devouring a snake. One of the Aztec myths had predicted this would be the sign that the Aztec capital should be built in that place and had forecast the beginning of the great Aztec empire after the foundation of the city of Tenochtitlan. Another example is the viceregal city of Queretaro, whose foundation is linked to a miraculous event popularly believed to have occurred atop one of its hills, where the apostle Santiago (Saint James) led the Spanish army to victory over the Indians. (See chap. 2 for a fuller account.) The creation of man is also similar in the two mythological traditions, and both highlight the importance of the land in this process. The Judeo-Christian tradition says that humans were created out of clay: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”7 In ancient Mesoamerica, a vast region that included the Mexican highlands, southern Mexico and Central America, the narrative of Popol-Vuh presents a similar story, with the first human beings created out of earth.8 In general, these two tales, referred to in even the earliest literature, stress the deep dependence between human beings and the land and, more particularly, the profound attachment of Mexicans to their own land. Mexican mythological space has also had a very specific geometric layout based on orthogonal shapes (such as squares and rectangles), derived from several historic precedents. For example, King Solomon’s

Figure 1.8. The Mayan fourfold system. Courtesy Fernando Núñez and Pedro Mena.

temple was a rectangular structure with a triple-tiered row of cells wrapping around three of its sides—north, south, and west. The Mayans gave great importance to the square, always referring to it in spatial descriptions: “concentric squares . . . connecting the four corners of the town, in the shape of a cross. . . . Four elements, with a common central nucleus, representing (altogether) the cosmic space.”9 Taking the earth as the center, the Aztecs distinguished six cosmic directions: the four quarters of space, above (heaven), and below (the underworld). So, beginning at the center (the earth), there were seven divisions in cosmic space. In fact each religious and social system in Mesoamerica had an order that was often a complicated elaboration of the system of four horizontal directions (the four quarters) and three vertical directions (the three cosmic layers).10 As the principle underlying this order was connected with a dualistic worldview based on the man-woman opposition, the nations of Mesoamerica were able to find many interesting solutions for the organizational grouping of their deities, chiefs, priests, military leaders, and other dignitaries by arranging them in sets of four or three, representing either the fourfold or the tripartite system. Thus squares, rectangles, and fourfold and tripartite formulas constitute the basic layout of Mexican space. To bring order into their landscape and build a place in which to reside, Mexicans of all eras have imitated the Mesoamerican and Christian visions, seeing in their respective creators the ordering principle of the world. The repetitive mythical or physical destruction of the world and the abandonment of urban centers symbolize the tragic history of both Mexican culture and Mexican landscape. This belief in original chaos and successive destruction helps explain the Mexican’s psychological need to create a protecting environment, ordered centrally through squares and deeply attached to the land.

 The Interaction of Space and Place

Figure 1.9. The six cosmic directions of the Aztecs. Courtesy Fernando Núñez and Pedro Mena.

Mexican Space Structure As a consequence of the mythological versions of the world that have fed Mexican culture throughout its history, Mexican physical space is ordered three-dimensionally, based on squares, rectangles, and fourfold and tripartite formulas. However, the essential principles that configure Mexican space are not only physical but also cultural. In effect, the essential principles of Mexican space—religiosity, centralism, enclosure, and attachment to the land—arise from a consideration of Mexican culture as a whole and its development over centuries. Religiosity reveals how myths and beliefs have been taken into account in the Mexican built landscape. Hierarchical centralism shows how the mythological world was organized. Baroque enclosure represents a protective response in the face of mythical threats and the popular expression of joy. And attachment to the land provides evidence of the great importance given to the land in this culture. religiosity Relationships with the gods and with the metaphysical and the intangible in general have long pervaded all aspects of Mexican space. Both major Mexican root cultures had religion as one of their most important values.

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Figure 1.10. The essential structure of Mexican space. Courtesy Fernando Núñez and Pedro Mena.

Practically all aspects of pre-Hispanic daily life were embedded in and ruled by religious matters. Mesoamericans believed in the omnipresence of their gods and were ruled by a primarily religious authority. Spanish life was also deeply impregnated with religion, starting from the moment in the first century when the Apostle Santiago was thought to have died in Spanish territory, then reinforced by the speech and actions of Saint Domingo of Guzman (founder of the Dominican friars) and later confirmed following the recapture of the Iberian peninsula from the Arabs, who had occupied it for almost seven hundred years. All cities founded by indigenous peoples in the first Mexican historical phase rose around ceremonial centers. Every person, act, event, and natural phenomenon had a relationship with the metaphysical world. Even the Guerras Floridas (Sacred Wars), organized by agreement between the Aztecs and two neighboring tribes to obtain fresh human blood for

Figure 1.11. Map of Teotihuacan. Courtesy Fernando Núñez and Pedro Mena.

12 Fernando Núñez

feeding the sun, had a religious justification. Furthermore, the shape and structure of pyramidal architecture was determined by the human sacrifices practiced by many pre-Hispanic peoples. The religiosity of pre-Hispanic space is imprinted on the landscape, above all through the pyramids that connected people to the divinities and created a vertical profile in the landscape with gigantic ascending stairways.

Connection with the cosmos also established a metaphysical orientation in most pre-Hispanic cities. For example, “scientific, religious, and magical elements of the Teotihuacan culture all influenced the grand design.” The site’s main axis is oriented not exactly to geographic northsouth, but rather so that, looking toward the west from the Pyramid of the Sun (the largest pyramid of the site and of all Mesoamerica), the Pleiades constellation can be seen at a right angle. That group of stars helped the people of Teotihuacan follow the transition of the seasons. According to Aveni, “The appearance of the Pleiades served to announce the beginning of this important day (May 18), when the sun at high noon casts no shadows.”11 At the top of a hill near Oaxaca City in southern Mexico, Monte Alban’s general layout also follows a cosmic orientation, and the site has its own celestial observatory. Its main orientation is north-south, but

13 The Interaction of Space and Place

Figure 1.12. Monte Alban, with Building J’s axis pointing toward the star Capella. Courtesy Fernando Núñez and Pedro Mena.

Figure 1.13. Schematic section of Monte Alban. Courtesy Fernando Núñez and Pedro Mena.

Figure 1.14. Pyramid of Kukulkan: a, on March 21; b, other times of the year. Courtesy Fernando Núñez and Pedro Mena.

A

there is a peculiar building, known as Building J, that has the pentagonal shape of home plate and is skewed from the main axis of the site. According to Aveni, its vortex points to the Southern Cross, a star group of considerable importance in all Mesoamerica, and its main facade looks toward the rising position of Capella, the sixth brightest star in the sky, which announces the passage of the sun across the zenith. “At Monte Alban in 250 b.c., Capella [could] be singled out from among all the bright stars since it related to the solar year in precisely the same way as did the Pleiades at Teotihuacan.”12 At Monte Alban the setting itself is an expression of religiosity. Just as a pyramid is a set of progressively recessed platforms, the plateau where Monte Alban sits can be seen as a gigantic natural pyramid. Even the natural topography was used for religious purposes. Chichen Itza on the Yucatan Peninsula is home to the unique spectacle of the divine serpent descending from Kukulkan temple every March 21. According to Toltec tradition, Quetzalcoatl had left the land a very long time before, promising to come back again in the future. This mythical return is magically represented at the pyramid, year after year, through a light-and-shade effect. The unknown architects of the Kukulkan pyramid designed the monument so that, at the spring equinox, the sun’s rays hit the stairway and project a snakelike shadow that seems to descend the pyramid, finally touching the serpent’s (Kukulkan’s) stone head. This extraordinary effect, which demonstrates the power of ancient Mexican architecture to make a connection between the metaphysical world and the human world, represents one of the oldest examples of religiosity in the Mexican space.

B

In the second phase, the Spanish Viceregency, religiosity marked the Mexican landscape to such an extent that the proximity of a town in this country is still signaled by the vertical profile of tall church towers that stand out from the surrounding countryside. The Spanish viceregal space was impregnated with religiosity because of Spanish imperial laws that called for the catechization of the Indians. Along with their lust for gold and silver, the conquerors brought the Catholic religion to Mexico in the sixteenth century. Ferdinand and Isabel, Spain’s Catholic king and queen, wished to evangelize the people of the new lands so that they could know the “truth” and be saved. In the new colonial cities, the presence of the church in the central plaza was obligatory. In the countryside and in capital cities, the Franciscan monks, then the Augustinians and Dominicans, established hundreds of convents that acted as true bastions, protecting the Indians from the conquerors. The church was always the central landmark of plazas and entire towns, while convents were the isolated but monumental landmarks in the countryside to which the indigenous people were relegated.

15 The Interaction of Space and Place

Figure 1.15. Yanhuitlan convent, in the state of Oaxaca. Courtesy Nuria Hernandez.

16 Fernando Núñez

Figure 1.16. The Zocalo in Mexico City. Courtesy Nuria Hernandez.

centralism In Mexico, central structures are commonplace. In fact, centralism has been a major trend since earliest times, configuring space and pervading all natural, social, and ideological components. Centralism is an inward-looking force that can be seen as the tendency of systems, organizations, and structures to be grouped into one main element with secondary elements arranged around it. This is in contrast to federalism, which tends to give all elements equal importance. Centralism is a common structure at the atomic level, where electrons spin around a center (the nucleus), and at the universal level, where clusters of planets and spiral galaxies rotate around their own centers. In fact, nature offers abundant examples of this type of geometric organization at all levels, from cells and systems to complete organisms such as plants and trees. Centralism is also present in such human organizations as governments, churches, and families, where particular figures or characters hold centralized power and authority. Throughout history, different cultures worldwide have been centered on leaders, institutions and churches, beliefs and rituals. Regarding the built landscape, centralism has obvious political and historical components. For example, Mexico’s centralized political system, which dates from ancient times, has determined the country’s spatial configuration to a great extent. Mexico City is by far the country’s largest urban concentration, and its centralized role blocks the possibility of a more federal approach to population distribution. In a similar way, Mexican historic precedents, such as pre-Hispanic and Spanish centralist legacies, preconfigured the spatial structure, as in the case of the Zocalo, the most important, and largest, plaza in the capital and the country.

Centralism has played such an important role in Mexico that it has, to a great extent, defined national economic development through a central government that dictates the rules for concentration and distribution of resources. The geography of the country also reinforces centralism. The highlands are located between two mountain ridges along a volcanic axis, and they enjoy a benign climate that supports the image of a “central Mexico, the historic and geographic heart, along with valleys and canyons supported at a great height over the volcanic axis.”13 Mexican centralism also has metaphysical precedents. For example, among the Aztecs the cosmos took the shape of a set of squares around the earth, similar to the geocentric theory that was the dominant paradigm for so long in Europe. These two visions may be considered cosmic precedents for centralism in Mexico. In both its root cultures, Mexico has opted for concentrated power. The king of Spain was the supreme authority as was the Tlatoani in Mesoamerica. The Aztec emperor had the power to condemn or redeem human lives. The Catholic pope has similar power in a spiritual way. The first phase of the Mexican landscape clearly followed the trend toward centralism for almost three millennia, while Mesoamerica, the region where pre-Hispanic cultures flourished in central Mexico and Central America,

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Figure 1.17. Tenochtitlan and subcenters. Courtesy Fernando Núñez and Pedro Mena.

18 Fernando Núñez

was made up of major centers surrounded by minor subcenters. The core of the Aztec empire also featured this central organization. Situated on an island at the very center of the lake, the huge city of Tenochtitlan was surrounded by smaller towns that were connected to it by avenues built over the water and mud. All structures of the Mexican landscape’s first phase were centralized: “For almost three millennia, Mesoamerica . . . was made up of a superior central zone and marginal secondary zones.” Even its political organization was centralized: “Mexico’s destiny was, from that time forward, in the hands of only one man, the eternal but changing Lord of the Toltecs.”14 The Mexican landscape also showed strong centralist tendencies in its second phase. With the Spanish conquest, centralism was reinforced through Spanish-style imperial organization. The central hierarchy prevailed, because all laws and rules came from the king of Spain, who had viceroys in every Spanish colony and governors subordinate to them. The Mexican landscape consisted of a few growing cities and many smaller satellites around them. The only capital left was Mexico-Tenochtitlan. When the War of Independence with Spain ended, the country struggled internally, torn between centralism and federalism. After independence, establishing a federalist government was difficult because centralists still insisted on their promonarchist philosophy. These opposing positions, defended passionately by centralists and federalists, resulted in more than a few bloody chapters in Mexican history. The final liberal (federal) victory and centralist defeat were primarily ideological. The remaining cultural components were still organized centrally. Historians agree that none of the liberal objectives (as opposed to centralist goals) found a hospitable climate in Mexico. Along with centralism, hierarchy has always been present in Mexico. The belief in one single and supreme authority is shared by the two Mexican root cultures. Both Aztec and Christian theologies organize the world hierarchically. The Aztecs believed in the primacy of Coatlicue, followed by Coyolxaultli, and finally the rest of the gods (Tlaloc, Huizipoloztli, and others). In the Christian tradition, the hierarchy is headed by God, followed by archangels, angels, saints, and so on. The ecclesiastical organization is also hierarchical, with the pope as the head, then archbishops, bishops, priests, and the community in general. In terms of political organization, both societies shared the same principle. The pre-Hispanic societies placed the tlatoani (high priest) at the top, then the sacerdotes (priests), the caballeros aguila (eagle-knight warriors), the pochtecas (retailers), the tamemes (messengers), and at the bottom the people in general. The pyramids also had different platform heights according to the importance of the god or goddess worshipped.

In the Spanish hierarchy, there were the king, the viceroys, the governors, and the encomenderos (landowners who might also own people). Also, Philip II’s regulations of 1576 ordered a hierarchy in the urban context: “beginning with the main plaza and from there drawing the streets and main roads.” According to this code, there had to be a main plaza and a set of secondary plazas at appropriate distances. The streets controlled circulation to and from the various plazas, with the main avenues always leading to the main plaza. The central hierarchy is also evident in the buildings of the Mexican landscape’s second phase, where the cathedral is most important followed by the rest of the temples, down to capillas de barrio (neighborhood chapels) at the bottom of the hierarchy. Private houses offered another example of this principle, with mansions and palaces reserved for wealthy families, regular houses for the common people, and chozas (huts) for the poor.15 Evidence of these religious, social, and political hierarchies still exists in Mexican space, a centralized and hierarchical structure that depends on large main centers and smaller satellites around them with even smaller satellites around those. Even official regulations recognize this structure, classifying population centers as city, town, village, or ranchería (small towns with fewer than twenty-five hundred inhabitants). baroque enclosure Enclosure and openness are opposites common to all human societies. They imply both a cultural attitude and an environmental response, a fundamental belief concerning the relationship of built places to the environment. Octavio Paz points out the transcendence of these concepts: “The idea [of] the double rhythm of solitude and communion, feeling oneself alone, split inside, and wishing to meet with the others and with oneself . . . is applicable to all men and societies. . . . The rhythm . . . of closed and open . . . [is] a universal phenomenon. . . . That endless detaching and attaching from and to [others] has been, and is[,] the life of all men and peoples.”16 In particular, Mexicans build enclosed spaces because of their special need to be cared for: “Reclusiveness is a tool of our apprehension and distrust. It shows that we instinctively consider the environment around us to be dangerous.” This reaction is justified in light of Mexican history and the society that Mexico has created. The toughness and hostility of the environment and the hidden and indefinable threat that always floats in the air make Mexicans shut themselves off from the exterior, just like those “plants of the highlands that keep their juices behind a thorny mask.”17 This feature is imprinted on Mexican space through the use of stout walls and secluded environments.

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20 Fernando Núñez

Figure 1.18. Enclosure produced by typical Mexican streets. Courtesy Nuria Hernandez.

Mexican spatial enclosure is especially evident through the use of interior patios, which are open-closed devices, open to the family rooms and closed to the exterior of the house. Patios are not visible from the exterior and respond to Schmidt’s idea that “the Mexican’s intimate sociability . . . [leads] him to prefer solitude and the company of family and friends to the world at large.”18 A patio promotes contact between similar people, prevents contact with people who are different, and controls the relationship of the house with the surrounding environment. In general terms, architecture promotes social and physical relationships through openness and prevents these contacts through enclosure. On the architectural scale, openings through which natural agents (light, air, heat, cold, animals, other people) may enter, lead to open places. The openness or enclosure of a house is determined by the proportion of openings to solid areas on walls or, in other words, the size and number of doors and windows. The typical colonial house of the Mexican highlands, with its solid walls and small windows, is a good example of enclosure. The typical house of the tropical regions of southern Mexico,

almost entirely exposed to air circulation, is an example of openness. The opposition between open and closed refers to the degree of general contact and exchange (cultural, visual, personal, and environmental) that a society promotes or discourages. Streets also communicate the openness or enclosure of the town or city as revealed by the width of the street and the height of the buildings along it. A narrow street with tall row buildings encloses the space more than a wider one with shorter buildings. If a plaza is surrounded entirely by taller buildings with a few roads coming in, it is considered more enclosed than a plaza without such boundaries and with shorter 21 The Interaction of Space and Place

Figure 1.19. The Plaza de Armas in Queretaro. Courtesy Nuria Hernandez.

Figure 1.20. The central plaza in Bernal. Courtesy Fernando Núñez.

22 Fernando Núñez

Figure 1.21. Walls separate the private from the public in small towns and rancherías. Courtesy Fernando Núñez.

buildings. From this point of view, the Plaza de Armas in Queretaro, surrounded by two-story buildings, is more enclosed than the central plaza in the nearby town of Bernal, whose buildings are only one-story high. On a neighborhood scale, the closed or open nature of streets is linked to the proportion between open public spaces (including plazas) and private enclosed spaces. The barrio of San Francisco in Queretaro and the streets in the town of Bernal have a high degree of enclosure. On the regional scale of towns and cities, the open/closed opposition, is measured by the proportion of built areas to empty areas and by how the perimeter is treated. Thus the city of Queretaro (a colonial city with higher density) is more enclosed than the city of Monterrey (a modern city with lower density). “City” implies a greater degree of enclosure than “countryside.” Narrow streets and enclosed plazas are constants in Mexican colonial towns and cities, of which Queretaro is an excellent example. Inside these spaces, Mexicans feel contained, protected, and safe. This results from the type of urban grid typical of these places, with narrow streets, continuity and color in the facades, and cobblestones. When the streets deviate slightly from the grid, going off at oblique angles, the space and the passerby are contained. Every corner is a source of unexpected perspectives and focal points, forming places of shelter, mystery, and surprise. One cannot really see what is around the corner until one is there. (See chap. 3, for a discussion of perspective’s role in modern Queretaro.) The walls along the streets play an enclosing role in Mexico’s colonial urban landscape. Walls are not only physical barriers but also cultural instruments, because “between reality and himself, [the Mexican] builds up a wall, invisible but insurmountable, of quietness and distance.”19 El Baratillo plaza (in the town of Bernal) exemplifies this: The open space is in the public realm, witness to constant gatherings and reunions, surrounded by big, solid barriers formed by the facades that separate the

Figure 1.22. Luis Barragán’s walls (Gilardi House). Courtesy Miriam Martinez.

houses from the plaza and stress the distinction between the private and the social. Privacy is found on one side of the wall and socialization on the other side. The wall with its thickness and height acts as the clear division point between the private and the public. Octavio Paz sheds additional light on this open/closed phenomenon: “No, it is not arbitrary to view our history as a process ruled by the rhythm—or the dialectic—of the closed and the open, of solitude and communion.”20 Paz has affirmed that introversion and extroversion are universal human traits because they stem from the necessity of being alone and also with others. The borders between solitude and communion are formed by thick walls that enclose the interiors of houses and buildings. Mexican walls are massive, imposing barriers that hide a complete universe inside. Robust constructions, comparatively small openings, thick walls protecting the privacy of the houses, and just a few doors and windows as the only vertical openings are the constants in the colonial Mexican cityscape. That is why walls are so important in Mexico. This may be why Luis Barragán’s architecture of plain walls is so powerful, because the isolation of the wall stresses its double function, at the same time connecting and separating the private and the public. In small towns and rancherías, walls facing the street are often small or fragile, but they still perform their function as symbolic barriers

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Figure 1.23. Symbols and figures on pyramids. Courtesy Miriam Martinez.

separating the private domain from public space. They are, above all, symbols of protection, but they are also beautiful, built of thick stones, bearing centuries of history. The role of the wall also has to do with a kind of territorial gesture, used to mark private territory and separate it from others’ property. If the Mexican urban space is typically introverted due to its enclosure, then Mexican architecture of the first two phases is extroverted and baroque. Bare and fundamentally empty patios are balanced with facades showing plenty of relief and moldings. This was equally true in the pre-Hispanic phase, with lots of symbols carved in the temples and pyramids and figures imposed upon the facades. In the second phase, colonial cities were also known for their buildings’ rich facades, which formed a brilliant baroque stage in the Mexican landscape.

Figure 1.24. Colonial facades with rich ornamentation. Courtesy Nuria Hernandez.

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The Mexican baroque style is also expressed through the use of color. Contrary to space, which is enclosed, color in Mexico is “released and extroverted.” This is another manifestation of the enclosure/openness opposition. Mexican streets are always colorful and are known worldwide for the eye-appealing colors of their facades: “Color is the essence of the Mexican spirit, the one luxury in a poor man’s home. We see it in fabrics, in huipiles (women’s sleeveless blouses), in the fruits of the marketplace. It has been an element of popular architecture starting with the polychromed pyramids, moving through to the baroque churches of the colonial period and continuing with today’s homes.”21 Even small architectural details, like small doors, window frames, and signs are enthusiastically painted in color. These elements and details may barely hang in place, but they certainly don’t lack color. attachment to the land Through its mixture of cultures and great variety of geographies, Mexico creates a deep relationship between its inhabitants and the land. The Mexican land, with its fields, valleys, deserts, jungles, woods, hills, and mountains, has been the stage where myths and beliefs have been expressed through architecture during all phases of Mexican history. To Mexicans, the land is joy, happiness, and destiny, as expressed in the popular song “Mexico Lindo y Querido” (Beautiful, Beloved Mexico) by Jesus “Chucho” Monge: Voz de la guitarra mia, al despertar la mañana, quiere cantar la alegría, de mi tierra mexicana.

Que me entierren en la sierra, al pie de los magueyales y que me cubra está tierra, que es cuna de hombres cabales. [The voice of my guitar, when the sun rises, Wants to sing the joy of my Mexican land. I want to be buried in the mountains, at the foot of the magueys, And let my land cover me, a cradle of honorable men.]

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Figure 1.25. Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan with mountain in background. Courtesy Fernando Núñez and Pedro Mena.

Figure 1.26. Pyramid of the Moon in Teotihuacan with mountain in background. Courtesy Fernando Núñez and Pedro Mena.

The material used to create humankind—earth in the Spanish-Christian tradition and maize in the pre-Hispanic—shows the dependence and strong attachment of Mexicans to the land. In the first historic phase, this attachment derived from the profound respect the indigenous people had for the earth itself. They did not consider themselves to be the owners of the planet, but rather its children.22 Land was seen as an earth mother who nurtured people, but only after intense, sweaty work, much like the painful process of childbirth.23 The land’s configuration has always been especially relevant: Monte Alban sits atop a plateau; Tenochtitlan is on an island in the middle of

a lake. The profile of the pyramids of Teotihuacan repeats the profile of the mountainous Mexican territory, all confirming the importance of topographical formations for the Mexicans of old. A typical cross section of a colonial house reveals thick walls and heavy domes that act as anchors to the land. Colonial architecture was an earthy architecture, made of adobe, a kind of clay used to produce handmade bricks from soil. In modern times, attachment to the land has remained strong. Nowhere is this more evident than in one of the many interesting stories about the twentieth-century Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, who portrayed herself surrounded by tierra mexicana (Mexican soil) when she was confined to Detroit’s Henry Ford Hospital. The self-portrait shows Kahlo lying on the ground, in fact tied to it with branching vines and roots. Clearly, “land” had special importance for her, just as it has for every Mexican. It was the only means of overcoming emptiness, recovering health, and feeling at home: “When I had nothing, seeing myself surrounded by earth helped me a lot”24 During her recovery, Kahlo frequently sang “Mexico Lindo y Querido” to remember her dear land. Not only lyrics and paintings honor the Mexican land but also Mexican literature with its rich stories about the land. Attachment to the land has been and remains evident in Mexican literature, and Juan Rulfo expresses this in his stories: “His eyes, dimmed with the passage of time, were staring at the soil, here, under his feet, in spite of the

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Figure 1.27. Roots (Frida Kahlo, self-portrait, 1943). Courtesy Nuria Hernandez.

28 Fernando Núñez

Figure 1.28. Mexican landscape painting by Jose María Velasco, nineteenth century. Courtesy Nuria Hernandez.

darkness. There in the land was his entire life. Sixty years living on the land, grasping it with his hands, tasting it as one would taste meat.” In another passage, he says, “As we go lower, the land gets better. Dust rises from us as if coming from a team of mules going down the road; but we like to be covered with dust. We like it. After eleven hours walking on the hard ground of the plain, we feel very comforted, enveloped in that thing that overtakes us and tastes like soil.”25 The Spanish word tierra has at least five different meanings. The first is tierra as in “the earth,” the planet we inhabit in the universe; in this sense, we understand la tierra as that cosmological-omnipresent stage on which our lives unfold. The second is related to the notion of nationality and would translate as “country.” This meaning is used, for instance, when one is abroad and refers to his or her own tierra. The third is similar but more restricted in terms of geography: tierra as “region”; in this case one can refer to coming back to his or her tierras (plural) within the same country. The next refers to the place where a farmer works and has property; the word in English for this meaning would be “land.” And the last means “soil,” the ground on which we stand. In English, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, “land” has a similar variety of meanings. But an analysis of the importance of this term in American culture would be necessary in order to determine the equivalency of the two words. In Mexican literature, “land” is embodied in terms such as el llano (plain), el desierto (desert), la montaña (mountain), la hacienda (country estate), el rancho (ranch), el pueblo (town), and finally la ciudad (city), each of which in turn has a variety of meanings.

For Mexican campesinos (farmers), land is critical, because it is through the land, and through their special relationship with it, that Mexicans become campesinos. To a campesino, land is the means for day-to-day survival. The land has made campesinos what they are, and it is through land that they build their own essence and identity. Land represents past, present, and future for these people. Their hopes reside in the land: people wish to own a piece of land in order to survive and improve their social status. For campesinos, campo (countryside) means both life and death. Their lives unfold in the countryside because their cattle are there; death also waits for them there. That is why they are ready to die at any moment. The immensity of the land also means uncertainty and loneliness because of the scarcity of human settlement. It is the place where the campesino lives, but it is an empty place as well. In this sense, land “is” and “is not” at the same time. The open land, vast and lacking landmarks, is a mystery that does not provide easy geographical points of reference. That is why the campesino is forced to read the land, deciphering tracks and subtle changes in an attempt to achieve geographical self-positioning. Mexicans have three types of relationships with the land. The first is metaphysical. Land serves as a point of reference for human existence and geographical location. Every spot on the land is baptized with a specific name related to a distinctive topographical or historical characteristic. In fact, the story of San Jose de Gracia started with the naming of the land: El Llano de la Cruz. This name is extraordinarily meaningful; it demonstrates the importance of land and the relevance of religion in this country. Llano (plain) is a flat topographical feature, and de la Cruz (of the Cross) is a religious symbol full of meaning for the people: “The name Llano de la Cruz comes from the grass. . . . Once the rainy season has ended, the grass turns pale yellow, but there was one spot that remained green . . . over the pale-yellow background, dark green in the shape of a cross.”26 The second type of relationship between Mexicans and the land is that of appropriation. People own the land, and ownership of the land is an important means of survival and for improving social status. Since well before the founding of towns and colonial cities, land has been important for establishing social hierarchies: “Jose Cardenas founded the Hacienda El Sabino on the best-watered and flat land . . . but peasant Antonio Eulloqu had to build his hut on steep wild land, full of cactus, near a spring.”27 Land helps to establish social strata: rich people can own a hacienda, but poor people can build only a humble cabin (as is true almost any-

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where). Accordingly, land itself determined the configuration of places and also the kind of architecture that was built in each place—a rich hacienda here, a poor choza (hut) there. Even though from this perspective land is something to own, campesinos maintain a profound respect for it. They do not want to get it for nothing; they want to deserve it. Land is so valuable for them that its ownership necessarily requires a lot of sacrifice. Land becomes a symbol of pride for them; they consider its ownership to be a privilege because land is a noble cradle of hospitality, honesty, and work. The third type of relationship with the land is political, personified by the land redistribution initiated by the government after the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Land came to represent a change in social structures. Land’s protagonist role can perhaps be explained best by revolutionary slogans like tierra y libertad (land and liberty). The ownership of the land is what gives places a political component. The political struggle in Mexico between centralism and federalism is based on the political role that land has played. The revolution was fought mainly for a fair distribution of land that had been concentrated in only a few hands for centuries. Continuous reforms to the Mexican constitution have also dealt with the way land can be owned in Mexico. This began in 1932 with the presidential term of Lazaro Cardenas, who undertook a major land distribution, and was completed with the newest changes to article 27 of the constitution concerning land that was once an ejido (land owned and worked by a community) but is now private property. The three Mexican historical phases show the transcendental role that land has had for Mexicans. In the first two phases, Mexican life revolved around the land and, in the third one, the fight for land was one of the pivotal issues. In the first two phases, the land of the central plateau (the Mexican highlands) refused to be tamed for a long time, because it was very difficult to get the soil to yield; “The plateau was a place of movement and struggle, but not of permanent dwelling.”28 It was land conducive to raising farm animals rather than growing crops, a fact that determined the types of buildings needed. From this perspective, land acted as a deterministic force that shaped people and places. While Juan Rulfo’s novels Pedro Páramo and El Llano en Llamas, which take place in the countryside, may be considered the last depiction of land in these terms, Carlos Fuentes’s novel La Region Más Transparente del Aire, written about the city, gives an apocalyptic vision of the possible future of the Mexican landscape in which romanticism flourishes only on the land, not in the city.

Place People and what they do in specific spaces are essential components of the concept of place, so the identity of a place depends, to a great extent, on the function (what people do in a space) it performs. The Notion of Place Every place gets its identity and name from its function, and a place emerges when space is provided with a particular name. Thus the notion of place includes three phenomenological categories. A place-that-holds is any place that holds things and provides answers to questions concerning the whereabouts of things—here, there, in front of. A place-that-keeps holds and keeps its identity as a place, regardless of its actual function of holding—a pocket, a shelf, a vessel. And a place-that-cares-for holds, keeps, and offers a protecting and caring shelter, providing a “where” in which to dwell—a house, a portal, a plaza. This last category is obviously the one that corresponds most closely to the idea of the human-made environment, whose main purpose is to provide people with a refuge in which to reside. Thus the places of interest here are those spaces whose configuration as places derives from their protecting and caring function. The essence of space arises intrinsically from the cultural-geographical-historical atmosphere produced by the places it contains, while the essence of place comes from its “protecting and caring-for” function. In space, each culture is delineated by the creation of places where different social, natural, and metaphysical functions reunite to make space meaningful. Mexican Places Because Mexican space is full of myths and Mexican places are protecting and caring-for spaces, the latter must be viewed as ordering devices whose goal is to give protection and eliminate chaos and destruction. The world built by Mexicans is made up, above all, of places-that-care-for, places in which to settle in peace, as Martin Heidegger would say. Typical Mexicans, like the woman we interviewed at a ranchería near the city of Queretaro, know how to feel and express this peace:

f.n. What do you like about this place? mrs. cortazar. I like it mostly because it is very quiet.

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32 Fernando Núñez

f.n. Excuse me, Mrs. Cortazar, do you really like living in Viborillas? mrs. cortazar. Oh yes, it is very quiet. f.n. But I guess there aren’t many things to do here. mrs. cortazar. Not really, but this doesn’t matter, because we like to stay at home most of the time. We usually sew clothes and watch TV; there is always at least one thing to do. And besides I like this place because I live here with my ma, grandma, and sisters. Since my father died, we decided to split the land in three parts, the number of sisters that we are, and fortunately each one was able to build a house with her husband and children. The property you see now was once one parcel, but now is divided into three parts. The house just next door belongs to one of my sisters, and the other one, next to that one, to my other sister. f.n. Do you like Galeras [another, larger village nearby]? I have heard that many people go there on weekends. mrs. cortazar. Oh no, there are many vagrants and youngsters consuming drugs. I definitely prefer Ranchería Viborillas, which is calmer and quieter. Like Mrs. Cortazar’s beloved ranchería, Mexican places like those broadly described below may be seen as peaceful antidotes to historic Mexican existential angst. colonial cities Mexican colonial cities were founded by the Spaniards, primarily during the sixteenth century, and remain one of the most important features of the Mexican landscape. The spatial richness of Mexican colonial cities embodies John McDermott’s vision emphasizing the quality of cities as the sorts of places that give meaning and sustenance to our lives: “The city is now our home; in the most traditional and profound sense of the word, it is our land.”29 The colonial atmosphere of our cities is a result of religiosity, centralism, enclosure, and attachment to the land, the four spatial principles identified as typically Mexican. A colonial city would be inconceivable without its central plaza, its religious building (the cathedral), a grid of narrow enclosing streets, and the earthy, tectonic, and soil-derived architecture.30 The urban grid is one of the major typological components of Mexican colonial cities. The grid follows a basic orthogonal web, departing from the main plaza, but with slight deviations and sudden enlargements of the space by means of public plazas. Experientially, these interruptions

Figure 1.29. Colonial city urban grid, basically orthogonal. Courtesy Fernando Núñez.

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make the space very rich. Narrow streets push people to make use of every type of space, even the traffic lanes, which they share with vehicles. These spaces are where socializing impulses, such as making eye contact with other people and satisfying curiosity about the passing scene, are acted on. The urban grid illustrates how Mexicans attempt to bring order into their existence through the use of the cosmic axis (in its orientation) and the square (in the shape of city blocks and the general urban footprint). In the historic districts of colonial cities, the very streets are an extension of the family circle, making the whole urban environment a cultural instrument of peace rather than urban angst. Everybody knows where everybody else lives, and the distance between can always be covered on foot. These spaces are “everybody’s house.” For instance, while we were talking to Jose Solis, a typical citizen of the city of Queretaro, he continually greeted people who passed by. He charmingly greeted three girls, saying, “Adios hijas,” (Goodbye, daughters) and a woman with “Adios Maestra,” (Goodbye, teacher). Although we were in a public space, we felt as though we were in a protecting home. Something similar happens with the traditional barrios inside the cities, where grid and architecture follow more or less the same patterns, and the ambience is based on popular and localized cultures. Along with public spaces and streets, historic monuments become focal points of the colonial urban scene. The city of Queretaro is commonly perceived as a typical colonial city, with beautiful plazas, a unique monument (the aqueduct), and an urban profile distinguished by domes

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Figure 1.30. The aqueduct in Queretaro. Courtesy Fernando Núñez.

and towers: “Queretaro is one of the most splendid cities of this country [Mexico]. . . . Walking through its streets will take you to squares and gardens where you can find enjoyable and interesting places . . . where art, legends, and traditions become real. . . . There is nothing more magical than observing the rain approaching over the aqueduct.”31 Some colonial cities were founded for religious and symbolic reasons. An example is Mexico City, rising over the ruins of Tenochtitlan, which had been demolished by the Spaniards to physically and symbolically emphasize their racial and religious superiority over the Indians. As the center of the Aztec Empire, Tenochtitlan’s fall was the historic watershed that divided the first two phases of the Mexican landscape. Religiosity was also the main organizing principle that shaped smaller towns where the Spanish monks settled and founded missions to shelter the indigenous people. Other Mexican colonial cities, however, were founded not for religious reasons but for economic ones, as a response to Spain’s interest in getting the most out of her American colonies and their abundant natural resources. In particular, the conquerors found silver, and during three centuries this metal sustained the prosperity of the Spanish Empire and Mexican colonial cities like Guanajuato, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosi, and Queretaro. These cities were centers of concentrated economic activity,

Figure 1.31. Colonial city of Guanajuato. Courtesy Nuria Hernandez.

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but always, whether for religious or economic reasons, the pervasive centralism of Mexican culture was present in the organization and distribution of cities and towns. Today, Mexican colonial cities continue to demonstrate the principle of centralism: a concentrically organized place, with an inner ring containing the historic core, occupied by the middle and upper classes, and an outer ring containing modern upper-class suburbs, industrial zones, and squatters. To a great extent, roadways arranged in concentric rings define the structure of colonial cities. They establish the basic separation between the core and the periphery. The historic districts are the center, holding the highest spot in the urban hierarchy and providing a social blending force, a vessel where everybody can mix. In addition to the four principles—religion, centralism, enclosure, and attachment—geography and economics played a role in shaping Mexican colonial cities. On the one hand, they are often associated with topographic features, such as promontories and rivers, or the contours of the land, as is the case with the city of Guanajuato, built on the steep slopes of its site. Also, the original perceptual borders of many of the colonial cities were determined by topographic features such as rivers and cliffs, as is the case with the city of Queretaro. towns [pueblos] The Spanish word pueblo provides evidence of Mexicans’ attachment to the land. Pueblo can mean “city,” “village,” or “town,” as well as the

36 Fernando Núñez

Figure 1.32. A typical Mexican pueblo. Courtesy Fernando Núñez.

“people” themselves. In other words, the Spanish language implies that the notion of place can be equivalent to the notion of people. If “town” (in its denotation as pueblo) is the same word as “people” (also pueblo), then we must conclude that pueblos possess a sort of ontological sameness with their inhabitants. This common identity between places and people has been observed also by non-Spanish authors, such as Gabriel Marcel, who has summarized this phenomenon very simply: “An individual is not distinct from his place; he is that place.”32 Also, because pueblo means town and people at the same time, Mexican pueblos are Mexico’s collective memory. The best examination of the built environment as collective memory is The Environmental Memory in which the environment is depicted as humanity’s unwritten memory. As Quantrill puts it, along with the written word, the built environment constitutes the memory of human civilizations. He looks at how we experience and remember the built environment through existing spaces, forms, and details, and how this environmental memory enables us to invent new ones. This memory embraces not only visible and perceptible elements, but also metaphysical or ritual sequences. “Architecture serves as a memory system for ideas about

human origins, a means of recording understanding of order and relationships in the world, and an attempt to grasp the concept of the eternal cosmos which has no fixed dimensions, with neither beginning nor end.”33 In the ancient world, with its lack of printing or even paper on which to take notes, memory was trained through memorizing places. Architecture was chosen as the spatial and formal framework for remembering: “the locus as a place that is easily grasped by the memory, for example, a house, a colonnade, an arch, or a corner feature . . . [and] images [as] forms, marks, or simulacra of what we wish to remember.” That formation of meaningful places, he continues, is of the greatest importance because a good setting may help again and again for remembering. He also stresses the importance of becoming conscious of architecture, towns, and cities as collective memory: “If buildings, environments, and even whole cities can be used as the frameworks for learning, such as memory training, then we can begin to understand the complex role of architecture in the whole structure of human consciousness and the continuity of knowledge. . . . Once imbued with representations of myth and belief the built works become architecture of thought, creating in the natural environment a complementary artificial landscape of ideas.”34 The architecture and urban ambience of Mexican pueblos not only embody memories of events, myths, and articles of faith but also are intrinsically memorable themselves. Certainly, Mexican pueblos constitute our memory of Mexico’s recent past and of the contemporary rural regions of Mexico. McDermott confirms the sameness between human beings and the things made by them when he says, “If man and the world are made of the same reality and only function differently, then the things of reality as made by man are ontologically similar.”35 It is the human spirit projected into a place that reveals this quality of sameness between place and people. It follows, then, that a Mexican pueblo shares “sameness” with the Mexicans who live there. Since the pueblo is not essentially different from the people, we can say that Mexican pueblos are the essence of national place within the Mexican landscape. Pueblos not only contribute to Mexicans’ identity, but even more, they are the places where Mexicans are formed (or at least were formed in the past), and where they become what they are (or at least what they were in the past). Conversely, each pueblo has been given the spirit of the people, transformed into a specific physical geometry. This is why a Mexican pueblo typically has an urban grid made up of orthogonal shapes (such as squares and rectangles), arranged in rows and columns of blocks on four sides, and a vertical axis composed of the towers of the church. All of these together represent the fourfold system and the vertical axis, a formula that is the basic layout of Mexican space.

37 The Interaction of Space and Place

Figure 1.33. Fourfold organization of a Mexican pueblo. Courtesy Fernando Núñez and Pedro Mena.

38 Fernando Núñez

Certainly a pueblo lends identity to its inhabitants, is shaped by them, embodies their memory, and personifies their spirit. A pueblo looks familiar to people because it is like them and has their own spirit; in some sense, it is themselves. For example, to my question of why she liked her town so much, Mrs. Montes, an inhabitant of Bernal in the state of Queretaro did not describe the place, but the people: f.n. Why do you like this place so much? mrs. montes. People in Bernal are truehearted and honest. They are not bribers. People share their lives with others. When a person dies, everybody comes and helps the family, bringing food or something, and going to the cemetery. One feels strong support from the rest of the community. Her words imply that the deepest meaning of pueblo stems from the Mexican spirit and is imprinted on towns as a Mexican self-projection and, therefore, as a reservoir of the spirit of the people who live in this land. The first to write on self-projection was Vitruvius.36 He clearly saw human-made places as examples of this. According to him, architecture is modeled after people, with the human body as the perfect model for buildings and urban spaces, and the human character as the “soul” to be imprinted on places. Nicola Abbagnano also pointed to human beings’

capacity for self-projection as essential to humanity. According to him, humans continuously project their being and their mode of life, and this projection becomes that being and mode of life. Emmanuel Kant said that man was the “only being able to project himself . . . [to have] the freedom to self-project his reason and especially project to himself the society that he wants.”37 In self-projection, humanity projects its dreams and goals. People self-project their dreams and goals through the physical and tangible construction of their pueblos, and Mexican pueblos are places shaped by the way Mexicans are. They acquire characteristics derived from Mexican historical and psychological conditions. Moreover, 39 The Interaction of Space and Place

Figure 1.34. The “spirit” of a Mexican pueblo. Courtesy Fernando Núñez.

40 Fernando Núñez

because the spirit of a created place is the spirit that people imprint on it, a Mexican pueblo has the spirit of the Mexican people. The Mexican spirit is its ambience. In general, it is not that a pueblo has a spirit a priori, but that this spirit is given as it is created and embodied by people. This is not the type of spirituality that Hegel described in his Phenomenology of Spirit, because the Hegelian spirit was timeless and absolute, outside of the human domain. The spirit referred to here is just the opposite, bound to time, relative, and immersed in human affairs. For our purposes, the spirit of a pueblo is a living being as full of life as its inhabitants are. In other words, the spirit of a Mexican pueblo is the human spirit that the Romans called genius, the particular spirit that every person and place owns, composed mainly of religion, centralism, enclosure, and attachment to the land.38 plazas Plazas are one of the most important elements of urban space in the Mexican landscape. Plazas linked to popular markets existed in all preHispanic cities and served as social meeting places. Open spaces that we might think of as plazas also existed in the centers of those cities, with the main pyramids, temples, and priests’ residences arranged around them. Since the beginning of the viceregency, the plaza has been the central place where the most important buildings are located (church, city hall, market, and hospital) and where most important events take place (festivals, national celebrations, social gatherings, popular concerts, political events). Indeed, regardless of size or population, most Mexican cities and towns are organized around plazas. The role of plazas worldwide is historical, with the Roman forum as the first European precedent and the Teocalli in Tenochtitlan as the most significant Mexican example. In Mexico, from the beginning of the colonial period, Philip II’s regulations for new cities established the main plaza as the starting and focal point of the urban grid, to be located in the very center of that grid, “beginning with the main plaza and from there drawing the streets and main roads.”39 Secondary plazas were required at appropriate distances. Every neighborhood had its own plaza, giving it a central focus and identity. Ever since, the space of the Mexican landscape has been centrally organized through plazas. The plaza gains its religious component from the indispensable presence of a church, or even a cathedral, as its focal point. Many times, the plaza acts as the open lobby and area of dispersal from the church; the plaza then functions as the staging area for religious celebrations.

Because plazas are central places in Mexico, they are not only religiousurban centers, but also social ones. Certainly plazas were the first central public and social places in Mexico because they are located in the centers of towns, cities, and villages. According to Christaller, central places are “places which have central functions.”40 Central functions are those from which other functions are derived and on which they depend. “A central place function is . . . any activity carried on in the . . . ]central] place that derives at least part of its support from people living in the areas around the place.”41 A place deserves the designation of “center” only when it actually performs the function of a center,42 and this function consists of offering special goods or services that other places do not offer. As a central place, a plaza is the hub of a neighborhood, town, or city, because goods, people, and information flow into and out of it. The goods offered in the plaza are essential to the people of the town. Moreover, a plaza offers a unique “good” that is not offered by any other urban element, a sense of community. Everybody can go to a plaza; nobody is prevented from doing so. In this manner, the plaza not only houses central activities and social events but also provides social benefits. For example, in a plaza, rich and poor people can share the same space and even sit on the same bench. A Mexican plaza is the perfect blending force that preserves the identity and unity of Mexican society.

41 The Interaction of Space and Place

Figure 1.35. Plaza ­Constitución in ­Queretaro. Courtesy Fernando Núñez.

42 Fernando Núñez

In the case of Mexico City, the main plaza, or Zocalo, is the central plaza not only of the city, but also of the entire nation, where all Mexicans freely congregate. Mexican plazas are visited not only by the people who live nearby but also by all the people in town, and even some outsiders. For example, Mexico City’s Zocalo is visited by people from all over the country; the plaza of the town of Galeras in the state of Queretaro is visited by people from other towns within a range of several miles. The importance of the plaza is also reinforced by the variety of people and activities it holds. Plazas are associated with those personal and collective public behaviors that identify the individual members of a particular society. In addition, a plaza offers people an opportunity for socializing and gathering to express and confirm their identities within groups. A Mexican plaza is a special place where people go for economic reasons as well as social ones. In addition to the metaphysical role of a plaza (due to the inevitable presence of the church as the center), the plaza has a material role. In a Mexican plaza, with the assortment of restaurants, shops, offices, and other businesses that surround it, many financial exchanges take place. In their role as central economic places, and from the standpoint of historic materialism, plazas can be understood as the material infrastructure that holds the ultimate determining force in societies.43 This is why it is common in a Mexican plaza to find services such as banking, personal services, governmental and private offices, retail shops, theaters, and professional and business organizations. The economic factor in every Mexican plaza complements the three layers (economy, society, and ideology) that help shape the use of the plaza. A plaza becomes then the central place of a town or city due to its combination of urban, social, religious, economic, and ideological components. The city of Queretaro and environs offer many excellent examples of plazas of different sizes and configurations. The nearby town of Bernal has one main plaza and another smaller one located at the junction of three streets where the old market once stood. The larger town of Colon has a single plaza, while inhabitants of Soriano wanted in recent times to make room for a new plaza, so today the town has two. Ranchería Viborillas has its own plaza, which the settlement’s few inhabitants can barely fill. All these plazas have different physical configurations, but all possess religiosity and centralism, and all serve as central places—socially, economically, and politically. These plazas are also perceptually related, because they belong to an extensive network of public spaces organized according to importance

Figure 1.36. Plazas in Bernal. Courtesy Fernando Núñez.

and hierarchy. This again reinforces central hierarchy as one of the foremost organizing principles of the Mexican landscape.

44 Fernando Núñez

(left) Figure 1.37. Floor plan of a sixteenth-century church. Courtesy Fernando Núñez. (right) Figure 1.38. Floor plan of a seventeenth-century church. Courtesy Fernando Núñez.

churches The church is the strongest physical evidence of religiosity in the Mexican landscape. From a distance, Catholic churches, as well as pre-Hispanic pyramids, signal the presence of inhabited towns or old, deserted settlements. From one standpoint, the pyramid and the church are essentially the same: both of them provide a place for the ultimate rite of the two Mexican root religions, human sacrifice as a means of salvation. Additionally, people congregate in both places to express their faith and connect with the metaphysical world. The shapes and layouts of pyramids and churches also follow the symbolism of their respective worlds—pre-Hispanic and ChristianSpanish. For example, in the Mayan world, the pyramid’s footprint is the cross shape, as seen in Kukulkan´s Palace in Chichen Itza, where the floor plan is a precise cross, inscribed within a square. In Mexico, as in the rest of the Western world, the floor plan of most churches takes the shape of a Latin cross, symbolic of the cross on which Jesus Christ was crucified. Paradoxically, the cross is also used in some popular indigenous rituals, which superimpose a pagan cross, handmade of wood, over the floor of the Catholic church’s transept. Indeed, the cross shape has acquired multiple meanings over time. One example is the interior form of the cross-shaped church, which represents the earthbound pilgrimage that all humans must make.

The shape of the cross also represents the route to heaven (through its vertical post) and openness to the entire world (through its horizontal arm). Mexican churches are oriented east-west, as churches in most places are, so the sun rises at the apse of the church and sets at the front door. In this way, the church gets the light coming from God all day long, and the day, which is seen as a blessing from God, begins and ends at the two physical extremes of the church itself. This helps explain why the cruciform floor plan of the church was so successful in the second phase of the Mexican landscape and so easily accepted by pre-Hispanic peoples that it remained unaltered for centuries. Along with classical Western patterns, the tripartite form used by the Aztecs is also present on the main facade of all Mexican traditional churches and is composed of side towers and one central portada (entryway), each with three horizontal sections. The tripartite elevation is a very common scheme in the Western world, and it happens to coincide with the Aztec tripartite view of the world. The Mexican centralist principle is also evident in these facades, through the profuse ornamentation of the central body, which contrasts with very plain lateral bodies. The pre-Hispanic pyramid also represented “divine” stratification, which allotted a higher or lower niche to each

45 The Interaction of Space and Place

Figure 1.39. Tripartite front facade of a church. Courtesy Fernando Núñez.

divinity, according to its place in the hierarchy. This hierarchy continued into the human world where only priests had access to the very top of the temple, while commoners had to remain at the bottom.

46 Fernando Núñez

houses According to Christian tradition, the house began as the new home that people created for themselves after the Fall and the expulsion from Eden, when they first became aware of the need for protection. Cities and houses emerged after human beings conquered and domesticated the untamed lands they had been condemned to live in, providing themselves with a place to reside in peace, a place they could call their “dwelling” first and, finally, their “home.” As a substitution for Eden, this home had to be both protecting and caring-for. The origin of the very old Spanish word casa (house) relates to the protecting function of the house, with these meanings coming from old Latin: casa -ae (f), a small house, cottage, hut, cabin, shed. It is noteworthy that in Mexico and in other Spanish-speaking countries, it was the modest hut (choza in Spanish, not properly a house) that retained the original meaning of “house.” Thus primitive chozas were the first and original refuge that all people, regardless of their financial wealth, provided for themselves (at least in the Western-Latin world). Today, casa is used for houses of every scale and type, and when Mexicans speak about their houses, they do not mean chozas (huts), but houses that constitute the refuge where the inhabitants are covered and cared-for. Houses in Mexico are named according to their type and scale; some of the most common names include: choza (hut), cabaña (cabin), casa (house), mansion (mansion), and palacio (palace). The choza is very small and made of short-lived materials. The cabaña can be a little larger and is made of logs. The size of the house fits the basic needs of the family, and it is made of permanent materials. The mansion is a very large house built of high-quality materials, and the palacio is an even larger mansion reserved for the wealthiest people. The other Latin term used to denote house was domus, but this was not transferred to the Spanish language as extensively as casa, except for the term domicilio, which derives from domus and means “address.” Comparing the two terms casa and domus, and noting the prevalence of the first in the Spanish language, we see a sort of historic humbleness present in Mexican culture (and perhaps in all Latin American cultures) that prefers the modest casa, often in its even humbler version of choza, to domus, the term that implies wealth. This humbleness may reflect the humiliation the Mexican race has suffered at various times throughout its history.44

We can understand then the typical Mexican expression: “mi humilde casa” (my humble house), in reference to the home. The poorest Mexican campesino is traditionally willing to offer “his humble house” to visitors, and wealthier Mexicans also refer to their larger houses as “their humble houses” when offering lodging to a visitor. This spirit of humility in Mexican culture is also imprinted on the built Mexican landscape not only in houses but also in churches. The most important religious architect of the Mexican second historic phase, Friar Andres de San Miguel, wrote in the seventeenth century that buildings must be modeled after the canon of poverty: “where their greatest treasures and principal riches should be holy poverty” He was even more explicit: “We order that our convents and their buildings be humble and poor.”45 The term casa in Spanish also comes from the Sanskrit root calli, which means “to cover.” So, according to the Western–Indo-European tradition, the original purpose of a house was to protect people from the threat of the hostile outside world. In the pre-Hispanic world, the original purpose of the house was the same. In effect, house is calli in Nahuatl (the language spoken by the Aztecs), which happens to be almost exactly the same as the Sanskrit word that means “to cover.” Though this is not evidence of a historical link between these two ancient civilizations (Indo-European and pre-Hispanic), the deepest meanings of “house” are present in the languages of both. Specifically cal, the root word, is the same in both languages, and other meanings build on the root in similar fashion.

47 The Interaction of Space and Place

Figure 1.40. A contemporary indigenous house similar to pre-Hispanic callis. Courtesy Miriam Martinez.

In Nahuatl, the root and some of the meanings related to “house” include:

48 Fernando Núñez

Calli: cal-li cal-pa cal-co cal-pan cal-tica cal-tzintli cal-zolli

the house from the house at the house on the house (on top of) with the house the venerable house (reverential) the petty house (disrespectful)46

The calli was the center for many activities and references, where the prominent role of the roof emphasized the “covering” function that the term calli assigns to the house. In general, as a covering tool and protecting device, the Mexican house responds to a universal phenomenon, the one that Heidegger calls human anxiety about being thrown into the world: “The world . . . is an abyss of possibilities that threatens Dasein’s self-certainties,” where “Dasein” (literally, to “be there” or “be present”) refers to a person’s being-in-the-world.47 Bachelard also affirms that it is the outside world where the “hostility of men and universe are accumulated.”48 From an existentialist point of view, our being-in-the-world is constantly threatened, a fact that is physically ameliorated only by houses in their function as refuges. During the Renaissance, Pico de la Mirandola viewed the fate of humankind similarly when he imagined God saying: “I have not given you, O Adam! neither a determined spot nor an own aspect, nor any right, because such a spot, such an aspect, and such rights that you want, you [must] get them and keep them, everything according to your will and wisdom.”49 Thus against the anxiety and hostility toward Dasein, in which the human sense of being-in-the-world is immersed, and in order to find a spot to reproduce the original paradise as refuge and home, people built houses that would protect them and care for them, places that could become the “great crib,” using Bachelard’s language, in which they could be placed and enveloped after being born. Houses envelop people’s corporeal existence and help overcome that traumatic act of “being thrown,” because one’s being-in-the-world is their concern. Just as Heidegger saw that man’s being-in-the-world is with care or concern for the things-at-hand, houses are those things whose concern is people’s being-in-the-world. Houses also protect people and keep them safe from the untamed darkness, which can include both natural and human agents.

Mexican history in particular has included many examples of foreign threats, and the Mexican natural landscape is full of examples of harsh environments and hostile lands. That is why the house is the most important place for Mexicans: it is their only refuge from historical and climatic threats. Even though in the countryside (and in the cities) many poor Mexican families dwell in houses under difficult environmental conditions (without water, utilities, or proper insulation), they think of their houses as caring for them and protecting them from climatic threats and hostile neighbors. That is why Mexican houses tend to be made of clay or cement bricks, which are thick, solid, and enduring. Certainly these materials feel secure and sheltering, and thick walls guarantee attachment to the land. This is one reason why construction systems based on sheetrock and light materials have not spread with the same speed and acceptance in Mexico as in other countries. Mexican houses have enclosed interiors, where the conflicts of the outside world are kept at bay and where one can relax. In particular, a Mexican colonial house carries out the act of dwelling in a peaceful and comfortable manner, matching Heidegger’s observation that the Gothic word wunian (to dwell) means to be at peace: “to remain in peace and to dwell, to be set at peace, means to remain at peace within the free, the

49 The Interaction of Space and Place

Figure 1.41. Typical Mexican houses from the outside. Courtesy Fernando Núñez.

50 Fernando Núñez

Figure 1.42. Luis ­Barragán’s house. ­Courtesy Fernando Núñez.

preserve, the free sphere that safeguards each thing in its nature.”50 This central, protected, enclosed, and peaceful place that Mexicans call their house depends thus on having a peaceful interior, achieved in Mexican colonial houses mainly by the use of the patio. Bachelard discusses the “protected intimacy” of the house’s interior space. The quintessential place of this type was obviously the house, described in his book The Poetics of Space: “Within the self, the self of inside, there is a charm that hosts the being that is wrapped.”51 As the only completely protected intimate space, a Mexican house constitutes the core where Mexicans’ lives unfold and the setting where the families’ lives play out. The core of the house, usually the patio, works as a concentrating pole where events and experiences take place and memories are formed. It is one of the essential components of Mexicans’ lives. Bachelard stressed this quality of the house when he said that “the house is one of the greatest powers for integrating the thoughts, memories and dreams of man.”52 A Mexican house is not only a protected and peaceful residence, but also a home above all. When Mexicans say, “Mi casa es su casa,” they mean that the house can be a real home for their guests. When offering their

Figure 1.43. A house in Bernal converted to a different use. Courtesy Fernando Núñez.

houses to guests and visitors, Mexicans offer what is most valuable for them: their family and their refuge, their history and their place. Despite the protecting enclosure of the Mexican house, it is not an impenetrable barrier. It allows dwellers to communicate with others, acting as a filter of sorts that controls and regulates what comes in and goes out. Playing this role, Mexican houses become a sort of exterior skin that regulates contact with climatic agents and interaction with other individuals and human groups. A Mexican house not only filters the physical and social surroundings but also protects its inhabitants from and communicates with metaphysical agents, such as God, angels, and saints. From this point of view, its antecedents are the first European monasteries and the sixteenth-century conventos mexicanos (Mexican monasteries), places whose “exterior walls [were] thought to keep the hermits inside and evil outside, out of the complex.”53 The ancient pre-Columbian city of Teotihuacan was also called the City of Gods, and its inhabitants thought that they were blessed with metaphysical protection. Mexican houses of all periods and social strata reveal this metaphysical and religious context. For example, it is very common to find religious objects and sculptures in Mexican houses occupying the most important places in the living room or in the zaguan (entrance gate). Many times, master bedrooms also contain religious motifs, such as a crucifix on the wall over the bed. Luis Barragan himself, the most important Mexican architect ever, organized the window in his living room to emphasize the

52 Fernando Núñez

Figure 1.44. Floor plan of a house with patio. Courtesy Fernando Núñez and Pedro Mena.

shape of a cross. This tradition also extends to temporary residences, such as construction sites and markets, where one can find wooden crosses or altars in visible and accessible spots. A Mexican house also cares for the dwellers’ belongings. Improvised barns and stables beside or behind the house constitute a typical solution for many Mexicans who still live in the countryside or in small towns. Even in the cities, houses have storage space on the rooftops, where the owners keep a great variety of belongings, including pets, objects, water tanks, and construction materials. Thus houses are also places that care for the things that belong to our being-in-the-world; the “concern” of houses is ourselves and our things-at-hand, as Martin Heidegger would say. Another specific meaning defines casa as “identity provider.” This meaning is casa as “family,” which is consistent with the tradition of placing the term casa before the family name and linking the family name to the house itself, as in Casa Ecala (one of the best-known houses in the city of Queretaro). The house is not only the place where life unfolds but also the place where the very history of the family is preserved. Additionally, since houses are passed down from one generation to another and many times constitute the only secure legacy that elders can give to their offspring, Mexican houses are the vehicle for historical continuity. That is why it is common to hear Mexicans refer to their houses as “the house of their parents,” or “the house of their whole families.” Houses, then, provide their residents with identity. It is undeniable that houses and places in general constitute a great part of our identities as human beings and heavily influence our characters and our personalities, whether we realize it or not.

Figure 1.45. Colonial patio in Queretaro. Courtesy Fernando Núñez.

patios The Mexican colonial house, organized around a central patio (a scheme that originated with the Arabs), illustrates the centralism and enclosure typical of the Mexican landscape. The patio was used in some priests’ residences in Teotihuacan and Uxmal during the first historical phase. But it reached its peak as a typical colonial element in the second phase. In modern Mexican architecture, it is a feature used infrequently and almost exclusively by the upper classes. To organize a house around an interior patio requires having many rooms, something that is beyond the economic reach of the poorer people. One key element of a patio is the covered area for which it serves as a light source. The size of the patio must relate to the size of the house; once the house reaches a certain size, another patio is needed. The wonder of colonial houses resides in the way their patios capture and enclose the space, giving rise to a special spatial universe. Through the patio, the opposing combination of openness and enclosure that Octavio Paz refers to is present in the Mexican landscape. The patio plays a paradoxical role in Mexico. As a void, it is a space, not a room (only partially filled with fountains or trees), but it is full of activities, gatherings, and meanings. Even at night, when the patio is filled with the brightness of the stars, it remains a space. Thus architecturally, the central space of the Mexican landscape is a void, where solitude defines not only the Mexican spirit but also the human spirit: “At a certain moment, all men feel alone; moreover, all men are alone. Solitude is the deepest layer of the human condition.”54

The patio also symbolizes Mexican love for nature and land through the pots, trees, and vegetation that are usually present there. It demonstrates as well the spatial enclosure that is one of the most important physical features of the Mexican landscape. It also usually follows centralized schemes: it is the center of a set of rooms placed around it, with an element, the well-fountain, at the center. Patios also have rich meanings related to water and derived from the common presence of a fountain or pozo (well) as an age-old means for getting water and guaranteeing the survival of the family. Although most of these wells have run dry, the pozo in the patio still symbolizes the purity and sanctity of water as a heritage from the Arab world. In addition, the well and the fountain bring peace to the inhabitants, thanks .

54 Fernando Núñez

Figure 1.46. A vecindad. Courtesy Fernando Núñez.

55 The Interaction of Space and Place

Figure 1.47. Cloister with fountain. Courtesy Fernando Núñez.

to the constant sound of water, even a small amount, circulating and spilling over. Though it can be seen as an empty space, the patio is not dead, but full of life. It is full of vistas and perspectives, and everybody’s gaze converges there. Family and friends gather in the patio because it is a space eager to be occupied. The patio is the heart of the house. The surrounding rooms exist only because the patio is there. In effect, through the patio come light and air and, most important, people. The patio is the central place that concentrates all the meaning and life shared by a Mexican family; all family members share this space in common. Even the typical Mexican vecindad, a group of dwellings with one common entrance organized around a patio or open corridor,

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Figure 1.48. A convent with cloister, atrio, and patio. Courtesy Fernando Núñez and Pedro Mena.

promotes social interaction, not only among family members but also with neighbors. In these cases, patios are instruments of centralism, derived from the necessity of controlling everything from a single point. In fact, the patio provides sight lines from every room, promotes family contact, and embodies the integration of the family and social groups. Cloisters in convents and courtyards in public buildings can also be seen as patios (see figs. 1.47, 1.48). The city of Queretaro has plenty of them, and some are architectural gems. In fact, cloisters housed the internal life of the colony during Mexico’s second historical phase. Unlike patios, courtyards are still used in modern public buildings, as a remembrance of the past and as an environmental control device. Also, modern Mexican architecture, led by Luis Barragan, has searched for “the peace to be found in patios” and has viewed patios, cloisters, and courtyards as peaceful places where one could be alone and retire from the exterior world: “I have always been deeply moved by the peace and well-being to be experienced in those uninhabited cloisters and solitary courts.”55

atrios and orchards The atrio (atrium) of the sixteenth-century convent holds a unique place in the world. It did not exist before that time, either in the Western world or in the pre-Hispanic tradition. As various Mexican authors have pointed out, the atrio is an invention of monks intended to overcome the Indians’ resistance to entering a covered space, such as the church. Because of its multiple meanings, the atrio must be considered a prototypical place in the Mexican landscape. Through the atrio, Mexican religiosity, centralism, enclosure, and attachment to the land are once again imprinted on the built landscape. Religiosity arises from the atrio’s role as the open space just outside the church. Centralism is present because the atrio’s center is occupied by a cross. Enclosure comes from the surrounding walls, tall and robust, that isolate the atrio from the exterior. Finally, attachment to the land is reflected in the atrio’s layout and elements, which parallel the mythological view of the earthly world as made up of a center and four directions. The atrio, in fact, is a representation of both cosmologies, the preHispanic and the Christian. Shaped like a square subdivided into four quarters by its north-south and east-west axes, and with a cross at the intersection of the axes, it represents the Popol-Vuh´s four routes, mentioned previously. Also, at each corner of the atrio, there is a processional chapel, resulting in the four-corners-and-four-sides system of the ancient Mayans. The Christian ritual tradition is kept as well, through the route taken by processions around and inside the atrio. Books about sixteenth-century Mexican architecture do not say much about the conflict faced by the Spanish monks when they tried to teach the new religion. While trying to eliminate the sacrificial rites practiced by the Indians, they were enforcing the practice of the Christian mass,

Figure 1.49. Cross of an atrio. Courtesy Fernando Núñez and Pedro Mena.

Figure 1.50. View of Xochimilco. Courtesy Fernando Núñez.

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Figure 1.51. Location of portales in a plaza. Courtesy Fernando Núñez and Pedro Mena.

the climax of which is also a sacrificial rite. This conflict can be traced, both historically and physically, to the cross that always occupies the very center of the atrio, showing only the face of Christ, not his body, in order to discourage the Indians from practicing human sacrifice. In the tradition of the beautiful Arab gardens of the Alhambra, and inspired by the image of the biblical Garden of Eden where humans were put to work caring for the garden, the Mexican orchard (huerta) embodies the respect and love of Mexicans for nature. In a parallel with the private gardens of Seville, Spain, which are full of plants and flowers, the first historical phase of the Mexican landscape had splendid examples of orchards in the city of Tenochtitlan itself. This city was turned into a gigantic artificial garden, made by converting the surrounding lake into solid earth. The floating gardens (chinampas) still found in Xochimilco, south of Mexico City, are the living remnant of this ancient Mexican relationship with nature, and at the same time, present an old Mexican example of the contemporary, environmentally friendly viewpoint regarding vegetation and nature in general, known as “biophilia.”56 Unfortunately, most orchards nowadays are productive entities outside of cities, and not architectural or urban elements. Just as hidden and mysterious as the Garden of Eden, orchards were located inside houses and behind convents during the second phase of the Mexican landscape for the delight of residents. These family and religious orchards also provided opportunities to fulfill the biblical commandment to take care

Figure 1.52. Location of portales along a street. Courtesy Fernando Núñez and Pedro Mena.

of Eden because the dwellers had to work them in order to get fruits and flowers. From this perspective, orchards were another Mexican religious expression. portales and zaguanes The architectural element called a portal is a very important one, common to thousands of cities and towns in Mexico. Portales already existed in the pre-Hispanic age, and some examples still exist in Mitla and Uxmal, but those are not related to plazas or public spaces. Having come into its own during the second phase of the Mexican landscape, the portal is the transition between the extreme openness of the plaza or street and the extreme enclosure of the private house. It is a private domain turned into

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Figure 1.53. Portales in Bernal. Courtesy Fernando Núñez.

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a public domain, a protected public space, where one can have privacy and share with others at the same time. Portales are not centralized places, but they generally look out onto plazas, the real central places, and portales can do so because they are backed up with solid walls. This support at the back and the open view make the portal the perfect open/enclosed Mexican place described by Octavio Paz in his discussion of the opposition between closure and openness. Portales are good places to meet other people who go there just to pass the time, like the young man we met in Portal Doña Cata in the town of Bernal. When we arrived, he was already sitting there on a bench built into the back wall, and when we realized that he was still there after we had spent some minutes having a drink, we took the liberty of starting a conversation:

Figure 1.54. Location of a zaguan. Courtesy Fernando Núñez.

f.n. Excuse me, may I ask what you are doing here? the man. What? Don’t I have the right to enjoy the landscape?

It was obvious that, to him, the plaza in front of us, with plenty of people passing by, was a real and complete “landscape,” and we had to agree that a portal is a perfect sightseeing spot.

Portales provide protecting shade from the sun, and the sun’s daily trajectory is one of the indicators of the passing of time. A portal, therefore, may be seen as a device to combat the passing of time because it remains in shadow almost all the time. A portal is also a peaceful place, the Mexican antidote to anxiety, because it is a spot where one can sit and watch the rest of the world passing by without being affected. In a portal, the pace of life slows down and invites one to observe others’ lives and reflect on one’s own. The traditional zaguan (lobby or vestibule in colonial houses) serves as a filter of sorts between the exterior and the interior. The zaguan is a covered but open space that creates a transition between the public domain of the exterior and the private domain of the interior. It is where people used to disembark from their carriages and enter the living space

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Figure 1.55. A zaguan in Queretaro. Courtesy Fernando Núñez.

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of the house. Even houses of modest families, without vehicles, used to have zaguanes to facilitate socialization in a transitional space. Like a portal, a zaguan is neither an open place nor a completely enclosed place. Rather, it is a sort of threshold to the sanctuary, which is how most Mexicans think of their houses. Zaguanes usually hold benches where the owners of the house can welcome visitors without disturbing the privacy of the interior. In traditional pueblos, it is common to see women gathered in a zaguan, talking on various subjects and watching others passing by on the sidewalk, or selling homemade pastry, milk, or candies. Zaguanes are also the perfect place to tell Mexican tales or personal stories, like the one told by an old woman when we knocked at her door to interview her. She let us in to the zaguan, and there she felt confident enough to tell us about her husband who had passed away just days earlier and to show us pictures of him with tears in her eyes. Today, the tradition of zaguanes is all but lost, and there is no more transition between the outside and the inside than a bare door on the facade. shrines Mexican shrines are another built expression of religiosity. With a very strong religious history and popular traditions of faith and ritual, the Mexican landscape is dotted with metaphysical places. Strictly speaking, shrines belong to the metaphysical domain because they embody not only what people think but also what they believe in. Shrines (santuarios in Spanish) are religious centers composed mainly of churches associated with national history and used as a destination for popular pilgrimages. In effect, shrines in Mexico are not only religious places but also symbols of national identity. The most famous example is the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico City, which is visited by inhabitants of the nation’s capital, and millions from all over Mexico, year after year. The miracle associated with this shrine has made it a symbol of national identity because it is said to have happened early in the sixteenth century, when the Spanish Conquest was taking hold and the Indians were threatened with extermination. Popular tradition says that, at the site of the shrine, the Virgin Mary appeared several times to a humble Indian named Juan Diego who, after being ignored by the bishop, asked her to grant a miracle that others might believe. The miracle consisted of the Virgin’s pressing her torso against Juan Diego’s tilma (cloth coat), which left physical evidence of the presence of the Virgin, who would protect the Indians from then on. The same tilma is still venerated in the basilica and is the reason why so many people go there every December 12, the anniversary of the miraculous event.

Figure 1.56. Basilica de Guadalupe. Courtesy Nuria Hernandez.

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Shrines are where people gather around shared beliefs, myths, or symbols. The shrine expresses the ideology of Mexico’s very religious society and offers people opportunities for experiencing and expressing their beliefs in real places. They are containers for the society’s symbols, codes, beliefs, and rituals. More precisely, shrines and pilgrimages to them represent humanity’s endless pilgrimage from earth toward heaven. The area of influence of a Mexican shrine can be enormous because people are willing to travel long distances to get there, regardless of the difficulty or discomfort involved. Due to its spiritual difficulty and physical discomfort, the trip to the shrine is often as important as the

Figure 1.57. Soriano’s founders. Courtesy Fernando Núñez.

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Figure 1.58. View of ­Soriano’s shrine. ­Courtesy Fernando Núñez.

destination. The trip is an event in itself, because traveling by foot or bicycle takes longer than the actual visit to the shrine. And so shrines create cultural regions, linked by the interdependence between the shrine and its environs. The importance and historical meaning of shrines contrast with their architecture, which generally follows the simplicity dictated by ascetic religious canons: single aisle churches, only one tower, and bare but interesting atrios. The entire Mexican landscape is organized along routes based on the locations of shrines: the Basilica de Guadalupe, San Juan de los Lagos, Soriano, and Chalma. Soriano’s sanctuary in the state of Queretaro is a good example of a shrine in the Mexican landscape The story of Soriano begins with the Dominican missions, founded in 1693 (see fig. 1.57). At the forefront were Friar Felipe Galindo and Friar Luis de Guzman, both assigned to what is now Soriano’s shrine. Their goal was to evangelize the Chichimeca Indians of the region, converting them to Christianity. Before the missionaries’ arrival, Soriano did not exist as a town. With the founding of the mission the specific story of this place can be told. An interview subject described at length how he encountered the shrine in his first pilgrimage to Soriano: Let me tell you about the occasion when I saw it for the first time. It was the historic monument that became the reason for being for our trip. To my delight, I encountered a real shrine, a chapel much smaller than the newer big church just next door. I crossed the plaza beside the church, walked in front of the main facade, jumped up over three steps and there it was. A high stoop emphasized the importance of the shrine and gave it a sort of gesture of dignity. The porch retained its original paint, discolored by the sun and the rain and pigeon droppings. The main facade, painted in white, had only one tower to the right. Extraordinary simplicity. This facade showed the age of the chapel without any doubt: only one big door indicating only one aisle inside [most of the sixteenth- and seventeenthcentury colonial chapels were designed with only one aisle]; very few elements on the facade arranged very simply, with a statue that I later learned was Santo Domingo de Guzman, the founder of the Dominican order in the thirteenth century. The only tower was crowned by a pyramidal dome. The wooden door was framed by a fine limestone door case and the lock with a big hole made me imagine a big key. The stucco on the walls was worn away in some areas.

Paradoxically, the shrine’s front space that I am sure was once the atrio was totally empty. No one was there. Desolation is the proper word to define it. Respect is another word that comes to mind. The austerity and serenity of the walls filled the space. The door was locked, so we could not see the interior at the beginning, and this augmented the feeling of mystery. The only sound was the singing of the birds. I bet that this special atmosphere is changed completely by the crowds that usually come here. The day when I finally entered, only one old lady dared to enter the sanctuary. She was a poor woman, with half of her left foot protruding from her very old tennis shoes. Her head was bent on her chest and her back was bowed. She was walking very slowly with her eyes on the floor. To my surprise, she stopped before entering and glanced into the half-meter-high plastic wastebasket next to the door. I am sure she was looking for something to eat. In the end she did not pick up anything, but the scene was striking: the contrast between the artistic and historical richness of the shrine and the poverty of that woman. I imagined a sort of biblical scene and prayed to Santo Domingo to grant her a miracle. Natural shrines in Mexico are places where a natural wonder is associated with religious belief. These places constitute another important type of landmark in the Mexican landscape, and are usually crowned with Christian crosses at the summit. They are natural-cultural elements, because they superimpose cultural constructs onto natural land formations. Three popular natural shrines in Mexico are El Tepozteco in the state of Morelos, Malinalco in the state of Mexico, and El Cubilete in the state of Guanajuato. The first two are topped by pre-Hispanic ruins, and the third one by a gigantic figure of Jesus Christ. The Rock of Bernal is an example of a natural shrine in the region of Queretaro, also crowned by a cross and associated with many popular beliefs. The myths around it demonstrate once again the mythological component of Mexican culture. Located just behind the town, it is an imposing monolith, the biggest in the North Americas and third in size worldwide after Gibraltar in Spain and Pan de Azucar in Brazil. It is popularly recognized as having a magnetic field, with mysterious phenomena occurring, like psychic alterations on individuals, night storms, thunder coming from the rock, and unidentified flying objects appearing around it. Other stories speak about the amethyst core within the rock, the subterranean city, and the gates to other dimensions.57 These beliefs have attracted the attention of many people, including scientific researchers, climbers, and tourists in general, generating a constant and dynamic flow

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Figure 1.59. The Rock of Bernal viewed from El Baratillo Square. Courtesy Nuria Hernandez.

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of visitors to this site. At the spring equinox it is particularly crowded with people who supposedly come to be recharged with vital energy. Several movies have been filmed there. Bernal Rock was also considered magic and sacred by the Chichimecas, the pre-Hispanic people that lived here. The attraction of Bernal Rock mixes natural wonder and religious belief. The rock is certainly a unique geological anomaly, but Bernal also incorporates the ingredients of mystery and myth that characterize Mexico. Today its importance is increasing due to the growing number of climbing clubs around the country that come not only to conquer the rock but also to enjoy Bernal’s plazas and to buy textiles. Bernal, like many other magical Mexican towns, combines all the metaphysical and centralist agents that shape the Mexican landscape.

The Mexican Landscape Today Today traditional principles of space are absent from the more modern sections of Mexican cities. In the spirit of globalization, they tend to look the same as cities in any other part of the world; LeCorbusier’s mechanistic view of the domestic architecture as a “machine for living” appears to have

displaced the traditional and metaphysical Mexican way of life. The built world as a commercial product has replaced the built world as a means for situating humanity within the cosmos. Globalization seems to be inevitable in a world as well connected as ours and has some positive effects, such as the distribution of cheap, industrial materials and goods. Traditional Mexican places now must strive to keep traditions alive, and modern places push back to eliminate what seems old-fashioned. The past still exists in old buildings, in cobblestones, and in people’s memories, and the present exists in the reality of everyday life. There is a constant adaptation process between past and present. Past and present coexist in contradictory cultural encounters that are seldom resolved. For example motorized vehicles can barely pass in most historic districts and rural towns, due to narrow streets and stone pavements. Colonial towns like Bernal and the rancherías in the countryside were originally built not for modern cars, but for people on foot, on horseback, and in small carriages. The presence of vehicles causes major changes in the streets and plazas, places that have always been central to the local cultural identity. Paradoxically, the addition of automobiles, normally associated with speed and convenience, actually slows all types of movement and makes pedestrian flow more difficult. Similarly, utility poles on narrow sidewalks impede the circulation of people. These prefab posts are like artificial trees that technology has incorporated into the traditional landscape vernacular. Some other changes are less tangible but equally transcendent, like another agent that has come with technology and could be called “alienation.”

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Figure 1.60. Cars invading the streets. Courtesy Nuria Hernandez.

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Figure 1.61. Rebozo (shawl) and Coke. Courtesy Fernando Núñez.

The colonial setting survives but with some foreign elements incorporated. Mr. Nieves, our interview subject at Bernal, said, “I think that the problem is `transculturization,’ not `modernization.’ Ages ago we were invaded by foreign products that changed our habits of consumption. For example, we have been drinking Coca Cola for ages, and that is what I am against.” Today, the global and the local blend in Mexicans’ daily life are represented, respectively, by the Coke can and the traditional rebozo (shawl) and apron of elderly indigenous women, the two often observable in the same quick glance. Electronics and modern media have also allowed these old places to participate in the globalized world. One can quietly sit on a bench at El Baratillo but, at the same time, remain connected to the world through radio and TV. Similarly, no matter how serene the atmosphere of a small, isolated Mexican town, satellite dishes and cell phones are ubiquitous. Even in clothing, the global and the local are coexisting. It is very common to see middle-aged women walking in the streets dressed in slacks, loose T-shirts, and tennis shoes (exactly like today’s typical urban adolescent), carrying plastic bags with homemade sweet bread inside (very typical in small towns). It is not unusual either to see these women wrapping traditional rebozos around their shoulders or over their heads.

Figure 1.62. Ubiquitous satellite dishes. Courtesy Fernando Núñez.

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This contrast can also be expressed in terms of tranquility and disturbance. A “meditative” man sitting on a bench under a portal represents the tranquility and introversion of the place, while noisy adolescents running through the streets represent the agitation and extroversion of modern life. The contrast is also evident in the complex physical composition of the place juxtaposed with the enclosure that the physical space tends toward. The ranchería of Viborillas embodies the opposition between the global and the local on a regional scale. The view of the town from the high road reveals a mixture of modern technology, represented by a modern factory, and the traditional environment of the ranchería. In the town of Bernal, more and more signs and billboards have appeared on the streets, at first attached to the walls, more recently painted directly on the sides of buildings or covering entire facades.

Figure 1.63. El Baratillo Square, Bernal, in 1920 (compare to fig. 1.59). Courtesy Fernando Núñez.

Figure 1.64. Old well (now exhausted) in Soriano, ca. 1940. Courtesy Fernando Núñez.

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The size and type of this advertising is now controlled in the historic center, but in the rest of this very traditional Mexican town the variety of brand advertising expands daily. This demonstrates a lack of respect for the traditional role that walls played when advertising was not as central to urban space. Today, it is sometimes more visible than the architecture itself. Daily time still runs slowly in Mexican streets, but historic time has suddenly changed. Evolution through time has led to new historic periods and new ambiences, changing the perception of place (see fig. 1.63). For example, even though the built context at El Baratillo Square in Bernal

Figure 1.65. Public pool (now closed) in Soriano, ca. 1940. Courtesy Fernando Núñez.

has changed only slightly in recent years, its atmosphere was totally different during the Mexican Revolution of 1910 compared to more peaceful later times when people no longer habitually carried guns. In the case of Soriano, time has produced major changes. In fact, the erection of the new church just next to the original shrine blocked an existing street and created a new one, changing the place completely. The changing vertical profile of the landscape also reflects other social changes. In the first phase, the altar at the top of the pyramid (the metaphysical connection) was the highest point in the landscape, and the pyramids themselves were the boldest constructions. In the second phase, church domes and towers were the tallest built elements. Today, modern churches have no tower of any kind. Indeed, the high-rise office building has usurped that role and is emblematic of a shift in emphasis from religious to commercial and from metaphysical to pragmatic. Today’s Mexican cities and towns also demonstrate the scarcity of natural resources and their gradual depletion. The region of Soriano in the state of Queretaro is an unfortunate example. This area was once a water paradise with abundant rivers, canals, pools, and ponds; now, because of urbanization, it is a place of dry canals and empty reservoirs.

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Figure 1.66. Typical social-interest housing development. Courtesy Fernando Núñez.

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However, the people themselves have changed the most, especially in terms of the activities they engage in and their values regarding the built landscape. For example, a respectful attitude toward colonial haciendas as symbols of power and hierarchy has given way to contemporary ignorance and indifference. Most haciendas have lost viability and lie abandoned. On the other hand, despite globalization, the Mexican people for the most part still adhere to their traditional religious beliefs, as evidenced by well-attended yearly pilgrimages. One of our collaborators in this work told us that in a very small pueblo in the state of Michoacan, the villagers have just finished building the second tower of their church, an effort that took about sixty years of off-and-on effort. There was a huge celebration and remembrance of all those who worked on the tower over the years, including those who never lived to see it completed. In spite of urban growth and transformation, some specific places seem always to remain the same, like the portales in colonial cities and traditional pueblos. These places have always been popular because everyone has felt protected there and able to observe what happens in the world. These places are examples of how Mexicans combine the enclosure of architecture with the appropriation of public space by walking directly in the streets, enjoying the shade of the trees, playing in the fountains, eating, socializing, and celebrating in the streets. The Mexican characteristic of architectural baroque enclosure did not change for hundreds of years, and the appropriation of public space has not disappeared either. So-called social-interest housing developments are a new feature of today’s Mexican landscape. These projects, encompassing hundreds and even thousands of identical dwellings, are built on characterless gridiron urban plans. Repetitive, mass-produced houses are placed along endless streets ignoring traditional Mexican principles of centralism and hierarchy. There are no landmarks, no variations, and no central public spaces. Areas reserved for urban services, such as commercial, educational, and recreational buildings, often remain empty and the population is left without such services. Builders are required by the government to donate these areas in preparation for the future when public agencies will supposedly have sufficient resources to develop the appropriate facilities. Typically, the expected wealth never materializes and those urban areas remain abandoned. As a result, people lack a sense of belonging to place because these places do not help them position themselves metaphysically in the landscape. The relationship between people and environment then becomes problematic as individuals do not have a home and do not feel at home. To call on a concept proposed by Enrique Browne, such faceless developments neither “create places” nor possess the Mexican genius loci.58 They

only emphasize values of economy and profitability, producing cheap artifacts without creating protecting places that have a real Mexican identity. To somehow alleviate the impact of these modern, often foreign, trends that threaten the millennial Mexican landscape, without succumbing to senseless isolation, we must reassess the importance and transcendence of the metaphysical plane within a more pragmatic contemporary world, embracing the future without abandoning what was valuable about the past. 73 The Interaction of Space and Place

Chapter 2

The Urban Evolution of the Colonial City Queretaro, 1531–1910 Carlos Arvizu

In the four hundred years from its sixteenth-century founding to the start of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, the city of Queretaro’s urban structure, like that of other Mexican colonial cities, evolved significantly in terms of both physical space and morphology (type of urban layout, circulation, constructed elements, open and enclosed spaces, and the extent of its urban space). This evolution was a result of changing economic, political, and social factors which, to varying degrees, came to overshadow the four elements described in chapter 1 as basic to the Mexican way of life—religiosity, centralism, enclosure, and attachment to the land. In the first section, I analyze the city’s development from the colonial era through Mexican independence in 1821. Many of the urban elements developed during this time became the established guidelines for the city’s growth and still influence Queretaro’s profile. I then consider permanence, transformation, and the growth of the city’s urban structure from 1821 until 1910, the start of the Mexican Revolution. The study of the prerevolutionary city is divided into two parts: the rise of a national urban system and the national era itself when many urban changes took shape as a consequence of the nationalization of church properties. This process is strongly symbolic of the transition from a religious state to a secular one and the diminishing strength of religiosity as a guiding force in urban development. Also emphasized is another important historical event, the siege of Queretaro in 1867, which completed the break with the viceregal era. The second section concludes with the last years of the nineteenth century and the beginnings of the twentieth when the Porfirio Díaz dictatorship substantially modified the city’s traditional urban identity and established the beginnings of today’s Queretaro. In each section, I describe the most important historical events of each era and their direct impact on the morphological structure of the city. Also included are a significant number of original cartographic documents from a variety of sources corresponding to each era, many of them previously unpublished. Other graphic documents have been specifically created for this work.

Development of the Urban Structure From the beginning, the urbanizing process in the city of Queretaro was consistent and continuous. A series of elements, including centralism, enclosure, religiosity, and attachment to the land, contributed to the city’s traditional profile, which was well established by the time independence was achieved in 1821. All subsequent modifications and future growth would stem from the scheme established during this period. The Viceregal Period (1531–1821) During the sixteenth century, the Spaniards created two viceregencies in the Americas: one in New Spain and one in Peru. The former developed an extensive urban network early on. Santiago de Queretaro a typical colonial city in central Mexico, was one of many links in a long urban chain, joining Mexico City (125 miles [200 km] to the southeast of Queretaro and capital of the viceregency) to the mining centers of the north and the port of Veracruz. Queretaro has played a prominent role in various stages of Mexico’s history and in its economic development, especially during the viceregal era and the age of independence. This prominence can be attributed in large part to the city’s location at the center of what became the Mexican nation. The site on which Queretaro was founded sat between two indigenous settlements that had existed long before the arrival of the Spaniards—La

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Figure 2.1. The viceregency of New Spain. Courtesy Martha Ramos and Carlos Arvizu.

Figure 2.2. El Pueblito and La Cañada, preHispanic indigenous settlements near Queretaro. Courtesy Martha Ramos and Carlos Arvizu.

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Cañada to the east and El Pueblito to the west. An important pre-Hispanic ceremonial complex, now called El Cerrito, still exists in El Pueblito. In this area, Franciscan fathers later constructed the Sanctuary of the Virgin of El Pueblito, a religious center that inspired the devotion of all in Queretaro, regardless of racial, social, or economic background. A pre-Hispanic urban nucleus called Tlachco may once have been on the same site. This long-standing tradition of religiosity as a guiding life principle was critical to the founding of the city itself. Franciscan chroniclers of the eighteenth century linked Queretaro’s origins to a miraculous happening that remains part of the city’s cultural identity today. As the story goes, in the early hours of July 25, 1531, a day of festivities in honor of the apostle Santiago (Saint James), Spanish armies and their indigenous Otomi allies fought a battle against a contingent of indigenous Chichimecan, who were then in control of the surrounding lands. During the bloodiest part of the battle, just when courage was waning and the Spanish were in danger of defeat, voices choked with dust and weak with fatigue were heard to mutter, “Santiago! Santiago!” Suddenly, with this invocation, the skies darkened as in an eclipse, and a vision of the apostle Santiago, patron saint of Spain, appeared in the center of a luminous cloud, preceded by a gleaming cross. The apostle was riding his white stallion as a sign that the battle would be decided in favor of the Christians. Comforted and refreshed by this vision, the Spaniards emerged victorious and went on to found a new city on the site, named Santiago de Queretaro.

The legend of Santiago may be seen as a kind of salve for healing the wounds caused by the violence preceding the founding and later development of Queretaro. During this founding stage, it was essential to establish bridges between diverse groups that were gradually becoming integrated. This and other religious and cultural legends served that purpose perfectly, whether by design or coincidence.

Figure 2.3. Sighting of the cross and the apostle Santiago (mural at the Convent of La Cruz, Queretaro). Courtesy Mural convento de la Cruz, Queretaro.

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the sixteenth century Queretaro’s sixteenth-century development occurred in two stages. From 1531 to 1551, the city’s population was exclusively indigenous. Members of this population drew the initial layout for the settlement. The second stage, from 1551 to 1600, was intimately linked to the construction of the Royal Road, or Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, which connected the northern mining zones with Mexico City, as well as to the distribution of lands for the development of agriculture and livestock. The completion of the Royal Road in 1551 marked the beginning of Spanish settlement in the area of Queretaro. The Spaniards developed a second city layout, taking the one that had previously been established by the indigenous people as a reference; with this, the layout of the settlement acquired mestizo characteristics, in which both cultures merged. Thus the nature of Queretaro as a linking point between the center and the northern part of the country, as well as the coexistence of indigenous and Spanish populations in the same urban space, determined the city’s history and established its Spanish-indigenous character. the seventeenth century During the seventeenth century, Queretaro’s urban form was consolidated. Parallel to the establishment of the urban center within the geographic space of New Spain, the agricultural and livestock-raising hacienda, as a productive economic unit, attained a strong presence in the lands surrounding Queretaro, renewing and, at the same time, changing the focus of the traditional Mexican attachment to the land (see chap. 1). Together, the urban and rural economies helped finance large-scale construction of temples and convents to house the various religious orders

Figure 2.4. One of the first sketches for the design of Queretaro, executed by the Indians of the settlement; the temple and plaza of the Franciscan convent of Santiago are in the center. Courtesy Martha Ramos and Carlos Arvizu.

Figure 2.5. The Royal Road, or Camino Real de Tierra Adentro. Courtesy Martha Ramos and Carlos Arvizu.

that settled in Queretaro during this century. The massive presence of these orders is explained by Queretaro’s location, which was very favorable to the evangelization of northern lands, and by its strong economy, based largely on agriculture and livestock; the textile industry, which derived from these activities, also became an important aspect of the economy.

Figure 2.6. Spanish design for Queretaro based on the indigenous layout (see fig. 2.4). Courtesy Martha Ramos and Carlos Arvizu.

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Figure 2.7. Seventeenthcentury designs for Queretaro. Courtesy Martha Ramos and Carlos Arvizu.

The seventeenth century also marked Queretaro’s taking its place in a new, more prestigious urban category. In 1656, the viceroy of New Spain approved the township’s new rank as city and established the first cabildo (city council). The royal envoy’s report stated that Queretaro was already an important place, because there lived a number of Spanish gentiles, owners of large plots of land, palaces and homes; several plazas had been constructed, all of them of singular beauty and the city also had seven fine religious convents; its streets were both well constructed and oriented and the workshops satisfied the needs of a more important category. This new designation gave Spaniards, creoles (persons of Spanish blood born in New Spain), and mestizos (persons of mixed Spanish and indigenous blood) the possibility of participating in their own government through the cabildo. It also confirmed that the Spanish and creole populations, and to a lesser extent the mestizo population, outnumbered

the Indian one. Adding the force of sheer numbers to the economic dominance of this same elite majority, the Indian town of Queretaro had clearly been replaced by a vibrant Spanish city. the eighteenth century Queretaro achieved urban integration in the eighteenth century, which was truly the golden century for the city. During the previous hundred years, accelerated—almost anarchic—growth was pegged to poles of development tightly associated with the simultaneous development and consolidation of the hacienda system. Also during the eighteenth century, a constant water supply, an active program of architectural remodeling and construction, the establishment and enforcement of diverse political and urban policies, and spatial enlargement caused by demographic growth allowed for the inclusion of peripheral areas into one integrated urban body. Organized around a central nucleus in keeping with the hierarchical centralism, the city was a unifying force that Mexicans had inherited from pre-Hispanic civilizations and sixteenth-century Spanish conquerors alike. During the eighteenth century, Queretaro’s evolution was directly associated with the economic development of the region known as the Bajio in the central Mexican highlands. The city’s economy was strengthened by commerce with other urban centers in the area, which in turn promoted increased agricultural and livestock exchange and the growth of urban industry, especially textiles.

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Figure 2.8. The Bajio. Courtesy Martha Ramos and Carlos Arvizu.

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Figure 2.9. Eighteenthcentury design for Queretaro, 1700 —1750. Courtesy Martha Ramos and Carlos Arvizu.

The economy was further reinforced by the many workshops that emerged throughout the city, along with the establishment in 1770 of the royal tobacco factory of San Fernando. This enterprise was a monopoly of the Spanish state and employed more than three thousand workers, some of them temporary, particularly those that came during the rainy season, causing a considerable increase in the migrant population. The baroque profile of Queretaro’s urban image was established during this century; while some structures were being rebuilt, particularly those religious ones built in the previous century, many new ones were constructed at this time. Most of the great homes, or baroque casonas (large houses), that are so characteristic of Queretaro’s historic center today were also built during the eighteenth century. Queretaro’s identity during the eighteenth century was closely tied to the aqueduct, built between 1726 and 1738 by Don Juan Antonio de Urrutia y Arana, marques of the Villa de Villar del Aguila. The aqueduct was built to bring clean drinking water into the city from nearby springs in La Cañada. When the water reached the city limits, it was sent through the pipes of the aqueduct, crossing the hacienda of Carretas, and deposited in a tank at the Convent of La Cruz, at the top of the hill of Sangremal, the highest point in the city and the legendary site of its founding. Soon after the aqueduct was built, many public fountains appeared, giving every barrio its own source of freshwater and giving the outlying barrios a common link to the core of the original city: “Loving Marques, you turned the great treasure of this city into water.” In addition, “the water streaming from the lovely fountains had become the new symbol of the city.”1 The aqueduct is also further proof of the importance of religion in Mexican colonial life if we accept the popular tale that attributes its

construction to the “loving” marques who fell in love with a young nun of the Holy Cross convent (ultimate destination of the water canal), who was hauling water in buckets. The marques designed, directed, and supervised all aspects of the work: water tanks, drain pipes along the entire length of the aqueduct, the arches of the monument itself, the glazed clay pipes, and the public and private fountains, among other elements. When construction of the aqueduct and its associated infrastructure was completed in 1738, the city council declared fifteen days of festivities to celebrate the achievement. The eighteenth century also saw passage of new laws, approved by the viceroy and the king of Spain, that established new functions and rights for the city council. They dealt with such quality-of-life issues as urban hygiene and cleanliness, security, paving and street construction, care of the river, and the protection and distribution of water. Another all-encompassing law passed during this period tried to deal with the inconveniences brought about by the growth of the city as a consequence of textile production and tobacco manufacture. These problems included overall population increases and large numbers of migrant populations; health issues and littering of the river and its channels; public unrest; slow judicial procedures; lighting and other inefficient public services; insecurity; cleanliness and public safety, among others. A close study of this law also reveals concern for education

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Figure 2.10. Queretaro, 1796: map of the ordinance issued by Magistrate Ignacio Ruiz Calado. Courtesy Cartografía de Queretaro.

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Figure 2.11. Design for Queretaro. Courtesy Martha Ramos and Carlos Arvizu.

(particularly with regard to elementary schooling) and the promotion of the arts, as well as a preoccupation with increased laziness and prostitution. This ordinance followed the tradition of centralized hierarchy through its division of the city into three major districts, or sections, each of them further subdivided into three minor sections for efficient public administration. Two of the major districts had their own mayors, who also belonged to the council; the third district was supervised directly by the magistrate, or corregidor, himself. Each of the minor districts was administered by an alcalde de barrio (district mayor). The ordinance was approved by the viceroy in June 1796 and by the Spanish king in May 1799. It included a map showing the major and minor districts. The last important public works project undertaken by the viceregal government was the Alameda of Queretaro. This park was designed in the neoclassical style which was fashionable at the time. Its construction was prompted by Ignacio Ruiz Calado, the magistrate, who thought that a public recreational space would help reduce social problems. On the application form submitted to the viceroy for starting the new work in 1795, the magistrate points out: “If we are able to form an Alameda, and people from all spheres, lacking other amusement spaces, come and mingle, most abuse will be taken care of, and a large number of excesses will be eradicated.” The work was completed using plots of land donated by the owners of the Hacienda de Casablanca and was financed by private individuals and with the proceeds of forty bullfights organized and attended by the citizenry. The Alameda was partially finished by 1804, just a few years before the start of the War of Independence. By the end of the eighteenth century, Queretaro’s urban structure made it one of the most important settlements in Spanish America. From a strictly morphological point of view, the city was like a precision

clock with all the parts working. There were suitable open spaces, and both civil and religious architecture were flawlessly executed, following baroque and neoclassical precepts. The proportion, harmony, and scale of the city, the contrasts between the various barrios, its streets and alleys, its image in general—all were a precise reflection of its mixed heritage. the nineteenth century On the eve of Mexican independence, following several centuries of favored status, Queretaro found itself in an unaccustomed position in New Spain. Queretaro had been one of the five most important cities of the viceregency—along with Mexico City, Puebla, Guadalajara, and Guanajuato. But despite this, and despite Queretaro’s superior population and economic level, the city had not been chosen as a site of provincial government in the Bourbon monarchy’s territorial reorganization. Nor had it been selected as an episcopal seat, or head of the bishopric, although the citizenry had campaigned for such a designation. The citizenry was decidedly uneasy. A wealthy creole aristocracy was unable to attain important positions in civil and religious administrations; Indians and mestizos were exploited by the owners of haciendas and factories; and industry and commerce were controlled by the Spanish Crown. These local concerns, added to those causing national unrest, helped unleash the fight for independence that started in Queretaro on September 15, 1810. This event also marked the beginning of urban decline. The proud city that had called itself “third city of New Spain,” was paralyzed by violence; the industrial development and the craftsmanship for which Queretaro had been famous in the eighteenth century were disrupted. This gateway to the north of the country, border city of the Bajio, and antechamber to Mexico City, was profoundly affected by the struggle for independence. The Bajio was the scene of the cruelest battles of the war’s first stage. Although Queretaro, a cornerstone in the creation of the basic eighteenth-century urban system of the Bajio, remained untouched by opposition groups, the consequences were extremely detrimental to its development. All cities of the Bajio suffered multiple disasters. Economic and urban equilibrium was lost; agricultural and mining systems were broken; many rural and urban workers joined opposing military forces; the principal market for agricultural and manufactured products ceased to exist; commercial exchange with Mexico City also deteriorated; the Spanish population migrated, taking their resources with them; important population movements took place; and sources of income for both rural and urban populations were suspended. The effects of the war were felt in Queretaro almost immediately. The viceregal government felt the need

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Figure 2.12. Queretaro, 1816: map for the military defense of the city. Courtesy Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico.

to fortify the city and its surroundings, because its possession implied control of the routes from Mexico City to the north of the country. Security measures undertaken by Spanish authorities caused dramatic shifts in population, increasing from 50,000 in 1810 to 90,000 in 1815, then decreasing to 21,000 in 1821, after independence was declared. This ultimate decrease in population was both cause and effect of the paralysis of the urban economy.

Figure 2.13. Gates around Queretaro, 1818: top, San Luis; left, Celaya; bottom, Alameda, Santa Cruz. Courtesy Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico.

Queretaro was the last bastion of viceregal power. General Luaces, military commander of Queretaro, was the only Spanish official who never surrendered to insurgent forces, and Mexico’s independence had started with Queretaro’s downfall. By the end of the war, the image of the city had changed: ditches had been excavated around the outskirts; improvised hospitals and cemeteries had been established to house the victims of epidemics; and urban space had deteriorated as a result of overcrowding in the city. With the independence movement successfully concluded, the viceregal era also ended, and the expansion of the city came to a stop; the urban footprint would remain unchanged for the next 140 years.

Permanence, Transformation, and Growth of the Urban Structure The movement toward a national urban system was born in 1821, at the dawn of Mexico’s independent life. The War of Independence had interrupted the colonial system that had been composed primarily of the cities in the Bajio and the northern mining towns.2 Mexico City had lost part of its influence during the first half of the nineteenth century, somewhat weakening the centralist tradition, but would regain it in the second half.3 Gradually, the capital city strengthened its primacy as a political and religious center, a center for distribution and consumption, and a cultural engine. In keeping with Mexico historic centralism, it concentrated production and transformed the peripheral cities into satellites, thus converting its centrifugal function in the colonial era to a centripetal one following independence.4 The National Urban System During this new era the survival of urban colonial centers depended on their ability to adapt to new economic, political, and social models. Not all cities were able to do so effectively. Such was the case with the cities of the Bajio, which had been tightly linked to the colonial system. Even though these cities found in Mexico City a good market for their agricultural products, livestock, and manufactured goods, they did not directly depend on that market; it was economic exchange between the cities in the area and the mining towns that reestablished equilibrium. Throughout the nineteenth century, great changes took place at all levels, accelerating the break with colonial urban models, deeply affecting relationships among urban centers, and altering the internal structure

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Figure 2.14. Independent Mexico: division of the territory according to the constitution of 1825. Courtesy Martha Ramos and Carlos Arvizu.

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of cities. These far-reaching changes, in turn, gave rise to new models of production and consumption, exclusion of Spaniards and their financial capital, removal of European clergy, nationalization of the wealth of clergymen, commercial liberalization, and growth in imports. This new era occurred simultaneously with a highly unstable political situation: a struggle for power, two foreign interventions, and social, political, and military movements that strongly affected the cities of central Mexico. Mexico City became a refugee center for the rural population.5 Queretaro was the city most affected by these and other changes; the circumstances that had made it one of the five most important cities during the viceregal period proved to be unfavorable in this new era. Gradually the city lost dominance, as did many other cities that had personified Spanish supremacy in the Americas.6 Its location, previously an undisputed asset, became one of the strongest factors working against it during the politically unstable nineteenth century. Queretaro became a city where armies transited freely while moving to and from Mexico City, and this uncontrolled movement had permanent repercussions for agriculture and livestock-raising, urban industry, and commerce. Direct effects on the urban structure of Queretaro were a result of the events that followed independence. However, in general terms, the urban scheme of the viceregal period would be sustained throughout the following centuries, regardless of the many changes influencing the city space.

The National Era (1821–1910) The national era originated with the independence of the country in 1821 and extended into the initial stages of the Mexican Revolution in 1910. It was characterized by political unrest that did not end until the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz (the Porfiriato), which began in the last decades of the nineteenth century and lasted well into 1910. Throughout these years, the viceregal structure of Queretaro suffered profound deterioration and the city’s milieu changed radically from that of colonial times. after mexican independence [1821–1880] The city of Queretaro began life in an independent Mexico as the capital of the state with the same name.7 Nonetheless, this era marked the start of a long period of decline for Queretaro, full of episodes that dramatically altered its traditional way of life. The first area of the economy negatively affected by the changes was the textile industry, of which Queretaro had been one of the most important centers in New Spain. The main factors that contributed to the decline in textile production were a massive departure of Spaniards and the consequent removal of their investment capital, the migration of a significant number of inhabitants, continuous epidemics, and the lowering of commercial barriers to admit European and American merchandise. The textile industry received a final blow in the 1830s with the establishment of Casa Rubio, an industrial partnership made up of several enterprises: El Hercules, La Purisima, San Antonio, and later, San Jose de la Montaña.8 This partnership eventually grew to become one of the most important textile manufacturing businesses in Mexico during the second half of the nineteenth century. It destroyed all small- and medium-scale textile urban industries in the area, despite government intervention. The Casa Rubio partnership became the foundation for liberal capitalism in Queretaro and closed an economic cycle with the opening of the Bank of Queretaro and the acquisition by the partnership of large urban and rural properties, such as the Hacienda La Esperanza. The industrial units of San Antonio and San Jose de la Montaña were set up at the edges of the city, the first, in the Otra Banda north of the Queretaro River in an area called Pathe; the second, across from the Alameda on its southern side. The factories of El Hercules and La Purisima were located near the city on the road to La Cañada. An urban complex for workers, of the type popular in the nineteenth century, developed along the road that connected the two enterprises.9 The starting point for this new urbanizing process was El Hercules, which was housed in the Colorado (Red) Mill, a mill founded at the end of the sixteenth century.

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Figure 2.15. Queretaro, 1845. Courtesy Cartografía de Queretaro.

The tobacco factory of San Fernando, which had also been one of the foundations of the urban economy at the end of the eighteenth century, and which had employed a workforce of three thousand, also gradually lost importance. The decrease in production started with the struggles of 1810 and increased with independence. The causes were diverse: suppression of the state monopoly, liberalization of commerce, and unpredictable measures taken by the government that alternately authorized and prohibited the growing of tobacco. By 1844, the factory’s production had diminished to only a third of 1810 levels.10 During the second half of the nineteenth century, the factory was not profitable, which brought about the final decision to close it. Demographic change was also an important barometer of the situation in Queretaro at the time. The population had been decreasing since the last years of the viceregal era when it stood at 60,000. By 1810, this number had fallen to just 20,000 due in large part to constant epidemics of chicken pox, scurvy, dysentery, cholera, and smallpox.11 By 1855, the city had a population of 27,456.12 A rapid lowering of the quality of life was evident in the city’s image. The writer Jose Antonio del Raso said in 1844 that “the political circumstances of 1810 restrained the city’s steps, paralyzed its movements,

diminished its fortunes, and without the means for subsistence, its population was forced to migrate, reduced to only a third.” Sometime later, he referred to a municipal report asserting that “more than 6,000 men are reduced to basic needs, exposed to misery and in danger of prostitution due to the lack of occupation.”13 Even though the economy was in dire shape, by the middle of the nineteenth century two important buildings were completed: the Theater of the Republic, and the Church of La Merced. Both projects faced serious financial difficulties. The construction of the theater began in 1845 and lasted until April 1852; the church was begun in 1850 but did not open for public worship until 1870, even then without its dome. This church was the last to be built in the traditional quarter of the city. Guillermo Prieto in his Voyages of Supreme Order dramatically portrayed the economic depression that afflicted Queretaro in 1854: “Queretaro is a dethroned king; poverty consumes it, surrounded by the remains of opulent fortune, its great titles, erased by time, made useless by the new turn of the centuries.”14 But the worst was still to come; internal struggles for independence were replaced by international conflict. This, as well as political power struggles involving many groups, invariably set back both the urban and rural economies. Three nineteenth-century military events had strong direct or indirect repercussions for Queretaro: the war against the United States, the War of Reform, and the War of Intervention. In the war against the United States, Mexico fought against its neighbor to the north; the War of Reform pitted liberals against conservatives; and the War of Intervention saw republicans opposing French and imperialist forces. The war against the United States took place between 1846 and 1848, and even though military events did not actually touch Queretaro, the city’s location forced it to house the capital of the republic from October 12, 1847, to June 12, 1848, and it was the site for ratification of the treaties of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the war.15 In Memory of My Times, Guillermo Prieto provides an account of life in this era: “The inns, hostels, private homes and their accessories, every place was bubbling with foreigners and, recognizing that there were still many people who needed housing, even the convents were opened.”16 In the War of Reform (1857–60), the liberal thinkers sought to update economic, political, and social structures that were still based largely on colonial schemes, even though the country had been independent since 1821. (See chap. 1, for a discussion of the philosophical conflict between centralists and federalists following independence.) Queretaro’s urban profile was greatly affected by the War of Reform in terms of expropriation and later, outright destruction, of important church properties.

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The church had accumulated considerable urban property, which was used for an unknown number of urban tenements in addition to the enormous properties occupied by the temples and convents themselves.17 Action had been taken prior to the Laws of Reform to divest the church of some of its property. Such was the case with the orchard of the convent of San Antonio, acquired by the government in 1848 for the construction of a market.18 (Today the same property is occupied by the Jardin de la Corregidora, or Garden of the Corregidora, a focal point of Queretaro’s historic center.) In an attempt to integrate this former orchard into the city’s public space, its walls were demolished and the arches and limestone urns from the fountain of Neptune that sat in one corner were removed. The interior space was also altered; several metallic structures roofed with shingles provided sheltered areas for retail. This was the first major modification of Queretaro’s urban space since viceregal times. With the triumph of the reform, and because church property was nationalized, the appearance of the city was dramatically changed. Queretaro’s temples and convents were expropriated; religious communities were left without their cloisters; the walls of the atrios were razed; many other religious spaces were subdivided and put up for public auction; the orchards and atrios were turned into private grounds. As of 1861, the original urban layout of the city, which had remained practically unchanged from its founding, was extensively modified. Among the religious precincts most affected were the Franciscan convents and the temple of the Carmelite order. Founded during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the city was just taking shape, these convents had taken over entire blocks of the original urban plan, and some of the religious orders occupying them were wealthy owners of sizable urban and rural properties. The convent of Santiago in the heart of the city suffered most from the liberal movement, perhaps because of its enormous size and its prominent position as a symbol for the people of Queretaro. The imposing presence of the convent, its ancient walls, its somber mass, along with all the other temples and convents in the city, strongly supported the monastic image of the city. The severe damage done to this convent had a definitive impact on the urban structure. The destruction of the convent of Santiago, along with the atrio walls of the convents of San Antonio and Santa Clara, started early in 1861.19 Within the convent of Santiago, the first structure to fall was the chapel of the Holy Christ of San Benito, followed by the wall that separated the atrio from the Garden of San Francisco, or the Plaza del Recreo (Recreation Plaza), now known as Jardin Zenea, and the street now known as Juárez. The facades of several chapels were partially destroyed on the

Figure 2.16. Modifications to the Franciscan Convent of Santiago. The document was drafted in 1858, but printed later, and some notes were added. Courtesy Cartografía de Queretaro.

night of September 5, 1863, when their religious images were burned to ashes.20 The rest of the chapels, the walls of the main orchard, and the fountain of the Seraph, located at the southwest corner of the convent, were demolished years later. The half-ruined walls holding the domes in place offered a sadly moving view of the ancient atrio-cemetery, which became known as the Plaza de los Escombros, or Plaza of Rubble.

Figure 2.17. Transformation of the city center as a result of changes to the Franciscan convent of Santiago: 1 = Franciscan convent of Santiago; 2 = convent of San Antonio; 3 = plaza of San Francisco. Courtesy Martha Ramos and Carlos Arvizu.

Figure 2.18. Queretaro, 1862; modifications to the principal convents. Courtesy Cartografía de Queretaro.

These acts of war profoundly changed the face of the historic city, through total or partial destruction of the very atrios, cloisters, and orchards that had helped establish the precepts of religiosity and the baroque enclosures that were critical to the public’s sense of space and place. After the War of Reform came the War of Intervention, which replaced antagonism between liberals and conservatives with the struggles of republicans against imperialists and the French. During the War of Intervention (1862–67), the republican government of Benito Juárez faced the French interventionist army of Napoleon III, followed by the conservatives and imperialists who supported Maximilian of Austria as emperor of Mexico and the remaining French forces. From November 17, 1863, Queretaro was occupied by Maximilian’s imperial army, headed by the native general Tomas Mejía. The imperialists sought to fortify their position within the city, thus initiating the Siege of Queretaro in hopes of preventing the republicans from reaching Mexico City and thus saving the empire from disaster. In March 1867, General Mariano Escobedo led the republican army into battle, fighting until May 15 when the siege finally ended. Maximilian and his main generals, Miguel Mirámon and Tomas Mejía, were taken prisoner and executed on June 19 of that year at Cerro de las Campanas (Hill of the Bells) just outside the city. The total urban chaos produced by the Reform was followed by the havoc of the siege. As Fernando Díaz describes the scene: Once the siege was over, . . . Queretaro, had a desolate appearance. All around its perimeter . . . the barrios . . . were all reduced to ruins. The homes, which had served as a defense for those under siege, showed enormous damage caused by republican artillery. . . . The plaza in front of the cathedral, San Francisco, was a desert of

Figure 2.19. Queretaro and its immediate surroundings, 1863. Courtesy Mapoteca Orozco y Berra, Mexico.

rubbish. . . . The aqueduct, which had been shut down by the republicans to stop the supply of water into the City, was completely damaged. The Alameda was devastated as it was the backdrop for war actions and its greenery had been used as the only forage for the horses of the army. . . . The inhabitants of Queretaro could only manifest misery and fright.21

Figure 2.20. The Siege of Queretaro, 1867. Drafted in 1886, the document shows the positions of republican and imperial troops. Courtesy Mapoteca Orozco y Berra, Mexico.

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Figure 2.21. Subdivision of the Franciscan convent as proposed by the governor of the state, Julio M. Cervantes, in 1867. Courtesy Martha Ramos and Carlos Arvizu.

After the restoration of the republic, the government of Queretaro, directed by Colonel Julio M. Cervantes, faced the trying task of physical, economic, social, and institutional reconstruction. In an attempt to improve the appearance of the city center, Cervantes prepared to divide the Franciscan convent into city blocks and grant sections of the land at no cost. Because the land was to be donated, it was expected that the new proprietors would be able to rapidly rebuild, and thus improve the forlorn look of the city. The project was carried out even before the ruins of the convent had been demolished or the new streets opened.22 However, in 1872 the government was forced to repossess the properties that had been donated because of the new proprietors’ inability to begin construction. The government then designated the southern part of the convent, formerly the orchard, for the construction of a market. In 1874, a large part of the southern block of the plaza was assigned to house the offices of the Palacio de Gobierno (Government Palace). The main facade of the

Figure 2.22. Queretaro, 1879. The detail shows the city’s downtown area completely restructured. Courtesy Cartografía de Queretaro.

building would include three entrances, symbolic of the three branches of government, but also reminiscent of the tripartite design that has characterized Mexican architecture since pre-Hispanic times. The palace project was abandoned for lack of funds, and in 1886 the property was sold to the Spaniard Cipriano Bueno, who adapted it to serve as a hotel, finally demolishing the remains of the ancient chapels. The building was completed early in 1893 and named the Grand Hotel.23 State and municipal authorities in Queretaro labored under severe financial limitations, and despite government efforts, the complete reconstruction of the city was a slow and complicated process that was not finished until late in the nineteenth century, during the Porfiriato. Figure 2.23. Queretaro and its immediate surroundings, 1880. Courtesy Mapoteca Orozco y Berra, Mexico.

the porfiriato [1880-1910] During the entire Porfiriato, with the exception of just four years (September 1883 to October 1887), Queretaro had only one governor, Francisco González de Cosio. During this time, many attempts were made to restore the economy through the introduction of new, more diversified industry.

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For example, the governor introduced the First Industrial Exhibition of Queretaro in 1882, the purpose of which was to bring the city into the modern age. The arrival of the first railroad, early that same year, and the fame of the city after the execution of Maximilian were powerful attractions to national and international visitors who were potential investors. These developments also provided added impetus for commerce and tourism, a sector that was already receiving a boost from the city’s unusually rich history.24 A state of relative peace was achieved during González de Cosio’s time in office, and notable economic improvement took place. Belief in the notion of progress was strong. Commercial development, closely linked to both agriculture and cattle breeding, was pivotal to the local economy.25 The influence of commerce went beyond the city limits to include rural zones in the state, such as the principal settlements of municipalities and districts, ranches and haciendas, as well as part of the rural territory of the neighboring state of Guanajuato. This situation permitted the city’s complete urban reconstruction and empowered the governor to undertake many improvement projects that dramatically transformed the city’s viceregal identity. The telephone, the telegraph, and electricity were introduced, and gas lamps were located

Figure 2.24. Queretaro, 1885. Courtesy Cartografía de Queretaro.

Figure 2.25. The state of Queretaro, 1897. Courtesy Cartografía de Queretaro.

throughout the city, not only improving visibility but also beautifying the urban environment.26 A new network was built for the distribution of freshwater; old water pipes were replaced; and the aqueduct was repaired. Sanitary conditions in the city improved substantially. Plazas were set aside from streets carrying vehicular traffic, and sidewalks were built for pedestrians. González de Cosio also promoted the drafting of accurate plans for some cities and territories in the state.

Despite these far-reaching efforts to improve the quality of urban life, the city’s population did not recover the numbers seen earlier in the nineteenth century, increasing by only about fifty-six hundred between 1887 and 1910. In fact, the last ten years of the Porfiriato showed a slight decrease in population, preventing any expansion in the urban footprint. During roughly the same period, new means of transportation were reaching Queretaro, including three new rail lines and an animal-drawn tramway. The Central Railway. On February 14, 1882, the first railroad arrived in Queretaro. The terminal building, located to the south of the city, had been opened that same year, near the Alameda but outside the city limits. This led to the immediate urban development of the area next to the Alameda and later growth to the south. This first area of growth in more than a century included enlarging and extending existing streets and constructing several important monuments; new neighborhoods were also built, where large villas and private homes with beautiful gardens lined the avenues. The National Railway. The terminal belonging to this railroad was located to the north of the city and the river. Renovation and construction work were done on several bridges to facilitate the movement of traffic between the station and city. The construction of this railway line promoted development and increased density in the northern part of the city while, at the same time, destroying the traditional structure of the barrios in the area, slicing them lengthwise to accommodate this new urban barrier. The Acambaro Railway. This railway started operating in 1910. Its main purpose was to connect the National Railway and the haciendas located throughout Queretaro with the town of Acambaro in the Bajio. The lines ran from north to south, on the still-undeveloped western side of the city. The Urban Railway, or animal-drawn tramway. This railway, established around 1880, was a tramway that ran over rails and was pulled by mules.27 It followed the traditional streets and established a connection between the most important points in the city and its surroundings.28 The tramway ran from the city center to the Central Railway terminal and into the town of La Cañada, passing the factories of La Purisima and El Hercules. By the last years of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth, Queretaro’s urban profile had changed drastically. At the heart of the city, the Franciscan convent had contributed its atrio-cemetery as public space; its religious buildings had been demolished, replaced by architectural and urban spaces representative of the new era. These new spaces included, among others, the Grand Hotel, the Pedro Escobedo Market, three new avenues, and a large open space integrated into the

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plaza of San Francisco, or Recreation Plaza, which would become the Jardin Zenea. Baroque enclosure as an architectural element was diminished still further, and the strong element of religiosity that had characterized the city in earlier times continued to wane. Instead of the ancient precincts occupied by clergy, new buildings were rising to house the diverse activities of the new age. Those religious buildings that had not been demolished were put up for public auction and bought by individuals, many of them merchants. Still other church buildings became state property. Thus most of the old temples and convents of Queretaro were converted for secular purposes. The urban plan underwent dramatic alteration as a consequence of the demolition of religious precincts: new streets were added; atrio walls disappeared; and the atrios themselves became public space. The Jardin Zenea was provided with cast-iron benches, lamps, monumental flower pots of Carrera marble and cast iron, a fountain dedicated to the goddess Hebe, a kiosk covered in zinc, concrete paving and a metallic module that controlled rental carts, and the animal-powered Urban Railway terminal. The streets surrounding the garden were paved with limestone blocks from quarries in La Cañada. New buildings with art nouveau, eclectic, romantic, and historic influences were rising on all sides, establishing fresh architectural dialogues with the baroque and neoclassical influences of previous eras. In addition to private homes, they included banking institutions, hotels, and a variety of structures housing new commercial activities. It was also common to find many old private homes completely remodeled in the modern style. All gave the city a completely different air. The Grand Hotel served multiple purposes, as has become common in the modern era: commercial stores occupied the first level and were easily accessible from the street. These establishments included a bakery, tobacco shops, the hotel entrance, private homes, and on the hotel’s south side, the portal named by the municipality the Portal Bueno, in honor of its owner.29 The rustic Pedro Escobedo Market to the south side of the Grand Hotel was rebuilt to conform to new standards and opened to the public in September 1895 to commemorate the birth date of Don Porfirio Díaz. 30 Also at the center of the city, in the area that had housed the market of San Antonio and, prior to that, the old orchard of the convent bearing the same name, a monument was erected in bronze and limestone to honor Doña Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez, better known as the corregidora of Queretaro, heroine of Mexican independence. This centrally located monument gave the city a very different character from that of the

viceregal period by focusing public attention on national history. The fountain of Neptune, that had served as a backdrop for the marketplace, was relocated to the garden of Santa Clara where it still sits today. To the south of the city, the Alameda Hidalgo was replanted and refurbished, including a sculpture of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, another prominent figure in independence. Slowly the vertical proportions of the new architecture, the flowing lines of organic motifs, and a host of details such as cast-iron grates, beveled crystal windows, pastel-colored facades, electric lighting, and the paving of both new and old avenues, changed the viceregal flavor of the city. To the north, the Queretaro River continued serving as a natural barrier between the city center and the barrios of the Otra Banda, now reinforced by the additional barrier of the National Railway. To the west, at Cerro de las Campanas, a solitary neo-Gothic chapel stood as witness to Maximilian’s brief presence in Queretaro. This chapel, which originally stood in sharp contrast to the barrenness of the surrounding landscape, was the project of Viennese architect Max Von Mitzel and was completed in April 1901 at the site where Maximilian, Mirámon, and Mejía were executed. The chapel is made of slate and limestone with pointed-arch windows, a double-pitched roof, and an

Figure 2.26. Queretaro, 1903; just north of the river is the area that was to be sectioned off to lay down tracks for the National Railway, dividing the old barrios of the Otra Banda lengthwise. Courtesy Cartografía de Queretaro.

104 Carlos Arvizu

impressive staircase; inside, an image of the Virgin de La Piedad (Virgin of Pity) by Delugne, completes the mournful picture.31 To the west of the city, the majestic aqueduct continued to supply vital water. Paralleled by a dirt road that led into Hercules and La Cañada, the aqueduct’s enormous arches were occasionally crossed by the Central Railroad, emphasizing the contrast between the new era and the old. At the Hill of Sangremal, behind the convent of La Cruz (whose atrio had also become public space), a limestone mausoleum, conceived by architect Emilio Donde, was erected to hold the remains of the corregidora of Queretaro; her ashes were deposited there on October 23, 1897. Other important elements of urban space were marketplaces, where merchants offered a huge variety of fruits, vegetables, legumes, meats, seeds, chiles, and all the traditional foodstuffs desired by the general population. Besides the Pedro Escobedo Market, at the city center, the market of El Carmen stood in front of the temple of the same name, and was remodeled as an iron structure with a cement floor, reopening in September 1897. The market of La Cruz was built and opened with the name of Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez in September 1902. The Porfiriato’s long period of tranquility and wealth was brought to a violent end by the Mexican Revolution, started by Francisco I. Madero on November 20, 1910. Only a year before, in December 1909, Madero, the so-called Apostle of Democracy and main opponent of Porfirio Díaz, had visited Queretaro with the intention of founding a political party, the Partido Antirreleccionista Queretano (Antireelection Party of Queretaro) to oppose Díaz’s reelection. As a result of this visit, the first public criticisms against Governor González de Cosio emerged. Madero’s visit unleashed the social unrest that had been seething beneath the apparent peace and progress of the Porfirian era and provided an outlet for many of the people of Queretaro, who identified with the ideals of Madero. Also in 1909, workers at the factory of El Hercules went on strike.32

Yesterday’s City in the City of Today The urban evolution of Queretaro and other Mexican colonial cities is the result of religious, political, social, economic, ideological, technological, productive, and demographic forces that have often worked together and sometimes fallen into serious conflict. The physical structure of the city shows the cumulative effect of all these forces, with increased urban space as the ultimate result. The classical elements of the viceregal city, its temples, convents, and chapels, its private homes and casonas, the aqueduct, the Alameda, the river, the names of the former haciendas, the urban layout, the streets

and alleys, the plazas and plazuelas (small squares), the fountains and monuments have all survived and continue to be a source of pride for the contemporary city. The traditional image of the city of Santiago de Queretaro has been transformed as the old haciendas and the agricultural territories of the viceregal period have given way to the modern scene. The classical profile of the city, distinguished by its aqueduct and its many towers and domes, is now complemented by high-tech cabling, bridges, and highways that rise into the air or plunge underground. The historic city is not only the viceregal one but also the one that underwent a transformation in the turmoil of the nineteenth century—the enormous destruction executed in the name of liberal ideas, the city of the Porfiriato, the city of the revolution and the postrevolution. The historic city is the result of the impressions left by an individual, or many individuals; it is physical space left behind as a trace of a specific society—its aspirations, struggles, illusions, and dreams, what it wants to be and what it is. Santiago de Queretaro is currently a lively city that has been able to preserve much of its built heritage along with its traditions and values. It is a modern and dynamic city that has not lost its identity despite the urban problems it confronts. Santiago de Queretaro holds onto a rich legacy from a past that will forever be present, but it is also a city that bravely responds to conditions at the dawn of the twenty-first century.

105 The Urban Evolution of the Colonial City

Chapter 3

From Revolution to Industrial Society Queretaro, 1910 to the Modern Age Carlos Arvizu and Ramón Abonce

Just when the city of Queretaro was going through a cycle of apparent urban improvement, the Porfirian era came to a sudden halt. Governor González de Cosio resigned on March 31, 1911, as a result of an interview with Porfirio Díaz in Mexico City only a few days earlier. His resignation brought to light many questions about the future; their answers were difficult to predict. This chapter analyzes the nature of the city from 1910 to 1943, prior to industrialization, a particularly trying era because of its highly unstable political situation, which contributed to urban stagnation. True industrial growth took place from 1943 to 1985, resulting in significant changes to the urban structure as well as an expansion of urban sprawl. Also examined are the effects of the changing city on people’s perceptions of urban space, especially the distances they must travel within it to conduct their daily lives. As the rhythms of daily life change unceasingly, we respond by using the city differently. Consequently, our way of perceiving its dimensions, now measured not in physical distance but in mental travel time, is changing as well. The critical question, answered in part by a survey of Queretaro residents, is this: How do constant functional, organizational, and social changes affect our way of living in and enjoying the city?

Before Industrialization (1910–1943) The Mexican Revolution, which started in 1910, produced serious disruption nationwide. Mexico City, the recipient of massive migration from other parts of the country, consolidated its urban supremacy and reasserted its traditional centralist role at the moment of national reconstruction and economic recovery when the revolution ended. Due to highly unstable conditions during the first decades of the twentieth century, Queretaro was not able to sustain a primary urban structure that would prepare it for the changes to come after 1940. Not until the second half of the twentieth century did conditions allow a resumption of the city’s development.

The Revolution (1910–1917) The start of the Mexican Revolution ushered in years of political unrest that ended only with the declaration of the new constitution in 1917. Ten governors served Queretaro during these years, most for only a few days, weeks, or months. These frequent power shifts were due largely to ongoing military struggles among various revolutionary groups. Queretaro remained an inevitable crossroads for these groups as they traversed a country at war, and the inhabitants grew accustomed to frequent changes in power, almost expecting to find a new authority in office each morning. The many revolutionary groups were headed by Victoriano Huerta, who usurped the presidency and is said to have ordered the deaths of President Madero, Vice President Jose Maria Pino Suárez, and revolutionary leaders Venustiano Carranza and Francisco (Pancho) Villa. Commerce, still strongly linked to traditional industry and rural pursuits, was able to survive as the main pillar of the urban economy despite having to adapt to constantly changing political conditions. By 1915, Venustiano Carranza, the only revolutionary leader left alive, proposed a congress to draft a new constitution that would reflect

107 From Revolution to Industrial Society

Figure 3.1. Eastern extension of Madero Street. Courtesy Departamento de Catastro, Secretaria de Desarrollo Urbano y Ecologia, Mexico.

108 Carlos Arvizu and Ramón Abonce

Figure 3.2. Transformation of the city center as a result of changes to the Franciscan convent of Santiago: 1 = Franciscan convent of Santiago; 2 = convent of San Antonio; 3 = plaza of San Francisco. Courtesy Martha Ramos and Carlos Arvizu. (left) 1917—25 (right) 1925—2005

the ideologies of the various revolutionary groups. Because of its strategic location and historical significance, Queretaro was chosen as the site for the constitutional congress. Carranza was interested in making the best possible impression on those who attended the congress, and he fully supported urban improvements that included construction of a drainage system, improvements to the infrastructure for supplying water, landscaping, and maintenance for the Alameda and other public spaces, public lighting, and the expansion of the telephone network. The streets were renamed for heroes of the independence and reform movements. This was a clear ideological statement and a major break with the viceregal past.1 Other public works undertaken at the time included construction of the Bridge of the Revolution over the river and an attempt to modernize the urban plan by enlarging the number of major avenues; as a result landmarks and historic areas of the city were destroyed. One of these expansions involved demolition of the remains of the convent of Santiago;2 others permanently scarred one or more of the traditional barrios. The main thoroughfares thus created still serve the city as major north-south and east-west roads today. One of the most controversial public works in the first months of 1916 was the demolition of the Portico of Carmelitas, in front of the Jardin Zenea, effectively the center of the historic district. The building, which

109 From Revolution to Industrial Society

had been the property of the convent of El Carmen since the seventeenth century, belonged to the family of the former governor of the Porfirian era, González de Cosio. The portico had been closed by the family for renovation since before the governor’s resignation, causing great discontent among city residents. Finally in 1916, after years of heated debate about the nature of public and private property, the postrevolutionary municipal government, in a clearly political decision, ordered the demolition of the portico in order to align its facade with the rest of the block. The building still stands at the site.3 The months of the congress were highly propitious for commerce in Queretaro. The city was filled with visitors: constitutional deputies, politicians, federal administration officials, national and foreign authors, photographers, and the general public, all sharing the excitement. Hotels, inns, and taverns were full, and many private homes doubled as lodgings. Markets and stores of all kinds ran out of merchandise; restaurants, taverns, billiard halls, and bars were filled to capacity. Public parks and gardens regained their previous splendor as the city put its best face forward.4

Figure 3.3. Queretaro, 1916. The plan shows both the growth of the avenue to the north side of the Alameda and the developments to both the east and west. Courtesy Departamento de Catastro, Secretaria de Desarrollo Urbano y Ecologia, Mexico.

The Postrevolutionary Era (1917–1943)

Figure 3.4. Queretaro, 1917. This plan, executed by orders of Venustiano Carranza, shows the city in 1917 with some of the urban works undertaken at the time. Courtesy Cartografía de Queretaro.

Once the constitutional congress ended, calm was restored to the city, and the inhabitants sought a return to the peace and progress that had been suspended during the revolution. Instead, both city and state entered another period of frequent political change, repeated occupations by opposing military forces, and consequent economic, political, and religious disruptions. During this era, Queretaro had more than fifteen governors, only nine of them constitutionally elected; the rest governed provisionally or as military commanders. The political scene was marked by religious persecution, perhaps best illustrated by the Guerra Cristera, or Christian War, which lasted from 1926 to 1929 and positioned Catholics loyal to the church against the anticlerical federal government. This constant instability halted economic and social development within the city. A number of other factors also inhibited growth. The revolution had devastated the railways as well as the highway infrastructure, which could not easily be transformed to accommodate automobiles.5 The federal government showed little interest in reactivating the road network, which seemed at the

111 From Revolution to Industrial Society

time like an unprofitable undertaking.6 Queretaro found itself physically isolated. In addition, Queretaro was the target of national prejudice against what some saw as the city’s excessive religiosity and extreme conservatism, largely because of its brief embrace of the emperor Maximilian. Finally, the population ceased to grow. In fact, between 1931 and 1935, the population diminished considerably, with many city inhabitants fleeing from religious persecution.7 Although there were small changes in population from year to year, the net effect was flat. In 1940, the population stood at about thirty-three thousand, just what it had been in 1917, at the end of the revolution. For all of these reasons, few public works were put in place during the postrevolutionary period. Jardin Guerrero was built in an area that had belonged to the convent of Santa Clara. The Iturbide Theater was renamed the Theater of the Republic after undergoing a major restoration to rescue it from neglect. The first Livestock Exhibition took place, beginning an annual tradition that is still closely linked to commerce, livestock raising, and Christmas festivities in the city.

Figure 3.5. Queretaro, 1919. The National Railway to the north, the Central Railway to the south, and the Acambaro Railway to the west. Courtesy Cartografía de Queretaro.

Figure 3.6. Queretaro, 1923. The National Railway on the north, the Central Railway to the south, and the Acambaro Railway to the west. Courtesy Cartografía de Queretaro.

Figure 3.7. Queretaro, 1939. Colon Avenue can be seen to the west of the Alameda; the proposed urban project called “the New Queretaro” is shown to the southwest, although it was never built. The Cimatario neighborhood would later be developed instead. Courtesy Carlos Arvizu, Queretaro. Sitios y recorridos.

The stage was set for future efforts when the government’s institutionalized urban planning began with a state commission for material improvements created in the mid-1920s. This commission was responsible for extending major streets and integrating into the city structure land made available by dismantling the old rail and tramway lines. This contributed to the development and densification of the surrounding areas. From 1925 to 1943, a sense of tranquility began to settle over Queretaro as federal policies slowly started to favor its renewed growth and development. The Regional Museum was opened in 1936 in the former Franciscan convent of Santiago. The Pedro Escobedo Market was rebuilt, and construction of the first municipal stadium began in 1939, on the south side of the Alameda. The Law for the Conservation of the City of Queretaro, issued in late 1941, declared the city to be “typical and monumental”; this was the first legal instrument issued by a local authority regarding the protection of architectural heritage, and it included the city as a whole, not only the historic center. A project called Regulation of Traditional Conservation in Queretaro was initiated in 1943.8 One of the most important issues in the 1930s was the possibility of a highway to Mexico City. By the late 1920s and throughout the following decade, the state government and assorted business interests considered

113 From Revolution to Industrial Society

Figure 3.8. Connection of Queretaro with Mexico City. Courtesy Martha Ramos and Carlos Arvizu.

an effective connection with Mexico City indispensable for stimulating the economy. However, such a project did not fit national priorities. Despite plans by the federal government to build two highways linking Mexico City to the United States, neither of the routes touched Queretaro.9 Various studies generated three plans for a Queretaro section of the Pan-American Highway that depended almost exclusively on local funding, which simply wasn’t feasible.

The Industrial City (1943–1985) 114 Carlos Arvizu and Ramón Abonce

The first phase of contemporary industrialization in Queretaro held out hope for a new era of social peace, public security, and political tranquility. Six-year terms for government administrations were instituted.10 Demographic and economic growth resumed, and the federal government began supporting development for both the city and the state. And Queretaro’s location, so strategic during the viceregal period, once again became important. The First Phase of Industrialization (1943–1961) The craftsman of this first industrial phase was Governor Agapito Pozo Balbas, a visionary with a strong intellectual and humanitarian background who understood that the only way to modernize Queretaro was through industrialization. As a lawyer, Pozo Balbas based all his governmental actions on solid legal principles. Through law number 1 and its supporting regulations issued in November 1943, several committees were created to make material improvements in the state capital and adjoining municipalities. Later on, law number 33 issued in 1944, promised a series of tax exemptions on mercantile income and real estate to encourage the construction of industrial units, hotels, theaters, cinemas, retail shops, and private homes, all classified as being in the public interest.11 To deal with water-related problems and public health issues, the legislature approved law number 66 for sanitary engineering in the state of Queretaro in 1945. This law declared that all activity related to waterworks, sewage systems, drainage, marketplaces, slaughter houses, and all other sanitary engineering works were in the best public interest.12 Law number 90, better known as the Planning and Zoning Law for the State of Queretaro empowered the state’s executive branch to “organize and execute the planning of the City of Queretaro and those regions of the state and towns it considers necessary” and to expropriate properties

for public use. The law also established the Commission for the Regulation Plan of the City of Queretaro to execute projects resulting from the planning process.13 One of Pozo Balbas’s main achievements (urged by the private sector, especially the chamber of commerce) was a modern highway system, built with cutting-edge technology, to connect the city with the national capital and with the western and northern parts of the country. The process of industrialization started right after the establishment of this infrastructure which included two connections to Mexico City, completed in 1943 and 1945. The second half of that decade saw the construction of the highway north to San Luis Potosi and beyond. This highway network, completed between 1943 and 1953, turned Queretaro into an attractive option for foreign investment, especially from North America.14 In 1947, Governor Pozo created the first industrial zone on the site of a former hacienda just northwest of the city; it covered 150 acres and had all the necessary services as well as a strategic location close to the

Figure 3.9. Queretaro, 1940–50, new roads. The dotted lines show: 1) the road over the Acambaro Railway system (Av. Tecnologico) to establish the connection with the industrial area, 2) the Highway to San Miguel de Allende (5 de Febrero) starting from the Panamerican Highway (Constituyentes Av.) and passing through the industrial area. Courtesy Martha Ramos and Carlos Arvizu.

Figure 3.10. Zoning and planning map of queretaro. The city was organized in three zones: industrial, working class, and residential. Courtesy Martha Ramos and Carlos Arvizu.

highway that led to San Miguel de Allende. It was also near the railway station so that sidings could be easily extended.15 This became Queretaro’s first freeway, defining a new type of urban connection to the exterior, markedly different from that of the viceregal period. The most important roads no longer led into the city center; rather they ran tangent to it, thus promoting the development of areas on the periphery. The scale of the city was changing. Less than a year after the Law for Industrial Development had been issued and two years after the highway to Mexico had been opened, the city’s investors promoted the establishment of industries focused on the production of goods for regional consumption; however, local capital was not the major force behind industrialization. By 1944, there was a strong possibility that international companies would establish important industrial units in the area, manufacturing goods destined for the national market. Among the pioneering companies were Textiles la Concordia, S.A., Molinos El Fenix, S.A., and the first international company, Carnation of Mexico. Other enterprises also opened units outside the industrial zone:

AGA Oils, S.A., La Victoria Bottling Company, Lourdes Soap Company. These companies produced consumer goods and were all linked in some way to local agriculture and cattle raising.16 Industrialization had a strong impact on city resources. The influx of factories, workers and migrants made alarming demands on the water supply. Between 1940 and 1950, for example, the population grew 46.6 percent, reaching 49,209. Immediate consequences included the densification of the city center, the expansion of urban space, and construction of more working-class housing.17 The commission of the regulation plan, authorized by the planning law, began operations on February 1, 1947. This commission was in charge of managing the direction of urban growth through the creation of a zoning and planning map. This document divided the city into three zones, clearly segregated according to income. In general terms, the three areas were the industrial zone to the northwest, the working-class zone to the north and northeast, and the residential zone, for the middle and upper classes, to the south and southwest. The city center was destined for commercial uses and for increased residential density through the establishment of apartments on upper floors.18 Along the urban perimeter, the intention was to incorporate agricultural lands for industrial and housing purposes. To make this possible, the urban plan was to be extended to the west to the San Miguel de Allende Highway and to the south to the Pan-American Highway. Housing devel-

Figure 3.11. Proposal for the transformation of the city center. Extension of Corregidora Avenue to the north and other extensions to the west and south. Courtesy Martha Ramos and Carlos Arvizu.

Figure 3.12. Aerial photograph of Queretaro, 1948. The city at the eve of the opening of 16 de Septiembre St. from the Jardin Obregón, now Zenea, to the Jardin Guerrero. Courtesy Departamento de Catastro, Gobierno de Queretaro.

opments were to be regulated by a new law. As the Queretaro newspaper El Día reported: “The Planning and Zoning Law and its respective regulations have already been approved, and the Regulation Law for Housing Developments is about to be passed, which will considerably assist all these new projects. In the future, and this is part of the objective, no one will be able to construct at whim, and we will be able to avoid the existing anarchy in buildings and capricious facades. The Technical Committee for the Regulating Plan will be entrusted with these matters.”19 Proposals submitted to the Regulation Plan Commission included the opening of new streets and the extension and widening of existing ones; these new roads would divide many existing blocks. Plans for the street network were to extend east-west streets as far as the San Miguel de Allende Highway, and those that ran north-south up to the Pan-American Highway, crossing Zaragoza. The structure of the traditional city was adapting to the requirements of the industrial city. The first new neighborhood, named Niños Heroes de la Republica, was created in 1945 when the urban grid was extended to the western part of the city. The El Encanto neighborhood appeared in 1948 inserted into the traditional tissue of the city on the north side of the river. Cimatario, an upper-class neighborhood, grew to the south of the city and was made up of sixteen city blocks, organized into groups of four in a gridlike pattern. It would eventually merge into the traditional

layout of the city following the extension of Allende Street across the Pan-American Highway.20 The most exclusive of urban developments, and the one that generated the most controversy at the time, was Club Campestre (Country Club), which was being sold by 1956 and was created, in part, to house foreign businessmen. Half of its eighty-six acres were designed to accommodate one hundred housing properties; the rest were set aside for a golf course. At the other end of the spectrum, a federal government credit was established through the National Housing Institute, for the construction of a working-class development at the barrio of Tepetate north of the river and the railroad tracks. Extensive construction, encouraged by tax reform and new social needs, was giving the city a fresh image. Many building designs responded to new typologies with commercial uses on the street level and apartments above. Some of these buildings were devoted to commerce, tourism, banking, private education, and recreation and entertainment. Private dwellings were also built in the downtown area. Architectural influences were those that were fashionable in Mexico City: art deco, new colonial, new Californian. With its geometric lines, art deco in particular permeated much of the popular architecture of the era. All these architectural expressions interacted successfully with preexisting ones due to the similar proportions of solid walls to openings. The situation in rural areas continued to be deplorable. El Día stated: “The city is undergoing a commendable transformation with the new

119 From Revolution to Industrial Society

Figure 3.13. Aerial photo of Queretaro, 1955. Courtesy Departamento de Catastro, Gobierno de Queretaro.

120 Carlos Arvizu and Ramón Abonce

Figure 3.14. Queretaro, 1959. The industrial zone is on the upper left; new developments, on the left, south of the Alameda. Courtesy Cartografía de Queretaro.

industrial developments and commerce, which demonstrate initiative and progress. However, this only accentuates the problems of the countryside, which has already been abandoned enough for several well-known reasons. The exodus of people from the countryside and abandonment of land continue. . . . The misery that exists, quite well-masked within the city, remains painfully exposed in every remote corner within the state. The land is barren, and the crops are a disaster.”21 Administrations after Pozo Balbas’s continued to follow the path of industrialization. But gradually economic growth slowed; some of the first symptoms were the closing of the industrial unit of La Concordia, as well as the delay or cancellation of other industrial projects, a decrease in production, and abandonment of the countryside.22 Among the companies that had moved into the industrial zone during this decade were Kellogg’s of Mexico in 1951, Ralston Purina in 1956, and Mexican Singer in 1958. However, annual demographic growth fell to 37.52 percent. Despite this reduction, urban sprawl continued to overflow traditional boundaries, extending to the La Era and the Niños Heroes neighborhood.23 As the 1950s drew to a close, urban improvement remained a high priority as evidenced by the passage of urban improvement law number 84, which established the primacy of works in the public interest, such as paving major avenues, street extensions to improve circulation between the Pan-American Highway and the Jardin Central, and the paving and construction of sidewalks along the main streets of the city.24 In the face of a dramatic increase in the number of automobiles moving about the city,

several control measures were taken: two-way circulation was forbidden in narrow streets, and traffic lights were introduced at problem intersections to ease transit for pedestrians. Public fountains were restored; the public cemetery grounds were extended; and a monument to the flag was inaugurated at the base of Cerro de las Campanas.25 Law number 37, the Law of Expropriation approved in 1950, allowed the governor to expropriate private property in the public interest.26 The 1950s saw a flurry of public and civic works aimed at improving the overall quality of life in the city. The limestone paving of the historic center continued; the Teatro de la Republica was declared a national monument, as was the Mausoleum of the Corregidora where the Cemetery for Noble Citizens of Queretaro was created in 1960. Three federal social service agencies established major facilities in Queretaro, and various facilities were opened to support public recreation and tourism. Queretaro was now poised for resumption of large-scale industrialization driven by construction of the Mexico-Queretaro tollway, which was inaugurated in October 1958.27 The Industrial Boom (1961–1967) Around the middle of the 1960s, Queretaro entered into a period of dynamic growth and once again became a vibrant part of the economic life of the nation, while establishing strong ties with other urban centers, in and outside of Mexico. The stagnation that had afflicted the city since the first decade of the nineteenth century was at last broken. The industrialization process greatly accelerated during the 1960s, strongly affecting the scale and urban structure of the city of Queretaro. Several factors were responsible: the construction of the Mexico­Queretaro highway; the reestablishment of the city as a national crossroads for both people and merchandise; the resurgence of the economy due to industrialization; new federal regulations encouraging the establishment of industries outside of Mexico City; strong intervention by the state governor; and the active participation of local business groups, especially the Ingenieros Civiles Asociados (ICA), an industrial partnership of civil engineers and associates. During this new era, highway construction, industrial settlement, increased urban sprawl, and population growth all occurred simultaneously.28 This was a departure from the first phase of industrial development in the 1940s, when industrialization, urbanization, and demographic growth were delayed until after the establishment of the highway system. The Mexico-Queretaro highway was built during the1950s. By 1964, however, the highway was inadequate for the traffic it was expected

121 From Revolution to Industrial Society

Figure 3.15. Urban perimeter of the city of Queretaro, according to law number 38, 1961. The urban perimeter has been drawn over a present-day map of the city; what seemed audacious at the time has been exceeded by today’s development. Courtesy INEGI, Mexico.

to carry, and the need for a multilane tollway extension was evident. This project began in 1966, following the route of the old viceregal road that had connected Queretaro with the capital, and was completed three years later. The ICA partnership participated in the construction of this tollway, which was widely considered the most modern and most important road in Latin America.29 Concurrent with highway development, the ICA partnership started buying up land around the city with the idea of establishing an industrial park. This was a direct response to the federal government’s discouragement of new factories within Mexico City’s metropolitan area. Among the most important realty transactions conducted by ICA were the purchases of the former hacienda of La Laborcilla in 1959 and the hacienda of Carretas in the early 1960s. ICA also bought one property belonging to the state government.30 ICA later used some of these properties for housing developments. This essentially initiated the large-scale residential and industrial real estate business in Queretaro. By 1962 there were three industrial zones located on former agricultural areas. Two individuals were fundamental to Queretaro’s industrial development: in the political sphere, Governor González de Cosio, and in the spheres of technology, industry, and real estate, Bernardo Quintana

Arrioja, president of the ICA partnership. The governor enthusiastically supported the ICA partnership and established a personal relationship with Quintana Arrioja, who had formed an early vision of Queretaro’s possibilities and the possible advantages for his group. A spate of new laws and decrees was issued in the early months of González de Cosio’s administration dealing with such issues as property taxes, creation of a new Economic Council of Queretaro, registration of public property, expropriation of urban properties, division of land, and setting of city limits. The Planning Law for the State of Queretaro was issued the following year, in November 1962.31 Within this new legal framework, González de Cosio was able to begin an urban reorganization of Queretaro that would continue throughout his term in office. The Economic Council commissioned a study from the consulting company of Arthur D. Little of Mexico. Titled “Industrial Opportunities for Queretaro,” the study, financed jointly by state government and the private sector, was completed in late 1962. The study had two purposes: to present an objective overview of Queretaro as an industrial site and to specify the industrial activities that would be best suited to operating in or near the city.32 The study concluded: Queretaro is a favorable place for the settlement of industry, especially those industries that can benefit from certain outstanding advantages offered by the state. The cost of manual labor is reasonable and workers are quite cooperative; both land and construction are inexpensive; the geographic location from the main markets is excellent and both the state government as well as local private industry are demonstrating their initiative to attract new industry into the area. The federal government’s policy of encouraging industrial expansion outside of industrial centers by means of tax exemptions and a reduction in public service charges will probably favour Queretaro, considering its proximity to Mexico City’s metropolitan area and its excellent connections to the rest of the country.33 The study referred to the city’s three industrial zones, one well-established on a former hacienda and two that were in the initial stages of development. As the study pointed out: “Regardless of the fact that both the main highways and railway lines pass through the state of Queretaro, this is one of the states within the central zone of the country that is lessdeveloped; . . . however, Queretaro’s excellent geographic location has recently converted it into an important communications center, around which many commercial and other services are developing.”34

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Figure 3.16. Queretaro, 1964. Queretaro’s contemporary industrial profile takes shape. The huge extension of the Industrial Parks complex, or Parques Industriales, can be seen to the northeast of the city, from the traditional barrios of La Otra Banda up to the airport of Menchaca. The Benito Juárez Industrial Park is north of the city, at the junction of the freeway and the highway to San Luis Potosi. The Queretaro-Celaya highway on the city’s extreme southern part is not shown. This document was published in 1965, a year after it was drafted. The authors noted that “development in our city has been so vertiginous in the last months that once this map has been published new constructions and housing developments will have probably appeared everywhere.” (Manuel Septién y Septién and Ignacio Herrera y Tejeda, Cartografía de Querétaro [Querétaro: Casa Municipal de la Cultura, 1965] description in map no. 35.). Courtesy Cartografía de Queretaro.

Recommended industrial activities were organized into three levels. At the top were processed foods for both national and foreign markets, manufactured metallic products, and home-based industry. In the second tier were glass products, marble products, handmade garments, and cloth. Third-level priorities included jewelry, silk, bonnets, plaster and asbestos products, and enameled products.35 Creation of two industrial parks and the Government Industrial Zone fostered additional urban expansion in Queretaro. The industrial parks were located to the northeast of the city. This new urban area, originally called Ciudad Satelite (Satellite City) was completely financed by the ICA partnership; it had all necessary services, including space for industrial facilities and railway lines, gas connections, housing for workers and executives, and a commercial area that would later be incorporated into the Plaza del Parque (Park Plaza) shopping center.36 The Government Industrial Zone was placed beside the highway to San Luis Potosi. Created with government funds, it was intended to provide cheaper industrial properties without services. Meanwhile, the list of leading national and international companies opening new facilities continued to grow, adding such widely recognized names as Tremec, Massey Ferguson, Gerber, Uniroyal, and Levi Strauss. During the early 1970s, Queretaro’s urban mass expanded still more, especially in those areas where ICA had previously bought up property. By 1951, the city proper covered four hundred acres, and the ICA partnership had amassed another eight hundred acres. This

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Figure 3.17. Queretaro’s transformation 1961— 67. Opening of Corregidora Avenue, starting at the Jardin Obregon, now Jardin Zenea, to the north and south. Courtesy Guia de la ciudad de Queretaro, Provincia, 1959.

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Figure 3.18. Peripheral circuit around the traditional city, 1970. Courtesy Martha Ramos and Carlos Arvizu.

new growth took shape as industrial zones, housing zones, and road infrastructure. Other functions, such as large recreational spaces, were not considered.37 New residential areas provided housing for all socioeconomic levels in various sections of the city. One important project was located in Jurica, on the northern edge of the city and was intended to house executives of the new industries, many of whom were North American. The creation of the Jurica neighborhood, along with the Government Industrial Park, started expansion to the north, along the highway to San Luis Potosi heading toward the community of Santa Rosa Jauregui. In all, thirty new neighborhoods were created during this period, encompassing nearly 172.2 million square feet (1.6 million sq m). 38 Some of these new subdivisions, as well as other industrial areas, were established along the road to Celaya passing El Pueblito, one of the original indigenous settlements that contributed to Queretaro’s founding. Thus began the blending process that is still in progress today between the city of Queretaro and the municipality of Corregidora, where El Pueblito is located. Another phenomenon initiated during this era was the first incursion into common lands, or ejidos, along the perimeter of the city. These incursions produced the first unauthorized settlements, a direct response to rising prices and a shortage of houses. The first such settlement, Lomas de Casa Blanca, appeared in 1962 on the common lands of the former hacienda Casa Blanca, south of the city. By the mid-1970s, another irregular settlement had appeared on the common lands of Menchaca to the north.39

Corregidora Avenue became the city’s backbone, connecting the central area with the industrial parks to the north, then crossing the river, the railway, and the traditional barrios by means of several bridges. To the south, it connected the Alameda and the municipal stadium with new housing subdivisions. The enlarged avenue consolidated a northsouth growth pattern for the city that had been growing in an east-west direction since the sixteenth century. The rationale for the urban process of the era was to link the traditional historic city with the new industrial zones to the northeast and the industrial zones, in turn, to areas of commerce and housing. In the industrial parks, a special effort was made to landscape the roads for maximum beauty and function. These roads featured undulating shapes and curves in contrast to the grid effect of the historic center, where straight lines predominate. The ICA partnership developed considerable infrastructure to support the industrial parks, including the first airport and the freeway to San Luis Potosi, which was directly linked to the industrial zone, giving the recently established industries easy access while avoiding the city center. The entire project was jointly funded by the federal and state governments and the ICA partnership. A beltway was beginning to take shape around the traditional city, incorporating the various highways and linked to the north-south backbone, Corregidora Avenue. This model, forged by circumstance, set the parameters for urban growth into the first years of the twenty-first century, without ever having been formally proposed or accepted. As a result of the opportunities offered by industrialization, demographic growth gained momentum with the population reaching 112,995 by 1970. Much of this growth was spurred by rural migration into the city from outlying parts of the state of Queretaro and the neighboring states of Guanajuato, San Luis Potosi and Hidalgo. Qualified workers were also attracted from other parts of the country, including Mexico City and Monterrey.40 As a response to the new requirements of an industrial society and the profound transformation of the city’s urban structure, Governor Gonzales de Cosio undertook a series of public works designed to update Queretaro’s central bus terminal and the Livestock Exhibition grounds at the base of Cerro de las Campanas. The river was cleaned and its banks rebuilt; a new office building and a gas station replaced the old bullring; and a privately owned bullring was later built in the western part of the city. Educational institutions, such as the Regional Technical Institute of Queretaro, Industrial Technical School No. 59, and Labor Training Center No. 17, were created to train the engineers and technicians needed by the new industries.

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Figure 3.19. Aerial ­photograph of Queretaro, 1970. Courtesy Departamento de Catastro, Gobierno de Queretaro.

Besides efforts to strengthen Queretaro’s image as a contemporary industrial center, there was also interest in attracting investors by reinforcing the city’s historic and patrimonial character. The Plazuela Mariano de las Casas (Mariano of the Houses Square), in the southwestern part of the historic center provided a spacious perspective on the temple of Santa Rosa de Viterbo, made possible only after the demolition of an entire block. New paving, lighting, and drainage projects dotted the entire city. Two new memorial statues, dedicated to Friars Junipero Serra and Antonio Margil de Jesus, both prominent figures in regional history, were placed in the garden of the barrio of La Cruz in November 1964. González de Cosio endowed two projects with special political meaning: Constitution Plaza and the monument to Benito Juárez. Constitution Plaza, which sat above street level to allow for a semi-underground parking lot, built on space that had been occupied by the Pedro Escobedo Market since the end of the nineteenth century, replaced what had been an unhealthy and unattractive area. The monument to Benito Juárez, an

enormous statue made of chiluca stone, was strategically placed at the top of Cerro de las Campanas, higher than the chapel built by the Austrian government at the spot where Maximilian had been executed; the monument was inaugurated in 1967 to commemorate the centenary of the triumph of the republic. It bears an inscription from Juárez: “Amongst individuals, as among nations, the respect of another’s right is peace.” The Industrial Society (1967–1985) In the decades following the 1960s, Queretaro’s urban population grew from 112,995 inhabitants in 1970 to 215,976 in 1980, and the city strengthened its position as a first-order industrial center.41 The Economic Committee became the Industrial Development Committee for the State of Queretaro (CODIQUE), headed by industrialist Bernardo Quintana Arrioja. The CODIQUE once again called on the services of Arthur D. Little to bring Queretaro up-to-date on industrial matters with a study called “Queretaro’s Present State and Industrial Perspectives.” One of the main triumphs of this time was the creation of a new industrial park, Benito Juarez Industrial City, in response to the growing

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Figure 3.20. Queretaro, 1970. The peripheral circuit engulfed the traditional city. Courtesy Librería Patria, 1970.

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Figure 3.21. Queretaro and immediate surroundings, 1970. Courtesy INEGI, Mexico.

number of industries that wanted to move to Queretaro. Some 360 acres of ejido land were expropriated, and new industries, such as Clemente Jacques and Co., Celanese, Polinova, Vitro, and numerous small and medium-size enterprises began moving in during the early 1970s.42 The policy of rescuing the city’s architectural legacy continued with the restoration of some viceregal temples that were almost in ruins.

A new, more functional bus terminal was designed to meet growing passenger demand, and a new Exposition Center rose on the eastern side of the city. This was to be the site for the annual Agriculture and Livestock Fair, continuing a very longstanding tradition in the city. Two new markets were built between 1967 and 1970, El Tepetate to the north of the river and the market of La Cruz near the temple of the same name.43 The number of neighborhoods reached fifty-three, and the official urban area topped 104.4 million square feet (9.7 million sq m). Additional unauthorized settlements also appeared on the outskirts of the city and in adjacent municipalities, joining Queretaro’s urban mass with those entities. The growing public transportation system was upgraded with small substations to connect all routes within the city.44 The Centro Universitario (University Center) for Queretaro’s Autonomous State University was also built in the 1960s, on property bordering Cerro de las Campanas. The university opened in 1973.45 The construction of this center was part of a government policy to provide qualified human resources to Queretaro’s industrial sector. The presence of the University Center and the Regional Technological Institute of Queretaro increased urban density on the northwest side of the traditional city, just south of the river. Queretaro was now home to 250 industries exporting a wide variety of goods to the United States, South America, Europe, and the Middle East. Manufactured products included industrial machinery, tractors, mining and petroleum extraction equipment, antipollution devices, machine parts, satellite tracking stations, package goods, telephone cables, car and bicycle tires, refrigerators, and X-ray devices. Important public works of the era included landscaping of major roadways, rezoning efforts, the addition of new monuments, more road extensions, beautifying and cleaning the river, another remodeling of the Teatro de la Republica, and the construction of the first streets reserved for pedestrian use in the historic center. From this time on, the city center became famous for its grace and impeccable cleanliness, thanks to the continuous efforts of municipal employees who still sweep the streets of the historic district by hand four times a day. Also within the center, former family homes continued to be converted to house government entities. The state auditorium and sports complex were built on Constituyentes Avenue, and a building was erected to house the executive branch of state government. A commercial plaza, Plaza de las Americas, was built on Constituyentes Avenue; this commercial center would be the first of many located around the city. It introduced international concepts for commercial

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Figure 3.22. Queretaro 1975.Courtesy Martin Larios Garcia.

space management derived from the modern movement—a super block surrounded by a parking lot, with commercial spaces distributed along open spaces and linked by pedestrian walkways. Future commercial centers would follow the same concept, changing it only by completely enclosing the shopping areas. The Instituto Tecnologico de Monterrey, one of the leading private institutions of higher education in Mexico, opened its first campus outside of Monterrey in the northwestern part of the city in 1975. This new institute was situated on the southern bank of the north freeway in an area of the industrial park complex donated by Bernardo Quintana Arrioja, director of the ICA partnership, and Roberto Ruiz Obregón,

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one of the leading financiers and industrialists in Queretaro by the late 1940s. The presence of this institution helped establish Queretaro as an urban industrial center of regional and national stature, satisfied the demand for qualified professionals, and promoted the development of residential, commercial, and recreational facilities on the surrounding lands. By then, the number of neighborhoods had increased to seventy-three, and the total area of officially authorized settlements was approximately 125.9 million square feet (11.6 million sq m). Other rural developments were constructed on the outskirts of the city, and within six years, INFONAVIT, the National Institute for the Promotion of Housing for Workers, had constructed 2,037 homes.46 The Law for Urban Development was approved by the Queretaro legislature in 1976. The law aimed for “the planning, establishment, conservation, improvement and creation of settlements within the state of Queretaro” and set norms by which the state government regulated their provisions and uses as well as many issues related to urban develop-

Figure 3.23. Queretaro, 1980. Developments along the northwestern part of the city and the neighborhoods along the road to the southwest. Courtesy Edi-Mapas Mexicanos, 1980.

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ment. One result was the State Urban Development Plan, approved by the legislature in 1979.47 Projects of importance at this time included construction of the Corregidora Stadium in 1985 on the southern border of the Mexico-Queretaro-Celaya highway. It reinforced the growth of the city to the south and, most important, allowed the city to become one of the sites of the 1986 World Cup football (soccer) matches. About the same time, Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez Auditorium on Constituyentes Avenue replaced the more modest state government auditorium. Despite the intense focus on modernization projects, the rescue of important architectural works continued with restoration of the house in the Plaza de Armas where the Corregidora had lived, which had also been the site of the viceregal government and the municipal palace. This highly significant building was restored and remodeled to become the site of the executive branch of state government; it is now known as the Casa de la Corregidora (the Corregidora’s House). Several other homes around the plaza were rescued and assigned to other state institutions; this concentrated the executive, legislative, and judicial powers around this viceregal plaza, lending it great symbolism. The neoclassical building on the corner of Madero and Guerrero, in front of the Jardin Guerrero, was also restored. Having been used as a hostel, the seat of the episcopate, a women’s industrial school, an arts and crafts institute, and a military office, in 1983 it became the headquarters of municipal government. Several streets of the city center were closed off to automobiles by means of temporary iron fences in an attempt to favor pedestrian traffic. This measure was very controversial and caused many residents to move out of the historic district, abandoning their homes which were turned into commercial spaces. This resulted in a decrease in sales of commercial establishments and a gradual degradation of urban space. The pedestrian streets were reopened to vehicular traffic the day that the state administration changed. La Plaza de los Fundadores (Founders Plaza) was constructed in 1981 with monuments to those who had played key roles in the city’s founding 450 years before. Additional statues of historical figures were placed throughout the city, perhaps the most notable of which is an enormous figure of the Indian Conin, later baptized as Fernando de Tapia, one of the indigenous founders of Queretaro. This statue stands at the east entrance to the city and has become an important urban landmark. In 1983, ten new neighborhoods were added to Queretaro, including the controversial housing projects of La Cruz, Escobedo, and Guerrero

within the city’s historic district. New public services included a sports unit for the autonomous university, a central supply facility for the city’s many markets, and an additional municipal auditorium south of the river. The authorized city footprint had expanded to approximately 12.9 million square feet (1.2 million sq m). The Regulation for the Registry of Urban Development Plans established the first central office for registering such plans and created a legal basis for the planning process. By mid-1980, a plan for the conservation and improvement of the Queretaro River sought to integrate the river into the community and increase social and commercial infrastructure on the north side of the city. This project recognized the river’s potential as an east-west urban axis linking Constitution Highway and the freeway to San Luis Potosi. Substantial public resources were spent on this project, which included development along the entire north riverbank that had been neglected for centuries. A two-lane road, later named Avenida Universidad (University Avenue) was created on each side of the river.48

Figure 3.24. Partial Plan for Urban Development in Queretaro, 1982. Courtesy Innes Webster, Gobierno de Queretaro.

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Figure 3.25. Urban area of the city of Queretaro, 1983. Courtesy Martin Larios Garcia.

Another 1980 law set aside specific areas for urban growth, covering just over 182.9 million square feet (17 million sq m) in three polygonal sections to be included in the Urban Master Plan and declared unavailable for agricultural purposes: As a result of thorough analysis we can conclude that the growth of the city has followed a disorderly path, thus creating dispersion of the urban area while extending into areas that are not appropriate for urban development due to the lack of technical and legal instruments to regulate their growth. There is an accumulated deficit

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Figure 3.26. Queretaro and the conurbation process with Corregidora, El Marques, and Huimilpan begun in the 1980s. Courtesy Martha Ramos and Carlos Arvizu.

in infrastructure, mainly involving water supply, drainage and paving, which has caused the alteration of the natural environment; a concentration of equipment and services is located at the city center, which, together with deficient roads and communication, causes serious traffic and transportation problems in the area.49 The master plan basically established the need to direct the city’s growth to the north and south, while discouraging growth to the east because of inhospitable topography and to the west in order to avoid absorbing the productive farmlands of the Bajio and developing a capital city that overflowed into the state of Guanajuato. The north-south model had to be supported by three main growth centers: one in the heart of the traditional city, and two new ones—to the south, close to Cerro del Cimatario, and to the north, near the Menchaca-Peñuelas area. The goal was to decentralize those activities that had previously been concentrated within the historic district,

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spreading them among the three centers. Growth toward the south was aided by the construction of the Corregidora Stadium, the new bus terminal, and the Centro Sur. Northern growth had, in fact, been taking place since the 1970s, thanks to the construction of the industrial zones, housing developments for workers, and unauthorized settlements. The Urban Master Plan projected a metropolitan population approaching 1 million by the year 2000 and proposed a system of streets running north-south and east-west into the new areas of development. Other recommendations were the creation of parking lots within the city center, a seven-hundred-acre urban park between the city and the second section of Jurica to the north, and the addition of parks along the river. Queretaro’s role in Mexican history gained national recognition in 1981 when President Jose López Portillo declared the city an Area of Historic Monuments. The specified historic area includes about 1.4 square miles (4 sq m) encompassing 203 city blocks and fourteen hundred sixteenth- to nineteenth-century buildings of historical significance. In 1984, the National Institute of Anthropology and History opened an office to research, conserve, and distribute information about Queretaro’s cultural legacy. By the 1980s, Constitution Highway and the freeway to San Luis Potosi, two of the three sections composing the beltway around the city, had taken on added importance. Constitution Highway was lined with large industrial areas and had serious crossing problems. The solution was a new highway running perpendicular to this one, later named Avenida Cinco de Febrero (Fifth of February Avenue). At the same time, along the San Luis Potosi freeway, land prices had risen significantly because of rezoning from residential to commercial use. This freeway was renamed Boulevard Bernardo Quintana. The beltway was further reinforced by the east-west links formed by Constituyentes, Universidad, and Zaragoza Avenues. The tentative merging process that had started in the 1970s was gathering momentum from the addition of new neighborhoods and developments. The city was overflowing into the municipalities of Corregidora and El Marques and, to a lesser extent, Huimilpan, all of which were also expanding in the direction of Queretaro. The final result has been the gradual consolidation of the metropolitan area. Figures published for 2005 by the State Population Council (COESPO) show the combined populations of Queretaro and Corregidora reaching nearly 838,000.

Modern Perceptions of Urban Space Throughout the city’s history, it has been a collection of meaningful images that each citizen creates from information accumulated in his

or her travels, selecting the positive or negative factors that matter most to the individual. People impose this mental redimensioning process on their city and on the decisions they make about how to live in it. This same process brings closer many city sectors that were previously considered outside the radius of people’s normal daily activity. Thus a space that was considered far away fifteen years ago may now be perceived as reasonably close or even nearby. This despite the fact that actual travel times have usually remained the same or even increased. One direct consequence of these changes in perception is the acceleration of the urban dispersion process (sprawl). From an urban planning perspective, the fact that people feel they belong, or that an extensive part of the city is within their reach, can influence where they live, work, look for work, go to satisfy basic and leisure needs, and discover new needs and ways to satisfy them.

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A Bilateral Process Kevin Lynch, who has studied urban space perception extensively, says that “environmental images are the result of a bilateral process between the observer and the environment. The environment suggests distinctions and relationships, and the observer, with great adaptability and in light of his or her own objectives, chooses, organizes and gives meaning to what is seen. The image developed in this way now limits and accentuates what is

Figure 3.27. The traditional urban perspective. Courtesy Ramón Abonce.

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Figure 3.28. Presence of greenery in the city. Courtesy Ramón Abonce.

seen so that the image in itself is contrasted with the filtered perception through a constant process of interaction.”50 Lynch classifies the elements that most influence the creation of that image as follows: paths, edges, neighborhoods, nodes, and landmarks. According to Lynch, all of these elements are regrouped and reorganized, establishing a landscape structure that facilitates the development of a coherent mental image for the person who creates it and that continually changes over time, based on two factors: the person’s experience and his or her process for learning about the urban environment. The image thus created directly influences the behavior of individuals and their travel patterns: “Some activities tend to be repeated in wellknown areas while others that fall outside the image tend to be avoided.” This differentiated appreciation and perception of the elements that make up urban space also leads to a distortion in distance perception, making it necessary to measure subjective distance and not absolute geometric distance.51 Capel also proposed the existence of “centered spheres in each individual who perceives the world as beginning with the self, forming a series of concentric circles each one extending farther out and being less familiar.” From this, we can infer the existence of mental maps of daily activities, such as the choice of where to shop, where to go for entertainment, even how to travel from home to work and work to home. These images, formed by individuals, express a combination of objective, subjective and emotional content.52

Influencing Elements Other elements that are determining stimuli for the acceptance or rejection of a space are perspective, greenery, color, the set of planes, and the built environment. A complementary, but essential concept is people’s sense of belonging—or not, in the urban space. perspective Psychologically, perspective influences the development of mental images and their possible association with each individual’s acceptance of the city or some part of it. In addition, mentally dimensioned images of roads and highways, because they are open, linear spaces, are distorted and redimensioned based on individual interpretation of perspective. Perspective also influences our sense of openness or enclosure, one of the four basic principles of the Mexican landscape. greenery In recent years greenery has been strongly associated with urban ecology, sustainability, and quality of life—concepts that are taking on added weight in the values of contemporary societies. When city residents are asked to describe what they like best about the city, the responses are always associated with spaces that include trees, flowers, green areas, and important buildings as part of the landscape. In every case, the value of greenery is influenced more by cultural factors than by physical, functional, or esthetic needs. Green space is a cultural symbol summarizing the aspirations of many citizens who, overwhelmed by the urban lifestyle, need to remember and feel close to nature, enjoying her rhythms as well as her variety and beauty. Changes in the greenery in Mexican cities reveal the general cultural attitude toward nature that Mexicans now have. In the second Mexican historic phase, greenery was concentrated only in public parks, not in the streets. Today, when urban pollution has become a problem, people feel the need for more greenery. El Baratillo Square in the town of Bernal, near Queretaro, is an example. People have tried to grow trees there for years, though without much success. Soriano, the town with the shrine of the same name, was limited to one tree in the old atrio, but has many in the new one, and in ranchería Viborillas, many mature trees are now complemented by young vegetation recently planted around the hacienda. (See chap. 1 for descriptions of these sites.)

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color Another element that can greatly influence the positive or negative perception of urban space is color, which has been little studied. Color’s influence stems from the unquestionable fact that human beings, like many other animals, share an instinctive consciousness about the meaning of bright colors, which is why our attention is inevitably attracted by them. The key to managing color well in urban space is to select colors that contribute to the desired effect and exclude the rest. For example, a single element of color against a monotonal image is much more eye-catching than a surfeit of clashing tones. Conversely, a spot of color is amplified by the monotonal quality of the surrounding space, something that often occurs in the urban environment. The use of color, then, becomes a powerful element that can influence the perception of urban space. Well managed and used, it can break the monotony of a space or even serve as a “mask” for diverting the public’s attention from an object (natural or architectural) that we want to pass unnoticed by. The periphery of Mexican towns and cities may not display much color because of the exposed gray brick commonly used by low-income people, but it is common for plazas and streets to be filled with colorful houses and commercial buildings, including car repair shops, coffee shops, and taquerías (taco shops) painted in primary colors. People use color to make their houses and businesses stand out from their surroundings. the set of planes The interposition of distracting objects between the observer and the farthest point in the view, known as the set of planes, is the most random element that influences perception of urban space. These distractions can take the form of urban furniture, communications infrastructure, advertisements, greenery, buildings, and other objects. The variety of situations in which the set of planes is present or can be used makes it an extremely varied element and therefore a fresh and versatile one from the point of view of perception. It is also indispensable for creating the sense of enclosure that is so important to the Mexican urban identity. the built environment This is the backdrop of the urban scene and thus can play an important role in the configuration of any urban space in that it determines the degree of enclosure or the openness of the space. In addition, the built environment, which is what we call “architecture,” also gives rise to stylistic and aesthetic meanings through its volumetric, facades, and planes. When a user perceives and feels that a place is pleasant, that it

responds to the user’s cultural values, that it lends a sense of security and is functional, the user begins to identify with the space and develop feelings that open the processes of identification and ownership, like “use footprints” of the space. The dramatic changes that have occurred in Hacienda Viborillas over time have changed the atmosphere several times (see chap. 1). For instance, at one time the hacienda was a lively place, and at another it died and was abandoned. The perception of the built landscape has been not static but, on the contrary, very dynamic. It has been shaped over time by the people in it and the things they have done. sense of belonging A complementary concept to those mentioned above is the sense of belonging. This concept links to a series of characteristics, such as the time the person has lived in the place, the repeated use of urban space, the pleasant or unpleasant feelings associated with the space, and the daily travels that promote the use of predetermined routes as a reference point. Fundamentally, perception gives rise to basic information that supports the individual’s creation of ideas from the urban environment, influencing the attitudes he or she develops in the end. As a result of these ideas and knowledge a series of expectations emerge with respect to public space. New Rhythms of Urban Life Much has been said in recent years about the changes that postindustrial society is experiencing at the start of the new millennium. This speaks to a phenomenon that is common in many countries, whether developed or developing. In all cases, there is one constant: society is changing, seeking to adapt to new information and communication technologies, new ways of working, and new ways of filling leisure time. These changes in the daily rhythms of life, which are strongly linked to a growing wish for personal autonomy, have been associated with a more modern way of living and therefore have important weight in the appreciation of the quality of people’s daily lives. It’s easy to imagine how the association of these changes with the subjective concept of quality of life leads to widely varying perceptions from one person to another, depending on such factors as activities performed, gender, socioeconomic level, personal taste, personal or family situations, and income, among many others. Nevertheless, for the majority of city dwellers it is important to adapt to the new rhythms of life that society is imposing and that the urban infrastructure permits.

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For a long time, the rhythms of life stayed constant, permitting city dwellers to adapt to them, thinking of these rhythms as normal and reasonable. Now, however, important changes in ways of life and work are observable, forcing changes in the rhythms of daily life and mobility practices, and contributing to new problems in urban management and the organization of transportation and cities. One proof of this is that many jobs now demand near-permanent mobility from employees and immediate availability from the upper ranks, thus changing the time structure of work and enlarging the radii of action for daily activities. As Luc Gwiazdzinski has commented, the key concept is “making daily life easier for citizens, with the goal of reconciling the city that works with the city that sleeps and the city that amuses itself.”53 Giddens comments that, in reality, new lifestyles are “a post-traditional order in which, to the question ‘How to live?’ one must respond with daily decisions about how to behave oneself, how to move about, what to wear, what to eat and many other things.”54 This means that more and more lifestyles are adopted from the practices and fashions of the moment and are thus less stable. Therefore, the use requirements of the city and of urban space are different every day. The Mental Scale of the City Human beings have always tried to order their daily lives, developing predictable routines that permit them to be organized. These rhythms of daily life serve as one of the most important reference parameters for classifying the size of cities and their level of urbanity. A typical comment illustrating this point: “I would never live in a small city. Even though they are very pretty and picturesque, they are too quiet and sleepy. There would be nothing to do, and I would be bored.” Or another: “The last thing I’d do is go to live in city X because it’s so big, and the rhythm of life there is too intense and stressful. Besides, big cities are ugly and dangerous.” These assertions associate the rhythm of citizen life with the physical size of the city. In reality, they have much more to do with three factors closely related to other characteristics of the city: its expanse (scale), the nature of the road structure (infrastructure), and the efficiency of the available transportation systems (mobility management). In effect, daily travel times are what most influence the mental creation of zones of belonging, which can have a radius of from 3.1 to 6.2 miles (5–10 km) in average cities and up to 31 to 62 miles (50–100 km) in the new city-regions, as is the case with the Kobe-Kyoto-Osaka region in Japan and the Portland, Oregon, region in the United States. In these city-regions a sense of belonging to a very extensive territory has devel-

oped owing to the efficiency of collective transportation systems or the availability of an adequate road infrastructure that has reduced daily travel times considerably, moving residents temporally closer to places that were previously considered too far away to be included in their area of belonging. The less monotonous and boring the distance one must travel daily, the more people are disposed to travel farther and therefore enlarge their ideal travel area. A very interesting development now being implemented in the public transportation system (Metro) in Mexico City may provide interesting data for analysis. It is a free program that distributes classic novels on loan so that users can read during their trip and return the books at the end of the trip. The project takes advantage of the time people spend traveling on the Metro every day and makes it easier for people to raise their general level of culture. According to the first empirical observations, the results have been unexpectedly positive. Thanks to this “distracter,” a high percentage of people consider the journey to be less tedious. It therefore influences travelers to feel that the places they must travel to daily are less far away. In other cities, including Queretaro, people’s mental scale of the city depends to a great extent on the image they continue to form of the urban space through which they travel daily. The more monotonous and the uglier the roads used, the longer and more tedious the trip, which translates into a feeling of psychological distancing; on the other hand, the more pleasant and fluid the daily trip, the closer the destination seems. The Quality of Space in the City of Queretaro With a historic center cataloged as a UNESCO World Heritage site, the city of Queretaro exhibits urban-architectural characteristics that place it second among Mexican cities for quality of life even though, in the last thirty years, the city has grown faster than the national average. The quality of its urban-architectural space is one of the principal elements that has favored the rapid development of tourism in the city over the past fifteen years. Figures 3.29 through 3.31 present the principal elements that help shape residents’ mental maps of areas of belonging. Mental Perception of Queretaro’s Dimensions Studies involving Queretaro residents who use the bus as daily transportation and those who travel by car yield surprisingly similar results. Both groups think of the city’s urban scale as pleasant and fit for living, with roadways that make it easier to travel between distant points.

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146 Carlos Arvizu and Ramón Abonce

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Figure 3.29. Queretaro’s historic center: a, pedestrian street; b, Plaza Constitución; c, street and plaza; d, baroque architecture. Courtesy Ramón Abonce.

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Figure 3.30. Principal roadways: a, Bernardo Quintana Boulevard; b, Fifth of February Boulevard; c, Pie de la Cuesta Avenue; d, Constitution Avenue; e, Zaragoza Avenue; f, University Avenue. Courtesy Ramón Abonce.

For people who use the bus, travel time from any part of the city to the historic center fluctuates between twenty and thirty minutes, but they consider this time to be short and appropriate because the principal roadways on which they travel “have pleasing greenery” and, above all, natural or artificial visual limits that redimension urban space. They have built a mental image of the city as accessible and functional with quick arrival anywhere. In reality, this mental image conflicts with an analysis of the existing road structure, which points to a significant deficit in north-south and south-north roadways due to two adjacent barriers, the railroad and the Queretaro River. Passing through the historic center, the physical-spatial characteristics of roadways change radically, making transit by vehicle much slower, but the rich urban-architectural context dominates, holding bus riders’ attention. The built environment, together with the greenery along many of the main avenues, minimizes the negative impact of slow transit in this area. Most people consulted for the two studies expressed their pleasure in traveling through the historic center and characterized it as an interesting space to move through, whether by vehicle or on foot. People who travel by car, when asked, “what are your maximum permissible travel times for getting to work or accomplishing daily life tasks in other city sectors?” give the same answer as bus users—twenty to thirty minutes. Drivers also have a positive impression of the major roadways, but they are negative about the historic center. The majority express a preference for taking longer trips with regard to time and distance, rather than entering the historic center and risking traffic tie-ups. For them the richness of the urban-architectural context is less important, since they cannot pay attention to it while driving. Most of the people interviewed for these studies mentioned three highways as being the most pleasant in Queretaro: Bernardo Quintana Boulevard, Constitution Avenue, and Zaragoza Avenue. These roadways have three factors in common: • the mature, relatively lush greenery that surrounds the thoroughfares and gives them human scale—not too big or too narrow— and creates microclimates that create a benevolent ambience • continuity of travel, created by high-speed roads, with no traffic lights or a few synchronized lights, which contributes to an impression of no (or very little) time lost • human scale that always creates visual limits at a short distance, so that perspectives are not overly extended. On all three of these roadways the longest visual distances are about 820 feet (250 m), a distance at which the human eye can still perceive certain details with ample sharpness.

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Figure 3.31. Plans illustrating urban scale: a, current northern and southern growth centers; b, urban zone in 1950; c, urban zone in 1976; d, urban zone in 1993; e, urban zone today; f, principal roadways. Courtesy Ramón Abonce and Alexis Hugh Ramírez.

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Interesting, pleasant, and well-planned visual limits help redimension the lengths of these roadways without breaking their continuity. In Queretaro, the roadways that people prefer to use offer short perspectives, whether through the line of the road itself or through the set of planes that interrupt the line of sight between the viewer and the focal point or infinity. The research summarized here corroborates the importance of perception of urban space in people’s mental redimensioning of Queretaro, starting with their image of the roadways they use daily. This continuing reassessment of space and its consequent interpretation through mental maps make absolute geometric distances subjective and dispose people to travel increasingly farther. The quality of transitable space correlates directly with enlargement of mental zones of belonging. The city of Queretaro, then, has come to be perceived as a large city that offers all the services required for contemporary life as well as a high quality of life. These factors, in turn, influence the positive mental image that the majority of people have of the city and its urban growth. The challenge for municipal authorities

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Figure 3.32. Scheme of the Centro Sur, or Southern Center in 2000. Courtesy Anuario economico 2003, Gobierno

and those who study urban space is to use these findings to balance the city’s potential for development with the predicted growth rate of its population, already the highest in Mexico.

The City Today The two enormous earthquakes that hit Mexico City in 1985 killed more than seven thousand people, destroyed 450 buildings, severely damaged

Figure 3.33. Queretaro: a, 1993; b, 1997; c, 2002; d, 2005. Courtesy Gobierno de Queretaro.

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hundreds of others, and left fifty thousand people homeless. These events produced a massive exodus to Queretaro and other cities near the capital. The continuous flow of new inhabitants created urgent demand that exceeded the city’s capacity to respond and made a lasting imprint on the nature of contemporary Queretaro. The resulting acceleration of the urbanization process was accompanied by irresponsible land speculation and disregard for ecological matters that still prevail today. New developments with neither appropriate green spaces nor recreational areas spring up constantly. The new parts of the city are a chaotic conglomeration lacking the symbolic elements and landmarks that promote dialogue and empathy among inhabitants. Governments elected after 1985 and through 2003 continued the growth pattern that had prevailed since the 1960s and that followed the beltway formed by a combination of arteries: the Mexico-Queretaro-Celaya Highway and Cinco de Febrero Avenue. A variety of public works have been completed, some, like the enormous Mexican flag towering over the spot where the Mexico-Queretaro Highway enters the city, intended to invoke civic pride and others focused on further modernization of infrastructure. The old Alameda, an important focus for Queretaro’s identity, has been remodeled with immaculate landscaping, a side gate, and north and south entrances as shown in the original eighteenth-century plans drafted by Mariano Oriñuela. Street vendors operate on the north side of the space, and a new Centro Educativo y Cultural del Estado (State Education and Cultural Center) stands to the south. A statue of the apostle Santiago was erected in the barrio of La Cruz, and another, dedicated to the conchero (popular indigenous dancers,) was put up in the temple’s atrio. A similar statue now stands in the city center, to one side of the Franciscan temple of Santiago. A new intercontinental airport was completed in 2003 and is already becoming an important catalyst for development of the Queretaro–Pedro Escobedo–San Juan del Rio industrial corridor. A key factor in reinforcing the city’s historic importance was the readoption of the name originally used in the viceregal period, Santiago de Queretaro. Equally important was UNESCO’s declaration of the city’s historic district as a World Heritage Site in 1996. Contemporary Queretaro exists in a globalized world that extends beyond traditional communication lines, such as the roads, railways, and highways that influenced the city’s past physical development. The present era operates not in real space, but in virtual space. Gradually, the city is changing to an entity rooted in the service industry rather than in production of goods.

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Figure 3.34. Historic growth of Queretaro. Courtesy Martin Larios, Judith Rodríguez, Martha Ramos, and Carlos Arvizu.

The urban evolution of any city is the result of religious, political, social, economic, ideological, technological, productive, and demographic forces that often work together but sometimes conflict. The physical structure of the city results from the interaction of all these forces, and the ultimate results of that interaction are manifested in urban space. The viceregal city of Queretaro, its classical elements, the temples, convents and chapels, the private homes and the casonas (large houses), the aqueduct, the Alameda, the river, the names of the former haciendas,

the urban layout, the streets and alleys, the plazas and plazuelas (small squares), the fountains and the monuments, all survive today and are a source of pride for the contemporary city, especially to the extent that they serve as reminders of the basic principles that make up the Mexican urban environment—religiosity, centralism, enclosure, and attachment to the land. The urban profile has been transformed. The old haciendas and the agricultural territories of the viceregal period have given way to the modern city, and the classical profile of the aqueduct and the many spires and domes is now complemented by towers, bridges, and highways that rise into the air. While the elements of religiosity, centralism, enclosure, and attachment to the land are still evident in Queretaro’s urban profile, they are more echoes of the past than principles on which the future will be built. It is hard to know whether more has been gained or lost with this change. Some issues, of course, will always be paramount as long as the city continues to grow: land ownership, improvement of urban utility systems, new uses for old space, and housing for a growing population, among many. Others—institutionalized urban planning and extension of the highway network, for example—are functions of the modern age and the demands that modern activities make on the city. Of course, Queretaro has its share of deficiencies, which must be addressed: imbalances in growth patterns, an inefficient public transportation system, and a poorly structured network of roads, as well as lack of areas for expansion and inadequate control of the treatment of public space. Many economic, political, and social phenomena, such as inequity, poverty, marginality, and insecurity, have led to the city’s fragmentation into independent units of urban space that are closed off and alienated from one another, both physically and socially. Beginning with these deficiencies we must build on elements from our heritage that are conducive to revaluing our public space today and shaping positive mental images of the city so that it will serve us as we wish to use it in times to come. A primary task for architects and urban designers is to configure urban space appropriately by creating meaningful places that should inspire the construction of new identity processes in their users. However, the historic city is not limited to the viceregal one, but also includes the city that underwent all the turmoil of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, the enormous destruction executed in the name of liberal ideas, the Porfiriato, the Mexican revolution, and the postrevolutionary period. The historic city is also the one that struggled to become industrialized during the 1940s and 1950s and during the

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great industrial boom of the 1960s. The historic city is the result of the impressions left by an individual, or many individuals; it is physical space left behind as a trace of a specific society, its aspirations, its struggles, its illusions and dreams; what it wanted to be and what it became. And it is the mentally redimensioned space that each person creates to make the city his or her own. Santiago de Queretaro is currently a lively city that has been able to preserve its built cultural heritage, along with its traditions and values, and at the same time, has successfully transformed itself into a modern and dynamic metropolis. It is a city that retains a rich legacy from a past that will forever be present, while it bravely responds to changing conditions at the dawn of the twenty-first century.

Notes

Chapter 1 1. See Miguel León-Portilla, La Filosofía Nahuatl (México: Universidad Nacional Autonóma de México, 1975). 2. E. Casey, The Fate of Place (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997). 3. Gen. 1:2 (Authorized [King James] Version). 4. http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/maya/pvgm/pv09.htm. 5. León-Portilla, Los Antiguos Mexicanos a Través de Sus Crónicas y Cantares (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1983). 6. M. Quantrill, Environmental Memory (New York: Schocken, 1987), 25. 7. Gen. 2:7 (AV). 8. http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/maya/pvgm/pv10.htm. 9. R. Girard, Los Mayas (México: Libro Mex Editores, 1966), 67. 10. León-Portilla, La Filosofía Nahuatl. 11. Anthony Aveni, Skywatchers of Ancient Mexico (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980), 225. 12. Ibid., 256. 13. D. Cosio-Villegas, ed., Historia de México (México: El Colegio de México, 1976), 13. 14. Ibid., 150, 154. 15. D. García Ramos, Iniciación al Urbanismo (México: Universidad Nacional Autonóma de México, 1965), 79. 16. Octavio Paz, Obras Completas (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1993), 8:26. 17. Ibid., 8:61. 18. H. Schmidt, The Roots of Lo Mexicano: Self and Society in Mexican Thought, 1900–1934 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1978), 137. 19. Paz, Obras Completas, 8:61. 20. Ibid., 8:26. 21. Colle cited in T. Street-Porter, Casa Mexicana (New York: Stewart, Tabori and Chang, 1989), 12. 22. See León-Portilla, La Filosofía Nahuatl. 23. Through this vision and their actual lives, the pre-Hispanics anticipated some implications of James Lovelock’s theory of Gaia, which considers the earth to

158 Notes to Pages 27-48

be a living organism and the “mother” of all living beings. See J. Lovelock, The Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our Living Earth. New York: Norton, 1988. 24. H. Herrera, Una Biografía de Frida Kahlo (México: Diana, 1983), 128. 25. J. Rulfo, El llano en llamas (México: Biblioteca Escolar Plaza y Janes, 1953), 118, 28. 26. J. L. González y González, Pueblo en Vilo: Microhistoria de San José de Gracia (México: El Colegio de México, 1972), 14. 27. Ibid., 23. 28. Ibid., 16. 29. J. McDermott, The Culture of Experience: Philosophical Essays in the American Grain (New York: New York University Press, 1976), 199. 30. These place descriptions are not exhaustive. Rather, they sketch only the elements associated with the essence of Mexican space as described in this work. 31. From Querétaro’s official tourist guide. 32. Marcel quoted in E. Relph, Place and Placelessness (London: Pion, 1976), 43. 33. Quantrill, Environmental Memory, 11. 34. Ibid., 13–14. 35. McDermott, Culture of Experience, 220. 36. M. Vitruvius, The Ten Books on Architecture, in Vitruvius on Architecture, ed. Frank Granger, vols. 1 and 2 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1945). 37. N. Abbagnano, Diccionario de Filosofía (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1985); Kant cited in Abbagnano, 625. 38. This view is opposed to Norberg Schulz’s view of genius loci because he saw this concept as something to be found in natural sites instead of as a cultural result, as is maintained here. See Christian Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture (New York: Rizzoli, 1980). 39. García Ramos, Iniciación al Urbanismo, 70. 40. W. Christaller, Central Places in Southern Germany (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1966), 17. 41. King, Central Place Theory 21. 42. Christaller, Central Places in Southern Germany, 19. 43. According to Leslie White’s “layer cake model of culture,” technology and economy are at the bottom; social and political organization are in the middle; and ideology is at the top. P. Erickson, with Liam D. Murphy. A History of Anthropological Theory (Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press, 1998), 117. 44. It is worth remembering that many passages from one Mexican historic period to another were the result of foreign invasions, bloody wars, and at times, subjugation. 45. E. Baez, Obras de Fray Andres de San Miguel (México: Instituto de Investigaciones Esteticas, Universidad Nacional Autonóma de México, 1969), 101–2. 46. http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/3088/nahuatl.html. 47. Casey, Fate of Place, 254. 48. G. Bachelard, The Poetics of Space (New York: Orion Press, 1964), 37. 49. Mirandola cited in Abbagnano, Diccionario de Filosofía, 624.

50. M. Heidegger, “Building, Dwelling, Thinking,” in Poetry, Language, Thought (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1971), 147. 51. Bachelard, Poetics of Space, 37. 52. Ibid., 36. 53. T. De Rolf, ed., El Románico (Konemann V., 1996), 118. 54. Paz, Obras Completas, 8:178. 55. Artes de México, no. 23, En el mundo de Luis Barragán (México: Artes de México y del Mundo, 1994), 30. 56. E. O. Wilson popularized the term “biophilia” in his 1984 book of the same name. 57. E. Cabrera, Bernal Mágico (México: Ed. privada, 1997). 58. E. Browne, La Otra Arquitectura en America Latina (Barcelona: Gustavo Gili, 1988).

Chapter 2 This chapter is a synthesis of previous works regarding the evolution of the city of Querétaro, as representative of the development of most Mexican colonial cities. It began as a doctoral dissertation, presented at the University de La Sorbonne IV of Paris and titled “Le Développment Urbain de la Ville de Querétaro, Mexique.”

1. Artes de México, no. 16, Querétaro (México: Artes de México y del Mundo, 1992), 44. 2. Alejandra Moreno Toscano, Cambios en los Patrones de Urbanización en México, 1810–1910 (México: El Colegio de México, 1972), 160. 3. M. D. Morales, “Cambios económicos,” in Ciudad de México: Ensayo de Construcción de una Historia, coord. Alejandra Moreno Toscano (México: SEP–Instituto Nacional de Antropologíoa e Historia, Departamento de Investigaciones Históricas, 1978), 189. 4. R. E. Boyer, “Las Ciudades Mexicanas: Perspectiva de Estudio en el Siglo XX,” Historia Mexicana no. 86 (1972): 144–45; J. C. Super, La Vida en Querétaro durante la Colonia, 1531–1810 (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1983), 226–27. 5. R. E. Boyer, “Las Ciudades Mexicanas,” 147. 6. R amón Gutiérrez, Arquitectura y Urbanismo en Iberoamérica (Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra, 1983), 514. 7. Fernando Díaz Ramírez, Álbum Conmemorativo del Sesquicentenario del Estado de Querétaro, 1824–1974 (Querétaro: Gobierno del Estado de Querétaro, 1974), 19–20. 8. Carmen Imelda González Gómez and Ovidio González, Transporte en Querétaro en el siglo XIX (México: Instituto Mexicano del Transporte—Gobierno del Estado de Querétaro, 1990), 59–64. 9. Carlos Arvizu García, “ Développment Urbain de la Ville de Querétaro,” Paris, Universitè de Paris IV Sorbonne, Thèse de 3ème Cycle, 1984, 121–22. 10. José Antonio del Raso, Notas Estadísticas del Departamento de Querétaro (México: J. Mariano Lara, 1848), 69–70.

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11. Ibid., 98, 104. 12. Juan Maria Balbontin, Estadística del Estado de Querétaro Formada los Años de 1854 y 1855, (México: Torres, 1867), 141. 13. del Raso, Notas Estadísticas, 61–62. 14. Guillermo Prieto, Viajes de Orden Suprema (Querétaro: Gobierno del Estado de Querétaro, 1986), 117. 15. Angela Moyano Pahissa, Querétaro en la Guerra con los Estados Unidos, 1846–1848 (Querétaro: Gobierno del Estado de Querétaro, 1998), 83. 16. Cited in Díaz Ramírez, Historia del Estado de Querétaro, vols. 1–4 (Querétaro: Gobierno del Estado de Querétaro, 1979), 2:170. 17. Ramón del Llano Ibáñez, Iglesia y Sociedad en Querétaro: Los Años de la Reforma, 1854–1880 (Querétaro: Gobierno del Estado de Querétaro, 2000), 65–90. 18. Valentín Frías, Las Calles de Querétaro (Querétaro: Gobierno del Estado de Querétaro, 1984), 97–98. 19. Díaz Ramírez, Historia, 3:119. 20. Frías, Las Calles de Querétaro, 73. 21. Díaz Ramírez, Historia, 4:8. 22. Arvizu García, “La Destrucción del Convento Franciscano y Su Impacto sobre el Espacio Urbano,” in Heraldo de Navidad (Querétaro: Patronato de las Fiestas de Querétaro, 1989), 22–28. 23. Frías, Las Calles de Querétaro, 40–41; José Rodríguez Familiar, Efemérides Queretanas (Querétaro: Imprenta Salesiana, 1973), 2:215. 24. Celestino Díaz, Guía del Viajero en Querétaro (Querétaro: González, 1881). 25. Arvizu García, “La Actividad Mercantil a Principios de Siglo, 1900–1943,” in Casi un Siglo de Historia (Querétaro: Cámara Nacional de Comercio Servicios y Turismo de Querétaro, 2002), 35–58. 26. J. R. Fortson, Los Gobernantes de Querétaro (México, J. R. Fortson, 1987), 130. 27. Ibid., 127. 28. González Gómez and González, Transporte en Querétaro, 81–112. 29. Rodríguez Familiar, Efemérides Queretanas, 2:177–78, 213. 30. Ibid., 2:357–60. 31. Arvizu García, Agenda del Gobierno del Estado de Querétaro 1987 (Querétaro: Gobierno del Estado de Querétaro, 1987). 32. Díaz Ramírez, Historia, 5:5–6.

Chapter 3 1. Guadalupe Zárate Miguel, “La Ciudad de Santiago de Querétaro,” in Ciudad de Santiago de Querétaro. Catálogo Nacional de Monumentos Históricos Inmuebles (México: CONACULTA-INAH-GEQ, CD, 2003). 2. Arvizu García, “La Formación del Convento Franciscano de Querétaro durante el Virreinato,” in Museo Regional de Querétaro 50 años (Querétaro: Gobierno del Estado de Querétaro, 1986), 55. 3. Familia González de Cosío, La Verdad Acerca del Asunto del Antiguo Portal de Carmelitas (Querétaro: Sagrado Corazón, 1918).

4. Arvizu García, “La Actividad Mercantil,” 48–53. 5. González Gómez and González, Transporte en Querétaro, 67, 69. 6. Carmen Imelda González Gómez and Miriam Zepeda, “Introducción General a la Historia Comercial de Querétaro,” in Casi un Siglo de Historia (Querétaro: Cámara Nacional de Comercio, Servicios y Turismo de Querétaro, 2002), 23. 7. Díaz Ramírez, Historia, 7:7. 8. La Sombra de Arteaga, 75, no. 2 (Jan. 8, 1942): 8–10; Arvizu García, “La Preservación del Patrimonio Queretano, Condiciones Históricas y Legislación,” Conservación no. 3 (Autumn 1993): 13–16; La Sombra de Arteaga, 77, no. 25 (June 29, 1944): 190–92. 9. González Gómez and González, Transporte en Querétaro, 189. 10. Díaz Ramírez, Historia, 7:55–56. 11. La Sombra de Arteaga, 76, no. 49 (Dec. 9, 1943): 225–28; ibid., 77, no. 26 (June 29, 1944): 188–90. 12. González Gómez and González, Transporte en Querétaro, 95, 101. 13. El Día, Feb. 6, 1947, 3. 14. González Gómez and González, Transporte en Querétaro, 65, 111, 199, 200, 75, 77, 259–60, 132. 15. Eduardo Miranda Correa, “Políticas Públicas y Grupos Derivados en el Desarrollo de Querétaro, 1940–1973.” Tesis doctoral, Universidad Nacional Autonóma de México, México, 2000, 288; González Gómez and González, Transporte en Querétaro, 101–105. 16. González Gómez and González, Transporte en Querétaro, 101–105. 17. Ibid., 131. 18. El Día, Feb. 27, 1947, 1. 19. González Gómez and González, Transporte en Querétaro, 140; El Día, Feb. 27, 1947, 4. As far as we know, the Regulation Law for Housing Developments was never approved. 20. González Gómez and González, Transporte en Querétaro, 136, 140. 21. El Día, May 16, 1946, cited in González Gómez and González, Transporte en Querétaro, 142. 22. Miranda Correa, “Políticas Públicas,” 127. 23. González Gómez and González, Transporte en Querétaro, 108, 152, 113. 24. La Sombra de Arteaga, 85, no. 4 (Jan. 25, 1951): 103–107. 25. Fortson, Los Gobernantes de Querétaro, 222. 26. La Sombra de Arteaga, 84, no. 17 (Apr. 27, 1950): 78–79. 27. Zárate Miguel, “La Ciudad de Santiago de Querétaro”; Fortson, Los Gobernantes de Querétaro, 224; Eduardo Loarca Castillo, Panteón de los Queretanos Ilustres (Querétaro: Gobierno del Estado de Querétaro, 1988), 8. 28. González Gómez and González, Transporte en Querétaro, 86. 29. Ibid., 209, 117; Miranda Correa, “Políticas Públicas,” 169–72. 30. González Gómez and González, Transporte en Querétaro, 117, 121; Miranda Correa, “Políticas Públicas,” 342. 31. La Sombra de Arteaga, 96, no. 47 (Nov. 28, 1962): 299–303. 32. Arthur D. Little de México, “Oportunidades Industriales para Querétaro,” typescript, 66 pp., Nov. 9, 1962, México, 41.

161 Notes to Pages 109-23

162 Notes to Pages 123-56

33. Ibid., 2. 34. Ibid., 37–39, 8–10. 35. Ibid., 5–6. 36. Manuel Septién y Septién and Ignacio Herrera y Tejeda, Cartografía de Querétaro (Querétaro: Casa Municipal de la Cultura, 1965), description of map no. 35. 37. Beatriz García, La Actividad Inmobiliaria en Querétaro (México: Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales, Universidad Nacional Autonóma de México, 1988), 31, 36. 38. Ibid., 116; Martin Larios García, “El Proceso de Incorporación de la Tierra al Mercado Inmobiliario de la Ciudad de Querétaro, 1961–1981,” Investigación 2, no. 4–5 (Apr.–Sept. 1983): 46. 39. González Gómez and González, Transporte en Querétaro, 171; Miranda Correa, “Políticas Públicas,” 382. 40. 8th and 9th Censo General de Población y Vivienda, Estadísticas Históricas de México, vol. 1, Aguascalientes, Méx. (INEGI, 1994), 37; Miranda Correa, “Políticas Públicas,” 373. 41. 10th and 11th Censo General, 37. 42. Miranda Correa, “Políticas Públicas,” 278–80. 43. Fortson Los Gobernantes de Querétaro, 234. 44. Miranda Correa, “Políticas Públicas,” 383. 45. Ibid., 321. 46. Larios García, “El Proceso de Incorporación,” 46; Díaz Ramírez, Historia, 197; Fortson, Los Gobernantes de Querétaro, 234. 47. La Sombra de Arteaga, 110, no. 43 (Oct. 21, 1976): 371–81. 48. Ibid., 114, no. 28 (July 10, 1980): 207–208, and no. 29 (July 17, 1980): 217–20. 49. Ibid., 116, no. 29 (July 22, 1982): 279–82. 50. Kevin Lynch, La Imagen de la Ciudad (Barcelona: Gustavo Gili, 1998), 15. 51. Horacio Capel, “Percepción del Medio y Comportamiento Geográfico.” Revista de Geografía vol. 7, nos. 1–2 (1973). 52. Ibid. 53. La Ville 24 Heures sur 24: Regards Croisés sur la Société en Continu. [La Tour d’Aigues]: Bibliothèque des territoires, L’Aube Éditeurs, 2002. 54. Anthony Giddens, Modernidad e Identidad del Yo (Barcelona: Peninsula, 1995), 106.

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Index

Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations. Abbagnano, Nicola, 39 Acambaro Railway, 101, 111 aesthetic meaning and built environment, 142–43 agriculture: farmers’ attachment to land, 28–29, 30; hacienda-based, 5, 72, 78, 81; industrial-era effects on, 117, 120, 122, 126; Livestock Exhibitions, 111, 127, 131 Agriculture and Livestock Fair, 131 airport construction, 127, 153 alienation, modern, 67–68 aqueduct in Queretaro, 34, 82–83, 95, 100, 104 Arabic influence, 1, 53, 54–55, 58 architecture: and aesthetic meaning, 142–43; Arabic influence, 1, 53, 54–55, 58; collective memory role of, 36–37; colonial period, 24–25, 32–33, 81, 82, 85, 147; facades, 22–24, 25; and humility of home, 47; mimicking of geography in, 26–27; modern effects on landscape, 66–67, 102, 119; openness and enclosure dichotomy, 19– 25, 53, 59–60, 101–102, 142–43; and perception of urban space, 142–43, 149; philosophical underpinnings of, ix, 32, 48–49; pre-Hispanic, 4, 12, 25, 26, 44, 45–46; preservation of historic, 113, 128, 130–31, 134; protective and caring function of, 31; in

pueblos, 37–38; and religiosity, 8–9, 10; shrine, 64; as spirit of people, 38–40. See also place Area of Historic Monuments designation, 138 Aristotle, 7 art and attachment to land, 27 art deco style, 119 atrios (atria): and appropriation of church properties, 74, 91–93, 101, 102; as places, 57–58; in shrines, 64, 65 attachment to land, ix–x, 25–30 automobiles, 67, 120–21, 149 Autonomous State University in Queretaro, 131 Aveni, Anthony, 13, 14 Avenida Universidad, 135, 148 Aztec culture: centralism in, 17–18; metaphysical world of, 11–12; and mythological space, 7–8, 9, 10; religious belief and Christianity, 2; Tenochtitlan’s and Mexico City, 34 Bachelard, Gaston, 50 Bajio region, 81, 85 El Baratillo plaza, Bernal, 22–23, 42, 43, 69, 70–71, 141 baroque architectural style, 24–25, 82, 85, 147. See also enclosure Barragán, Luis, 23, 50, 51–52, 56 barrios: La Cruz, 104, 131, 153; and enclosure, 22; and localized cultures, 33; modern transportation’s conse

172 Index

barrios (cont.) quences for, 101; and revolutionary urban changes, 108; river as natural barrier for, 103; and Siege of Queretaro, 94; water connection to city, 82; and working-class housing, 119 Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe, 62 belonging, sense of, 143, 144–45, 151–52. See also community, sense of beltway development, 127 Benito Juárez Industrial Park, 124, 129–30 Bernal: enclosure in, 22; global vs. local perspectives in, 69–70; houses in, 51; plaza in, 21, 22–23, 42, 43, 69, 70–71, 141; portales, 59; Rock of Bernal, 65–66 biblical origins of relationship to landscape, 7, 8, 46, 48–49. See also religiosity biophilia, 58 Boulevard Bernardo Quintana, 138, 148, 149 Bridge of Revolution, 108 Bueno, Cipriano, 98 built environment. See architecture bullfighting, 84, 127 bus terminal improvements, 127, 131, 138 cabaña (cabin), 46 cabildo, 80, 83 calli, 47–48 Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, 78, 79 campesinos, attachment to land, 28–29, 30 La Cañada, 75–76 Cardenas, Lazaro, 30 Carnation of Mexico, 116 Carranza, Venustiano, 107–108 Carretas hacienda, 122 Casablanca hacienda, 84 Casa de la Corregidora, 134 Casa Rubio, 89 casas, 46–52. See also residential neighborhoods

Casey, Edward, 7 casonas, 82 cathedral as urban center, 19 Catholicism. See Christianity cattle raising, 117 Cemetery for Noble Citizens of Queretaro, 121 centralism, hierarchical: and colonial city layouts, 19, 35, 81, 84; losses of, 87, 116, 137–38; and Mexican space structure, 10, 16–19; mythological basis for, 8–9; patios, 20, 50, 53–56; political aspects, 16, 30, 91–92; portal, 60; pyramid and church structures, 45–46. See also plazas Central Railway, 101, 104 Centro Sur, 138, 151 Centro Universitario, 131 El Cerrito, 75 Cerro de las Campanas, 103–104, 121, 127, 129 Cerro del Cimatario, 137 Cervantes, Col. Julio M., 96 Chichen Itza, 14, 44 Chichimeca Indians, 64, 66, 76 choza, 46 Christaller, W., 41 Christianity: and attachment to land, 29; and hierarchical centralism, 18–19; influence on Mexican culture, 1; and mythological space, 7; and pre-Hispanic myth, 2–3, 44; secular appropriation of church property, 74, 91–93, 101, 102; and space structure, 15, 57; Spanish missionary work, 15, 34, 57–58, 64, 79. See also churches; convents Christian War, 110 churches: Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe, 62; cathedral as urban center, 19; and humility, 47; as places, 44–46; and plazas, 15, 40; in space structure, 15 Church of La Merced, 91 Cimatario, 118–19 Cinco de Febrero Avenue, 148, 153

circulation, 121. See also roadways cities: balancing of place/space needs in, ix–x; city center’s role, 117, 127, 131–32, 134; meaning of, 32–33; as mythological product, 8; openness vs. enclosure in, 22; plaza’s role in, 40; and principles of relation to landscape, 155–56; profile of modern, 6; urban space perceptions, 104–105, 138–56. See also colonial period; Mexico City; Queretaro; urban layout city council, 80, 83 class system: creole aristocracy, 80–81, 85, 88, 89; working-class housing, 117, 119, 133 cloisters, 55, 56 Club Campestre area, 119 CODIQUE (Industrial Development Committee for the State of Queretaro), 129 collective memory, 36–37 colonial period: architecture, 24–25, 32–33, 81, 82, 85, 147; attachment to land, 27; centralism in, 18–19, 35, 81, 84; cities as places in, 32–35; economics of, 34–35, 81–82; and enclosure, 20–21, 23; and house as protection, 49–50; landscape overview, 5; lasting elements in Queretaro, 154–55; locations of cities, 4; and mythological space, 8; orchards in cities, 58–59; plazas in, 40; portales, 59; Queretaro in, 75–87, 104–105; religiosity in, 11, 15; zaguanes, 61–62 color in built environment, 25, 142 commercial activities: in city center, 117, 119, 131–32, 134; and constitutional congress, 109; freer trade in post-independence Mexico, 89; and historical area’s value, 99, 103; marketplaces, 92, 96, 102, 104, 113, 131; national-era development of, 92 Commission for the Regulation Plan of the City of Queretaro, 115, 117 common lands, 30, 126

community, sense of: modern loss of, 72– 73; patio’s role in, 56; and perception of urban space, 143, 144–45, 151–52; plaza’s role in, 41; and pueblos, 38 Conin, statue of, 134 constitutional congress, 107–109 Constitution (Constituyentes) Avenue, 131–32, 138, 148, 149 Constitution Plaza, 41, 128, 146 constructed elements. See architecture consumer goods manufacturing, 117 continuity of travel and perception of urban space, 149 conurbation process, 137–38 Convent of La Cruz, 104 Convent of Santiago, 92–93, 108 convents: cloisters as patios, 56; historical context, 5; popularity in Queretaro, 80; protection aspect of place, 51; secular appropriation of, 92–93, 96, 104, 108; and space and place, 15 corregidor, 84 Corregidora Avenue, 127 Corregidora municipality, 126, 138 corregidora of Queretaro, 102–103, 104 Corregidora Stadium, 134, 138 Cortes, Hernan, 8 cosmological perspective and attachment to land, 28 Country Club area, 119 creoles (Spaniards born in New Spain), 80–81, 85, 88, 89 cross shape, 44–45, 57–58, 65 La Cruz, convent of, 104 La Cruz barrio, 104, 131, 153 culture: and attachment to land, x, 25–30; greenery’s effect on perception of space, 141; and historical influences on space and place, 1–6; and metaphysical relationship to land, ix; and Mexican space structure, 10–30; and nature in shrines, 65; shifts in original principles of urban space, 155–56. See also centralism, hierarchical; enclosure; religiosity

173 Index

Dasein, 48 demographic changes in Queretaro. See population levels Díaz, Fernando, 94–95 Díaz, Porfirio, 74, 89, 104 distances, subjective vs. absolute, 140, 151 district mayor, 84 domicilio, 46 Donde, Emilio, 104 174 Index

economics: and attachment to land, 28; colonial period, 34–35, 81–82; industrial era, 120, 121–29, 131; and loss of metaphysics of landscape, 67; nineteenth-century, 85–99; plaza’s role in local, 41, 42; postindustrial, 144, 153. See also commercial activities; industrialization education, 83–84, 127, 131, 132 ejidos, 30, 126 El Encanto neighborhood, 118 enclosure: functions of, 24–25; and house as protection, 49–50; vs. openness, 19–25, 53, 59–60, 101–102, 142–43; patios, 20, 50, 53–56; and perception of urban space, 142; and public vs. private spaces, 22, 72; urban loss of, 94, 102 environment, 20–21, 153. See also protection function of place The Environmental Memory (Quantrill), 36–37 epidemics and decline of Queretaro, 90 Escobedo, Gen. Mariano, 94 ethnographic perspective, ix, 60, 64–65, 68, 141, 149 events as content of space, 7 existential angst, built environment as refuge from, 32, 48–49 Exposition Center, 131 expropriation of private property for public use, 114–15, 121

facades, 22–24, 25 farmers, attachment to land, 28–29, 30 federal government: agency presence in Queretaro, 121, 131, 134; industrialization support, 125; persecution of Catholics, 110–11; renewal of support for Queretaro, 114; support for education, 83–84, 127, 131, 132 federalism vs. centralism in Mexico, 16–18, 30, 91–92 Fifth of February Boulevard, 148, 153 First Industrial Exhibition of Queretaro, 99 Founders Plaza, 134 fountains, 54–55, 82, 121 fourfold system, 9, 37–38, 57, 74, 155–56 freeways, 127, 138 Fuentes, Carlos, 30 Galindo, Fr. Felipe, 64 Garden of Eden, 8, 46, 48–49 gardens, 58–59, 92, 102, 111 genius loci, 7, 38–40, 47, 72–73, 158n 38 geography: architectural mimicking of, 26–27; and attachment to land, 28, 30; and centralism, 17; and colonial city layouts, 35; and shrines, 65–66 global and local juxtapositions, 68–69 globalization and loss of Mexican landscape, 66–67 González de Cosio, Francisco: convent property of, 109; criticism of, 104; and economic progress, 99; as governor of Queretaro, 98; and industrial development of Queretaro, 122–23; public works projects, 127, 128; resignation of, 106 government. See federal government Government Industrial Zone, 125 Government Palace, 96, 98 Grand Hotel, 98, 102 greenery: orchards, 58–59, 92, 96; and perception of urban space, 140, 141, 149; public appropriation of church, 92, 93; public gardens, 58–59, 92, 102, 111

Guanajuato, 35 Guerra Cristera, 110 Guerras Floridas, 11–12 Guzman, Fr. Luis de, 64 Gwiazdzinski, Luc, 144 Hacienda de Casablanca, 84 haciendas: consolidation of system, 81; historical context, 5; modern loss of, 72, 122; and Queretaro’s development, 78; unauthorized settlements on, 126 Hacienda Viborillas, 143 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 40 Heidegger, Martin, 31–32, 48, 49, 52 El Hercules factory, 89 Hidalgo y Costilla, Miguel, 103 hierarchical structures: and attachment to land, 29–30; and centralism, 18–19; and colonial city layouts, 35; and houses, 46; and industrial-era zoning plan, 116; and loss of patios, 53; plaza’s role in, 42, 44; racial, 80. See also centralism, hierarchical; class system historical heritage of Queretaro: commercial value of, 99, 103; contemporary value of, 154–55; liberal destruction of, 105; official designation of status, 138; and perception of urban space, 146–47; protection of, 113, 128, 130–31, 134 hospitality, 30, 47, 51 houses as places, 46–52, 72. See also residential neighborhoods Huerta, Victoriano, 107 huertos, 58–59, 92, 96, 102, 111 human sacrifice, 2–3, 11–12 human scale and perception of urban space, 149 humility and houses, 46–47 Hun Ahpu, 3 hut, 46 ICA (Ingenieros Civiles Asociados), 121, 122, 125, 127

identity, Mexican: and attachment to land, 28–29; and houses, 52; plaza’s role in, 41; and pueblo as people, 36–38; and religiosity, 76; and shrines, 62 ideology: federalism vs. centralism, 16–18, 30, 91–92; revolutionary renaming of streets, 108. See also politics indigenous peoples: Chichimeca Indians, 64, 66, 76; and church space structures, 15, 57; conversion to Christianity, 64; creole/mestizo replacement of, 81; exploitation of workers, 85; in Queretaro, 78 Industrial Development Committee for the State of Queretaro (CODIQUE), 129 industrialization, 6, 89–90, 114–38 Industrial Parks complex, 124 INFONAVIT (National Institute for the Promotion of Housing for Workers), 133 infrastructure, Queretaro’s: airport construction, 127, 153; late nineteenth-century technologies, 100; need for improvement, 153; and perception of urban space, 144–45; railroad developments, 99, 101, 110, 111–12; revolutionary damage to, 110–11. See also roadways; water supply in Queretaro Ingenieros Civiles Asociados (ICA), 121, 122, 125, 127 Institutio Tecnologico de Monterrey, 132 international conflict, post-independence, 91–92 international corporate presence, 116–17, 120, 125 irregular settlements, 126, 131 Iturbide Theater, 111 Jardin de la Corregidora, 92 Jardin Guerrero, 111 Jardin Zenea, 92, 102

175 Index

Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez Auditorium, 134 Juan Diego, 62 Juárez, Benito, 94, 128–29 Jurica, 126 Kahlo, Frida, 27 Kukulkan temple, 14, 44

176 Index

La Laborcilla hacienda, 122 landscape, relationship to: attachment to land, x, 25–30; and creation of humans from earth, 8, 26; and haciendas, 78; historical influences on space and place, 1–6; organizing principles of, ix–x, 25–30, 155; and patios, 54. See also centralism, hierarchical; enclosure; religiosity land speculation, 153 language and Mexican landscape: house types, 46, 47–48, 52; pueblo as people, 35–36; tierra and attachment to land, 28 Law for the Conservation of the City of Queretaro, 113 Law for Urban Development, 133–34 Law of Expropriation, 121 laws and regulations: conservation of historical properties, 113; expropriation of private property for public use, 114–15, 121; housing, 117–19, 118; urban planning, 114–15, 133–34, 135 liberal capitalism in Queretaro, 89–90, 105 literature and attachment to land, ix, 27–28, 30 Livestock Exhibitions, 111, 127, 131 El Llano de la Cruz, 29 El Llano en Llamas (Rulfo), 30 lobby/vestibule, 51–52, 60, 61–62 local and global juxtapositions, 68–69 Lomas de Casa Blanca, 126 López Portillo, Jose, 138 Luaces, Gen., 87 Lynch, Kevin, 139

Madero, Franciso I., 104, 107 Madero Street, 107 magistrate, 84 mansion, 46 Marcel, Gabriel, 36 Margil de Jesus, Antonio, 128 marketplaces: creation of, 92, 96, 102; urban rise of, 104, 113, 131 El Marques municipality, 138 materials, building, 49 Mausoleum of the Corregidora, 121 Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, 103 Mayan culture, 3, 7–8, 44 McDermott, John, 32, 37 meaningfulness of place and collective memory, 36–37 Mejía, Tomas, 94 memory, collective, 36–37 Menchaca-Peñuelas area, 137 Mesoamerican cultures: callis, 47; centralism in, 17–19; and Christianity, 2–3, 44; metaphysical relationship to place/space, 10–14; and mythological space, 7–9, 10; overview of, 3–5; plazas in, 40; and portales, 59; pyramidal architecture, 4, 12, 24, 25, 26, 44, 45–46; and Queretaro’s origins, 75–76. See also Aztec culture mestizos, 78, 80–81, 85 metaphysics and place/space: attachment to land, ix, 29; and centralism, 17; and churches as places, 44; houses as connection to, 51–52; Mesoamerican, 10–14; modern loss of, 67, 72–73; and shrines, 62–66. See also religiosity metropolitan centers. See cities Mexican-American War (1846-1848), 91 Mexican Revolution (1910), 89, 104, 106, 107–10 Mexico City: Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe, 62, 63; cultural reasons for founding of, 34; and federalism vs. centralism, 16; geological instability of, 152–53; loss of influence in nineteenth century, 87; and

perception of urban space, 145; as post-independence refugee center, 88; post-Revolution supremacy of, 106; and Queretaro, 75 Mexico-Queretaro-Celaya highway, 134 Mexico-Queretaro highway, 121–22, 153 migrant workers, seasonal, 82 migration patterns, 88, 89, 127, 153 Mirámon, Miguel, 94 missionary work, Spanish, 15, 34, 57–58, 64, 79 mobility, postindustrial worker, 144 modern Mexican landscape: cities of, 6; and colorful structures, 25; and industrialization, 6, 89–90, 114–38; and loss of patios, 53; overview of, 5–6; place and space in, 66–73; and postindustrial society, 143–44; Queretaro’s introduction to, 99–104 Molinos El Fenix, S.A., 116 Monte Alban, 13–14, 26 Monterrey, openness in, 22 monuments, historic: colonial period, 33–34; industrial era, 121, 128–29, 134; late nineteenth-century, 102–103; postindustrial, 153 moral issues and colonial legal concerns, 84 motorized vehicles, 67, 120–21, 149 mythological space: and attachment to land, 25–26; Christian and pre-Hispanic, 2–3, 44; influence on Mexican landscape, 7–10; order from chaos theme, 7–8, 9, 31–32, 33. See also religiosity Nahuatl language, 47–48 naming of places, 31 national era (1821-1910) in Queretaro, 89–104 National Institute for the Promotion of Housing for Workers (INFONAVIT), 133 National Institute of Anthropology and History, 138 nationality and attachment to land, 28

National Railway, 101, 111–12 national urban system, development of, 87–88 natural-cultural elements and shrines, 65. See also geography natural resources, 34–35, 70, 71–72 neighborhoods. See residential neighborhoods neoclassical architectural style, 85 Niños Heros de la Republica neighborhood, 118 north-south model of Queretaro’s development, 137–38 Oaxaca City, 13 openness and enclosure dichotomy, 19–25, 53, 59–60, 101–102, 142–43. See also enclosure orchards, 58–59, 92, 96 order out of chaos theme, 7–8, 9, 31–32, 33 organizing principles of Mexican space, ix–x, 25–30, 155–56. See also centralism, hierarchical; enclosure; religiosity Oriñuela, Mariano, 153 orthogonal layout of built environment, 8–9, 32–33, 37–38 Ortiz de Domínguez, Josefa, 102–103, 104 Otra Banda, 103 ownership and attachment to land, 29–30 palacio, 46 Palacio de Gobierno, 96, 98 Park Plaza, 125 Parques Industriales complex, 124 Pathe area of Queretaro, 89 patios, 20, 50, 53–56 Paz, Octavio, 23, 53, 60 peacefulness value for built environment, 33, 49–50, 61, 69 Pedro Escobedo Market, 102, 104, 113 Pedro Páramo (Rulfo), 30 perspective and perception of space, 22, 141, 149, 151

177 Index

178 Index

Phenomenology of Spirit (Hegel), 40 Pico de la Mirandola, 48 Pie de la Cuesta Avenue, 148 Pino Suárez, Jose Maria, 107 place: atrios, 57–58, 64, 65, 92, 101, 102; churches, 15, 19, 40, 44–46, 47, 62; colonial cities as, 32–35; houses, 46–52, 72; in modern landscape, 66–73; notion of, 31–32; orchards, 58–59, 92, 96; patios, 20, 50, 53–56; plazas as, 40–44; portales, 58, 59–61, 72; pueblos, 22, 23–24, 35–40, 72; shrines, 62–66; zaguanes, 51–52, 60, 61–62. See also plazas place-that-cares for, 31–32 place-that-holds, 31 place-that-keeps, 31 Planning and Zoning Law for the State of Queretaro, 114–15 Plaza Constitución, 41, 128, 146 Plaza de Armas, 21, 22, 134 Plaza de las Americas, 131–32 Plaza de los Escombros (Plaza of Rubble), 93 La Plaza de los Fundadores, 134 Plaza del Parque, 125 plazas: Bernal, 22–23, 42, 43, 69, 70–71, 141; and centralism, 16, 19, 32–33; churches as centers of, 15, 40; colonial-era popularity of, 80; Constitution Plaza, 41, 128, 146; and enclosure, 21; Founders Plaza, 134; and improvements in Queretaro, 100, 102; Park Plaza, 125; as places, 40–44; Recreation Plaza, 102 Plazuela Mariano de las Casas, 128 The Poetics of Space (Bachelard), 50 politics: city council system, 80, 83; colonial urban, 80, 83–84; federalism vs. centralism in Mexico, 16–18, 30, 91–92; and industrialization, 123; lack of provincial capital status for Queretaro, 85; national-era unrest, 89; and ownership of land, 30; renewal of federal support for Queretaro, 114; upheavals of Revolution and aftermath, 107–11

Popol-Vuh, 7, 57 population levels in Queretaro: colonial-era growth in, 81, 83–84; industrialization era, 120, 127, 129; Porfiriato period, 100–101; postindependence decline in, 85–86, 91; postindustrial era, 152, 153; postRevolution stagnation in, 111 Porfiriato, 89, 98–104 portales, 58, 59–61, 72 Portico of Carmelitas, 108–109 postindustrial society and perception of urban space, 143–44, 152, 153 Pozo Balbas, Agapito, 114, 115–16 pozos and patios, 54–55 pre-Hispanic cultures. See Mesoamerican cultures Prieto, Guillermo, 91 private spaces: and enclosure, 22, 72; expropriation for public use, 114–15, 121; houses as places, 46–52, 72; patios, 20, 50, 53–56; and revolutionary changes in urban layout, 109; and walls, 22–23; and zaguanes, 51–52, 60, 61–62 protection function of place: built environment as, 9, 31; convents as, 51; enclosure as, 22, 24; houses as, 47–50, 52, 72 psychological distancing, 145 public spaces: appropriation of church property for, 74, 91–93, 101, 102; atrios, 57–58, 64, 65, 92, 101, 102; and colonial city layouts, 35; and enclosure, 22, 72; expropriation of private property for, 114–15, 121; fountains, 54–55, 82, 121; gardens, 58–59, 92, 102, 111; industrial-era improvements, 120–21, 127, 128, 131; modern loss of integrated, 72; moral value of, 84, 85; plazas as, 42, 44; portales, 58, 59–61, 72; and quality of life, 121; and revolutionary-era urban layout, 109; and walls, 22–23; and zaguanes, 61–62. See also plazas

public transportation: bus terminal improvements, 127, 131, 138; and perception of urban space, 145, 149; railroad developments, 99, 101, 110, 111–12 El Pueblito, 75–76, 126 pueblos, 22, 23–24, 35–40, 72 La Purisima factory, 89 Pyramid of the Moon, 26 Pyramid of the Sun, 26 pyramids, pre-Hispanic: and centralism, 45–46; color in, 25; facades, 24; geographical mimicking, 26; historical perspective, 4; and human sacrifices, 12; as places, 44 quality of life, 90–91, 121, 143–44, 145, 151–52 Quantrill, Malcolm, 8, 36–37 Queretaro: consequences of independence, 87–104; continuation of colonial legacy, 104–105; current urban space issues, 152–56; enclosure in, 22; industrialization and expansion, 114–38; monuments in, 33–34; and mythological space, 8; and perceptions of urban space, 138–52; plaza’s role in, 21, 22, 42, 134; pre-colonial and colonial development, 74–87; pre-industrialization stagnation of, 106–14. See also Bernal Queretaro-Celaya highway, 124 Queretaro-Pedro Escobedo-San Juan del Rio industrial corridor, 153 Queretaro River, 103, 135 Quetzalcoatl, 2, 14 Quintana Arrioja, Bernardo, 122–23, 129, 132–33 racial hierarchy, colonial, 80 railroad developments, 99, 101, 110, 111–12 rancherías, 22, 23–24, 32, 69 Ranchería Viborillas, 42, 141 Raso, Jose Antonio del, 90–91 recreation and tourism, 99, 121, 145

Recreation Plaza, 102 redimensioning of space, x, 138–56 Regional Museum, 113 La region Más Transparente (Fuentes), 30 Regulation for the Registry of Urban Development Plans, 135 Regulation Law for Housing Development, 118 Regulation of Traditional Conservation in Queretaro, 113 regulations and laws. See laws and regulations religiosity: and aqueduct of Queretaro, 82–83; and architecture, 8–9, 10; and atrios, 57–58; and attachment to land, 29; colonial period, 34, 78–79; and houses, 46, 51–52; and lack of bishopric status for Queretaro, 85; and modernization, 72, 74, 102; national-era loss of, 94; and portales, 58–59; post-Revolution persecution of Catholics, 110–11; and Queretaro’s development, 76–77; and secular appropriation of church property, 74, 91–93, 101, 102; and shrines, 62–66; and space structure, 10–15. See also Christianity; churches; mythological space residential neighborhoods in industrial era, 117–19, 122, 126, 131, 133, 134–35 retail space, 92. See also commercial activities rhythm of urban daily life, 144–45 roadways: and automobiles, 120–21, 149; colonial period, 78, 79; modern improvements, 101, 113–16, 118, 120–22, 124, 127, 131–32, 134–35, 138, 153; and perception of urban scale, 144–45, 149; principal Queretaro, 148; revolutionary-era, 108, 110–11. See also streets Rock of Bernal, 65–66 Roman Catholicism. See Christianity romanticism and attachment to land, 30

179 Index

Roots (Kahlo), 27 Royal Road, 78, 79 Ruiz Calado, Ignacio, 84 Ruiz Obregón, Roberto, 132–33 Rulfo, Juan, 27–28, 30 rural areas: industrial-era developments, 133; lack of development vs. city, 119–20; migration from, 88, 127; openness vs. enclosure in, 22; pueblos, 22, 23–24, 35–40, 72. See also agriculture 180 Index

San Antonio industrial unit, 89 sanctuarios, 62–66 Sanctuary of the Virgin of El Pueblito, 75 San Fernando tobacco factory, 90 San Francisco barrio, 22 Sangremal hill, 82, 104 sanitation improvements, 114 San Jose de la Montaña industrial unit, 89 San Luis Potosi, 127 San Luis Potosi freeway, 138 Santa Rosa de Viterbo temple, 128 Santiago, Apostle (St. James), 8, 76–77, 153 Santiago, convent of, 92–93, 108 Santiago de Queretaro. See Queretaro Schulz, Norberg, 158n38 seclusion/solitude and space as enclosure, 19, 23, 53 secularization: and government persecution of Catholics, 110–11; and loss of religiosity in urban space, 74, 102; and public appropriation of church property, 74, 91–93, 101, 102 self-positioning, geographical, 29 self-projection into built environment, 38–40 sense of belonging, 143, 144–45, 151–52. See also community, sense of

Serra, Fr. Junipero, 128 services industries, 153 set of planes and perception of urban space, 142 shrines, 62–66 Siege of Queretaro, 94–95 social factors in space and place: and colonial city layouts, 33, 35; and communal role of plazas, 41; and enclosure, 19–25; houses as social filters, 51–52; land and social status, 29–30; and patios, 55–56; and plazas, 42 social-interest housing, 71, 72 Soriano, 70, 71–72, 141 Soriano’s shrine, 63, 64 space: attachment to land, 25–30; balancing of needs in cities, ix–x; centralism of, 16–19; enclosure, 19–25, 72, 142; mental perception of urban space, 104–105, 138–56; in modern landscape, 66–73; mythological, 7–10; notion of, 6–7; organizing principles of Mexican, ix–x, 25–30, 155–56; and religion, 10–15, 57. See also geography; metaphysics and place/space; private spaces; public spaces Spanish culture: contribution to Mexican culture, 1; creoles (Spaniards born in New Spain), 80–81, 85, 88, 89; initial settlement of Queretaro, 78; and missionary work, 15, 34, 57–58, 64, 79. See also colonial period spirit of people, built environment as, 7, 38–40, 47, 72–73, 158n 38 sports complex, 131 sprawl, urban: in industrial boom period, 121, 122, 125–26; late twentieth-century urban expansion, 135, 138, 139; residential neighborhoods, 118–19, 131 squares, public, 9. See also plazas St. Domingo of Guzman, 11

stadiums, 113, 134, 138 State Urban Development Plan, 134 streets: and colonial city layouts, 33, 35; enclosure in design of, 20, 21–22; historic center of Queretaro, 146, 147–48, 149, 151; pedestrianization of city center, 134; revolutionary renaming of, 108; and urban mental space, 139–40, 146 Tapia, Fernando de, 134 Teatro de la Republica, 121 temples, Carmelite, 92 Tenochtitlan, 8, 17, 26–27, 34, 58 Teotihuacan, 5, 7–8, 12, 13, 26 Tepetate, 119 El Tepetate market, 131 territorial markers, walls as, 24 textile industry, 81, 83, 89, 116 Textiles la Concordia, S.A., 116 Tezcatlipoca, 2 Theater of the Republic, 91, 111 tierra, and attachment to land, 28 tobacco industry, 82, 83, 90 Toltec culture, 2, 14 tourism, 99, 121, 145 towns, 22, 23–24, 35–40, 72 tramway, animal-drawn, 101 transportation and perception of urban scale, 144–45. See also public transportation; roadways travel patterns and urban mental space, 140, 144–45 tripartite patterns, 9, 45, 98 unauthorized settlements, 126, 131 University Avenue, 135, 148 University Center, 131 urban centers. See cities urban layout: centralism of, 32–33; colonial period, 79–80, 82, 83–84, 88; evolution of urban scale, 150, 152; historical growth of Queretaro, 154; industrial growth period, 115–16, 119–20, 125, 128–30, 133,

135–36; national era, 90, 94, 97, 99, 103; post-revolutionary period, 112; revolutionary period, 109 Urban Master Plan, 137–38 urban planning: decentralization of, 137–38; industrial era, 114–15, 115, 116, 117, 133–34, 135, 137–38; institutionalization of, 113, 135–37 Urban Railway, 101 urban space, 104–105, 138–56 urban sprawl. See sprawl, urban Urrutia y Arana, Juan Antonio de, 82, 83 vecindad, 54, 55–56 Velasco, Jose María, 28 vertical profiles, 12, 37–38, 71 vestibule/lobby, 51–52, 60, 61–62 Viborillas hacienda, 143 vicregency period. See colonial period Villa, Francisco (Pancho), 107 Virgin de La Piedad (Virgin of Pity), 104 Vitruvius, M., 38 Von Mitzel, Max, 103 Voyages of Supreme Order (Prieto), 91 walls, landscape function of, 22–23, 24, 70 War of Independence, Mexican (1810), 5–6, 18, 85–87 War of Intervention, 91, 94–95 War of Reform, 91–92 water features in landscape: fountains, 54–55, 82, 121; loss of, 70, 71–72; and patios, 54–55 water supply in Queretaro: aqueduct, 34, 82–83, 95, 100, 104; colonial development of, 81; and industrial growth, 117; and modernization, 100; and sanitation, 114 wells and patios, 54–55 workers: colonial-era exploitation of, 85; housing for early industrial,

181 Index

workers (cont.) 89; migrant, 82; postindustrial mobility of, 144 working-class housing, 117, 119, 133 World Heritage Site, Queretaro as, 153 Xochimilco, 57, 58

182 Index

Yanhuitlan convent, 15 zaguanes, 51–52, 60, 61–62 Zaragoza Avenue, 148, 149 Zocalo plaza, Mexico City, 42 zoning in Queretaro, 115–16, 122, 123, 124, 125, 129–30

Studies in Architecture and Culture Corona-Martínez, Alfonso, The Architectural Project, ed. Malcolm Quantrill, 2003. Quantrill, Malcolm, ed., Latin American Architecture: Six Voices, 2000. Quantrill, Malcolm, and Bruce Webb, eds., The Culture of Silence: Architecture’s Fifth Dimension, 1998. Hartoonian, Gevork, Modernity and Its Other: A Post-script to Contemporary Architecture, 1997. Quantrill, Malcolm, and Bruce Webb, eds., Urban Forms, Suburban Dreams, 1993. Quantrill, Malcolm, and Bruce Webb, eds., Constancy and Change in Architecture, 1991.