The architecture and cities of Northern Mexico from independence to the present: Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, Chihuahua, Durango, Sonora, Sinaloa, and Baja California Norte and Sur [First edition] 9780292771901, 9781477307229, 9781477307236, 0292771908, 1477307222, 1477307230

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Introduction  i

The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico from Independence to the Present

Roger Fullington Series in Ar chitecture

ii  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Introduction  iii

E dwa r d R . B u r i a n

The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico from Independence to the Present Ta m aulipas, N ue vo León, Coah uil a , C hihuah ua , Durango, S onora , Sin aloa , an d Ba ja Ca lifornia Norte an d Sur U ni v e rs i t y of T e x a s P r e ss   | |   Au s t in

iv  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Publication of this book was made possible in part by support from Roger Fullington and a challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. It was also supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. Copyright © 2015 by the University of Texas Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First edition, 2015 Requests for permission to reproduce material from this   work should be sent to: Permissions University of Texas Press P.O. Box 7819 Austin, TX 78713-7819 http://utpress.utexas.edu/index.php/rp-form ∞ The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R1997) (Permanence of Paper). Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Burian, Edward R. (Edward Rudolf ), 1953–, author. The architecture and cities of Northern Mexico from independence to the present / Edward R. Burian. — First edition.   pages cm — (Roger Fullington Series in Architecture) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-292-77190-1 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4773-0722-9 (library e-book) ISBN 978-1-4773-0723-6 (non-library e-book) 1. Architecture—Mexico, North. 2. Architecture—Mexico, North—History. 3. Architecture—Tamaulipas, Nuevo León, Coahuila, Chihuahua, Durango, Sonora, Sinaloa, Baja California Norte, Baja California Sur. I. Title. II. Series: Roger Fullington series in architecture. NA756.N67B87  2015 720.972—dc23  2015005391 doi:10.7560/771901

Introduction  v

Para mis amigos mexicanos . . . y “el contingente latino” . . .

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Introduction  vii

C on t e nts

List of Abbreviations, ix  ||  Acknowledgments, xiii  || 

Introduction, 1

The Geography and Landscapes of Northern Mexico, 6 A Historical Overview of Northern Mexico   Evolving Urban, Architectural, and Landscape Types, 11 Tamaulipas, 25 Nuevo León, 53 Coahuila, 95 Chihuahua, 127 Durango, 162 Sonora, 180 Sinaloa, 204 Baja California Norte and Sur, 239 Conclusions: Lessons Learned and Opportunities for the Architectural Culture of the Region, 272 Appendix: Biographies of Architects, Engineers, Designers, and Builders in Northern Mexico, 1821 to the Present, 277

Notes, 295  ||  Bibliography, 301  ||  Index, 309

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Introduction  ix

A bbr e v i at ion s

In Text Aa Ahmsa Aia ANA ASARCO BC BCS c. ca. CAADES CEDIM Chih. Chis. cmu Coah. Col. CONACULTA CU ENA ETH ETSAB FONART FONATUR GDU Gro. GSD Gto. HVAC IDIEZ IIE IMSS Inah Infonavit

Architectural Association School of Architecture, London, UK Altos Hornos de México S.A. American Institute of Architects Academia Nacional de Arquitectura American Smelting and Refining Company Baja California (Norte) Baja California Sur century circa Confederación de Asociaciones Agrícolas del Estado de Sinaloa Centro de Estudios Superiores de Diseño de Monterrey Chihuahua Chiapas concrete masonry unit Coahuila Colonia Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes Ciudad Universitaria (University City), UNAM Escuela Nacional de Arquitectura, UNAM Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology), Zürich Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Barcelona Fondo Nacional para el Fomento de las Artesanías; National Fund for the Promotion of Arts and Crafts Fondo Nacional de Fomento al Turismo; National Fund for the Promotion of Tourism Grupo de Diseño Urbano, Mexico City Guerrero Graduate School of Design, Harvard Guanajuato heating, ventilation, and air conditioning Instituto de Docencia e Investigación Etnológica de Zacatecas; Zacatecas Institute for Teaching and Research in Ethnology Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, UNAM Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia Instituto del Fondo Nacional de la Vivienda para los Trabajadores; Federal Institute for Workers’ Housing

x  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico Ipade Ipn Isad Issste Itesm Iteso Jal. JSa Méx. NAFINSA,   S.N.C. Nl pan pri pronaf Qro. sam sci-arc Sin. ssa Tamps. ten uabc uacj uam uanl uc udem unam upc ur usc utsa Ver. Yuc. Zac.

Instituto Panamericano de Alta Dirección de Empresa; Ipade Business School Instituto Politécnico Nacional; National Polytechnic Institute Instituto Superior de Arquitectura y Diseño Instituto de Seguridad y Servicios Sociales de los Trabajadores del Estado; Institute of Social Security for State Employees Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey; Monterrey Institute of Technology and Advanced Studies Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Occidente, Universidad Jesuita de Guadalajara Jalisco Javier Sánchez Arquitectos México, state of Nacional Financiera, Sociedad Nacional de Crédito Nuevo León Partido Acción Nacional Partido Revolucionario Institucional Programa Nacional Fronterizo; National Border Program Querétaro Sociedad de Arquitectos Mexicanos Southern California Institute of Architecture Sinaloa Secretaría de Salud; Ministry of Health Tamaulipas Taller de Enrique Norten Universidad Autónoma de Baja California Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León University of California Universidad de Monterrey; University of Monterrey Universidad Autónoma de México Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya Universidad Regiomontana, Monterrey University of Southern California University of Texas at San Antonio Veracruz Yucatán Zacatecas

Abbreviations  Introduction  xi

In Photo Credit Lines AMV CAW DPCO ERB ERB Col. ERBPC JK LOC MAS MCI MF

NYPL YB  

Antonio Méndez-Vigatá The Century Atlas of the World Detroit Publishing Company Postcards (1895–1935) Photo by Edward R. Burian Edward R. Burian Collection of Mexico and the American Southwest Edward R. Burian Postcard Collection of Mexico and the American Southwest Jacob Kalb (proprietor of the Iturbide Curio Store, Mexico City, from 1906 to 1908) Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Modernidad arquitectónica en Sinaloa (by Alejandro Ochoa Vega) México en el centenario de su independencia 1910 (by Eugenio Espino Barros) México Fotográfico (A Mexico City–based company and one of the largest producers of postcards in Mexico from the 1920s to the 1950s. Their real photo postcards recorded  scenes in many border towns as well as places across the country.) New York Public Library Yale University Beinecke Rare Book Library

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Introduction  xiii

Ack n o w l e d gmen ts

I would like to acknowledge the following individuals who contributed to my thinking about the architectural culture of Northern Mexico and who made vital contributions to this book. Since this is a book that largely concerns itself with issues of place, I will thank my colleagues more or less by geographic region. From my own experience, Mexican hospitality is deservedly, almost without exception, “the stuff of legend.” In this regard, my Mexican colleagues have always exceeded their legendary hospitality and have provided invaluable insights into the culture of the region. My friends and colleagues in Monterrey, including Rodolfo Barragán, Antonio Garza Sastre, Ana María de la Cruz, Rena Porssen Overgaard, and the late Agustín Landa Vértiz of the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM), NL; Macario Aguirre Puente of the Universidad de Monterrey (UDEM); and Alexandre Lenoir, Miguel González Virgen, and Juan M. Casas García of the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León (UANL) have unfailingly been helpful. Rena Porssen and Juan M. Casas García also were kind enough to show me some of the largely forgotten neighborhoods and individual works of architecture in Monterrey and assisted with the biographical section on architects. Pablo Landa Ruiloba was also helpful in providing information and locating photos, maps, and drawings in Tamaulipas and Nuevo León. Special thanks to Anette Arámbula Mercado of the Dept. of Architecture of the ITESM, who has provided continuing encouragement to write this book and who shared her experiences of living, studying, and teaching in Monterrey, NL, as well as many nuanced aspects of regiomontano culture. A special thank-you is also made to one of Mexico’s leading architects and intellectuals, Antonio Méndez-Vigatá of Torreón, Coah. He was extremely generous in sharing

his insights into the architecture and urbanism of Northern Mexico and guiding me to little-known architects and undervalued works of architecture in Torreón, Coah., and other cities in Northern Mexico. The sections of this book on Torreón and the architects’ biographies would not have been nearly as detailed or authoritative without his valuable assistance. In Durango, José Jesús Vargas Garza, the historian and chronicler of the city of Lerdo, Dgo., graciously showed me around his city during a visit in January 1999. In Cabo San Lucas, bcs, Janeth Flores was kind enough to give me a detailed tour through the Weiss residence. In Mexico City, Louise Noelle Gras of the Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas (IIE), Xavier Cortes Rocha, director of Sitios y Monumentos del Patrimonio Cultural of the Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (CONACULTA), and Luis Arnal Simón of the Universidad Autónoma de México (UNAM) have been very generous during my visits to the capital city through the years. From the office of Legorreta + Legorreta Arquitectos, the late Ricardo Legorreta, Víctor Legorreta, and staff were helpful in providing information regarding their work in Nuevo León and Baja California. In the American Southwest, the following institutions and individuals made valuable contributions. In Los Angeles, my late father and mother, Richard G. Burian and Betty Ann Burian, raised me two miles from the beach in Manhattan Beach, in a home that included long discussions of history over the dinner table and was filled with books and antique works of European art. They initially introduced me to Northern Mexico during family car trips to Ensenada, BC. My friend Janek Bielski has lent his encouragement as this book was being written. Mark Bielski and the late Kasia Bielski have also been supportive during my career. Joe McFaul has been a friend since grade

xiv  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico school, when we walked home together, and has shared his insights regarding maritime history, legal theory, and Irish wit. In Tucson, María Jesús Acuña Rascón, a native of Sonora, was unfailing helpful in assisting with particular Mexican nuances in Spanish. María Perdomo shared her experiences of growing up in Los Mochis, Sin. Gloria Giffords and the late Spencer Giffords generously shared their collections of Mexican art, numerous insights, and their dry sense of humor. Joanne Stuhr, former curator of the Tucson Museum of Art, was inspirational with her vision for a regional culture for fine arts in the American Southwest. Mark Lochrin helped on a variety of computerrelated challenges. Rubén M. Moreno, director of Mariachi Luz de Luna of Tucson, Arizona, assisted me in selecting a number of the quotations from Mexican mariachi and ranchero music that appear at the beginning of several chapters. In Austin, the staff at the University of Texas Press were unfailingly helpful in the production of this book. Jim Burr, Sarah Rosen, Lynne Chapman, former Editorin-Chief Theresa May, and freelance copyeditor extraordinaire Nancy Warrington, Nancy Bryan, Regina Fuentes, Kaila Wyllys, and the graphic designer, Carrie House, each made vital contributions in making this book a reality and deserve special mention and thanks. Colleagues at the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture who were helpful include Larry Speck, former Dean of the School, who took the time to write letters of support for grants; Vince Snyder; and Michael Benedikt, among others. In Houston, Stephen Fox from the Rice University School of Architecture made valuable comments on earlier versions of the text, especially on the chapter on Tamaulipas and the section on Ciudad Juárez, Chih., which would not be as complete without his rigorous input. Doug Oliver, also from the Rice University School of Architecture, has been a vital colleague through the years. In San Antonio, the following individuals deserve special acknowledgment. From the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) Dept. of Architecture, Venetta Williams, Diane May, and especially Roxanne Cuevas have been helpful in countless ways and able to surmount numerous bureaucratic hurdles. Special thanks to Martín Rodríguez and his staff for their outstanding support in solving complex computer problems. From the UTSA College of Architecture, Dean John Murphy lent his support, while Nidia Webber assisted me with printing preliminary versions of the text. Analytical documentation drawings and travel during the summer of 2009 to Monterrey, Ciudad

Victoria, and Tampico were made possible by a grant from the Mexico Center at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Special thanks to Harriet Romo and Olivia López of the UTSA Mexico Center for their support. Faculty colleagues who were helpful include Mark Blizard, former Department Chair, who supported me with funding to travel to Ciudad Juárez in the fall of 2007, and current Department Chair Vince Canizaro, who has helped focus many of the arguments regarding the elusive issue of “place.” I also benefited from ongoing conversations with my colleagues Bob Baron, Andy Pérez, Ian Caine, Sedef Doganer, Antonio Petrov, Ken Madsen, and Taeg Nishimoto. Former students have also been helpful through the years, including Michael Rey and Ryan Jones who are now practicing architects in San Antonio, TX. Special thanks are also due to my students at the UTSA Dept. of Architecture from whom I obtained insights into a number of border cities. Many thanks to Ricardo GarcíaBáez, who patiently revised the digital urban plan drawings for all of the cities in the book. Richard Thurman initially drew the analytical CAD drawings for several of these cities, which established a graphic design system for the other cities. His patience in solving a myriad of CAD problems, especially for the Monterrey, NL, drawing, deserves special mention. The text on Nuevo Laredo, Tamps., benefited from the insights of natives Edna Zepeda and Sergio Vela, who also provided a number of photos. The portion of the book on Ciudad Juárez, Chih., would not have been as complete without the efforts of Ciudad Juárez natives Ricardo García-Báez and Iván González, who secured many photographs and provided much detailed information. Leslie Book, Michelle Campos, Dan Cancilla, Ricardo García-Báez, Eleazar Hernández, Gerardo Perlata-Gandy, Ayumi Nakagawa, Magdalena Palos, Daniela Rosales, Marzieh Rostami, Jonathan Sharp, William Schenk, Shane Valentine, and Edgar Zarate made valuable contributions in my classes. I would also acknowledge the many other students from Northern Mexico and other parts of Mexico that have assisted me in numerous ways through the years. From the Northeast of the United States, the following individuals played important roles in the development of my thinking about Mexico’s culture. During my graduate studies at the Yale School of Architecture, I gained useful insights from faculty members Tom Beeby and George Ranalli, from e-mail discussions with Patrick Pinnell, and from Steven Harris, who was kind enough to allow me access to his Weiss residence in Cabo San Lucas, bcs. I continue to be grateful to Alan Plattus, who took the time to write letters for several grants. From the Yale

Acknowledgments  Introduction  xv Department of the History of Art, Vincent Scully, Mary Miller, and the late George Kubler shared their prodigious knowledge of the architecture, art, and material culture of Mexico and the American Southwest. Fellow students that I encountered during my graduate studies at Yale who influenced me include John Da Silva, Greg Gross, Steve Luoni, Scott Wood, Larry Chang, and Mark Yoes, among others. Alberto Pérez-Gómez of McGill University in Montreal also took the time from his busy schedule to write letters of support for grants for this book. I am also indebted intellectually to scholars and colleagues I read or conversed with who influenced my outlook and thinking. The work of the architectural historian William Curtis has been inspiring in its breadth, inclusiveness, and the direct experience of works of architecture that enriches his writing. Michael Benedikt’s important book For an Architecture of Reality stirred my thinking regarding the importance of the sensory experience of architecture. In Mexico, I would also like to acknowledge a number of individuals without whom this book would never have happened. Numerous public officials, administrators at private institutions, architects, merchants, and private citizens in Northern Mexico allowed me access to their museums, archives, offices, stores, and homes. Innumerable bus drivers safely transported me from city to city over the vast landscape of Northern Mexico, over roads of every type, in all types of weather, and at all hours of the day and night. Countless taxi drivers, with their vast, encyclopedic knowledge of their cities, took me to extremely obscure parts of their cities in taxis of every type. Numerous hotel staffs offered their hospitality; and a legion of cooks, waiters, and waitresses in restaurants prepared and served many memorable and delicious meals for me and my norteño colleagues. I also ate many delicious informal meals in plazas in front of churches after the conclusion of Mass from women of the parish selling homemade regional food. Finally, I would like to thank the gracious citizens I encountered daily in the alamedas, plazas, streets, and courtyards of Northern Mexico. They were almost always unfailingly helpful, courteous, and polite . . . typically provided directions with a smile .  .  . patiently answered my questions .  .  . and provided innumerable insights into their magnificent culture. ERB San Antonio, Texas August 30, 2014

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Introduction  xvii

The Architec ture and Cities of Northern Me xico from Independence to the Present

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Introduction  1

Int r o d u ct io n

On an overcast, rainy day in December of 2004, while riding in the front passenger seat of a MINI Cooper sloshing through the busy streets of Monterrey, Nuevo León, Northern Mexico’s most important city of industry and commerce, I turned to a leading architect in the region and lamented on the lack of a book on architecture of Northern Mexico. He agreed with my assessment and added, “Ed, if you don’t write it, it will probably never happen.”1 This conversation confirmed my own sense regarding the undervalued architectural culture of the region and provided the initial impetus to write this book. Over the course of my professional practice, teaching, traveling, and lecturing that has focused on the American Southwest and Mexico, I have always been astonished by how many quality works of architecture, landscape, and urbanism in Northern Mexico have been largely ignored. This body of work has been marginalized not only in the United States—and even in the American Southwest—but also in Mexico itself. Why this architecture and urbanism of memorable qualities, which offers so much in terms of experience and lessons about how to build well, is so largely unknown in both the United States and Mexico is an interesting and revealing story.

The Limited Discussion of the Architectural Culture of Northern Mexico Mexico’s cultural discourses are largely defined and dominated by Mexico City, even more so than cultural discourses in architecture and the arts in the United States are dominated by New York and Los Angeles. For a variety of reasons, only recently have discourses in Monterrey, NL, Northern Mexico’s dominant industrial, cultural, and distribution center, and the rest of Northern Mexico emerged. The reasons for this lack of attention

are somewhat surprising, although not completely unexpected. The noted architectural historian Reyner Banham once remarked in a lecture in Los Angeles that “the history of modern architecture was written by Germans for Germans.” In much the same way, the history of modern architecture of Mexico, for better and for worse, has been written in Mexico City for Mexico City. Thus, little work in Northern Mexico receives the attention that it deserves, not only in terms of architecture, urbanism, and landscape design, but in all the arts, including music, art, theater, literature, and cinema. For example, it is revealing that the canonical books on colonial architecture in Mexico by Mexico’s leading colonial architectural historian, Manuel Toussaint, including his Paseos coloniales, La arquitectura hispano colonial en México, and Arte colonial en México, almost completely ignored colonial architecture north of Zacatecas. The total discussion is limited to two sentences, as if it were not even important enough to mention. Thus, masterpieces of colonial architecture of all the Americas such as the Chihuahua Cathedral, the Casa del Conde Suchil and Cathedral in Durango, the Cathedral and Palacio Gobierno of Saltillo, and Palacio Municipal and Obispado in Monterrey were omitted from the canon of Mexican colonial architecture. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Mexican architectural scholarship in the United States and Mexico has primarily focused on pre-Columbian and colonial architecture that was perceived as more “legitimate.” Scholarship on pre-Columbian architecture in Mexico was also part of an ongoing agenda of racial affirmation in succeeding postrevolutionary regimes in Mexico from the 1920s onward. Even today, in the minds of many, the preColumbian era still suggests the exotic, mysterious world of an “Indiana Jones” film. In the United States, studies in the colonial culture of

2  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico Mexico from 1910 onward have received most the attention by scholars. During the WWI years, travel to Spain increased, and the Spanish colonial revival of the 1920s and 1930s became the architecture of choice of Hollywood movie stars of the time.2 Furthermore, the American Southwest sought to legitimize its regional identity by reclaiming the cultural roots of its Spanish colonial legacy and a mythic, and at times imagined, exotic past. Thus, nineteenth-century architecture in Mexico was largely ignored. Pre-Columbian, colonial, and, to a lesser degree, twentieth-century Modern architecture have received the majority of the attention by previous scholars; and architectural discourses on nineteenth-century Northern Mexico have been especially ignored. Even the spectacular four-volume set that surveys Mexico’s architectural culture, edited by Carlos Chanfón Olmos, Historia de la arquitectura y el urbanismo mexicanos (UNAM, 1988), with an entire volume devoted to the nineteenth century, overlooks works in Northern Mexico. Thus, a number of undervalued nineteenth-century architects have been largely forgotten. These included, until very recently, the Anglo-American architect Alfred Giles, who produced a significant body of work in Monterrey, as well as Refugio Reyes, who produced a rich body of work in the neighboring states of Zacatecas and Aguascalientes. The architecture of twentieth-century Mexico up until the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City is still little known. Those architects who do appear in the literature are limited to monographs on well-known twentieth-  century “superstar” Mexican architects such as Luis Barragán, Ricardo Legorreta, and now Alberto Kalach, Enrique Norten, and a few others. Authoritative books on modern architecture such as Carlos Obregón Santacilia’s 50 años de arquitectura mexicana (1900–1950) (1952) and the Sociedad de Arquitectos Mexicanos’ Guía de 4,000 años de arquitectura en México (1960), published as part of an international traveling exhibition on the architecture of Mexico, virtually ignored Modern architecture produced in Northern Mexico. Thus, many major twentieth-century architects in Northern Mexico, including Rodolfo Barragán Schwarz of Monterrey, NL; Carlos Gómez Palacio of Torreón, Coah.; and Gonzalo Garita of Hermosillo, Son., among many others, never received the critical attention their work merits. Furthermore, the work of a number of world-renowned foreign architects and engineers who designed projects in the region is only barely known, including that of Walter Gropius in Torreón, Coah., or Gustave Eiffel in Santa Rosalía, BC, among others. Only since the turn of the new millennium has a more balanced, broader history of the contemporary architecture

and urbanism of all of Mexico, including Northern Mexico and the rest of the country, begun to be written. Architectural magazines such as Arquine, produced in the capital, as well as periodicals published outside of Mexico City such as Piso in Guadalajara and Objeto in Monterrey are just beginning to present a broader view of contemporary architectural culture in all of Mexico. The limited discussion of architectural culture in Northern Mexico has been exacerbated by the fact that discourses in architectural history and theory were substantially limited in Mexico in comparison to the United States and Western Europe. There was simply a lack of capital in Mexico to support the production of architectural history and theory in terms of grants, funding, and publication. Even university research in the United States about Mexico was considered somewhat “less sanctioned” because of its proximity to the United States, as opposed to more distant and “exotic” locales. To make matters worse, many norteños were so busy conducting commerce, manufacturing products, and designing and constructing buildings that little of Northern Mexico’s architectural history was critically discussed or even documented for that matter, and many quality works of architecture were lost over time. This was especially true in Monterrey, NL, Mexico’s industrial capital, which is dominated by a culture of engineering and progress. The same could be said to an even greater extent for other regional centers in the north such as Torreón, Coah. (a transportation and distribution center); Monclova, Coah. (a steel-producing center); Tampico, Tamps. (a port and a petroleum and distribution center); and Tijuana, BC, Nogales, Son., Nuevo Laredo, NL, and Matamoros, Tamps. (all border towns that have grown into maquiladora centers). Needless to say, Mexico’s industrial culture was largely ignored in the United States and elsewhere, since Mexico was imagined as a folkloric antidote to the industrial technology of the United States.3 The first attempts to systematically document significant sites in Northern Mexico date to the years after the Mexican Revolution, presumably as part of an effort to account for the treasures accumulated by the deposed Porfirio Díaz regime and the ruling elite. The federal government ordered a complete inventory of historic sites and important art objects in 1914, and this law was bolstered in 1916. State governments were ordered to submit a list of their historic monuments within six months to the Dirección General de Bellas Artes, which was in charge of preserving the national patrimony at that time. However, this effort varied from region to region, and until recently these efforts had not included a basic inventory of historic

Introduction  3 sites in Northern Mexico. Not until 1988 was the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) able to undertake an inventory of the cultural resources of many of the border states and finally compile the Catálogo de monumentos históricos for the states of Tamaulipas, Chihuahua, and Nuevo León.4 Although this was a welcome addition, the resulting texts were very basic and uneven. Few architects were even mentioned in the brief descriptions, and the documentation drawings were in many cases, to put it generously, extremely schematic single-line diagrams .  .  . at best! The few works of architecture in Northern Mexico that did manage to appear on Mexico’s twentieth-century postage stamps as models of modernity and nationalism included the Ateneo Fuente, Saltillo, Coah. (1932); Iglesia la Purísima, Monterrey, NL (1940–1946); Centro Cultural Alfa, Monterrey, NL (1978); and Puente Tampico, Tampico, Tamps. (1998). Monterrey, Mexico’s third-largest city, industrial center, and economic “colossus” of the north, has only a rigorous architectural guide to civic architecture in the city from 1920 to 1960.5 Tijuana, BC, now Mexico’s sixth-largest city, and Ciudad Juárez, Chih., Mexico’s eighth-largest city, have no architectural guide at all. Given this context, this book is written as an overview of the architecture and urbanism of the region of Northern Mexico from independence in 1821 to the present day to provide a more balanced view of its undervalued architecture. The book is intentionally broad in scope because of the tremendous need for even basic documentation, as this rich body of work has been generally ignored and is largely unknown. Beginning with a brief geographical and historical overview, the book provides an outline of the architecture of each city during the time period (what my colleague Stephen Fox has termed a “gazetteer”) and concludes with a brief commentary on lessons learned and the possible future for the architectural culture of the region. In it I discuss and analyze a body of work virtually unknown in either English or Spanish that has been produced in the six border states of, east to west, Tamaulipas, Nuevo León, Coahuila, Chihuahua, Sonora, and Baja California Norte and the adjacent states of Durango, Sinaloa, and Baja California Sur. This book aims to consider works of architecture in relationship to the issues of place, sensory experience, and materials and to provide greater critical attention to several generations of undervalued architects and works of architecture, landscape, and urbanism. It also offers valuable lessons regarding building well and creating memorable works of architecture in terms of transforming regional building typologies with contemporary materials and programs. This will also be useful for

other regions around the world with hot and dry, as well as hot and humid, climates. It is hoped that this book will serve as a broad summary from which more detailed architectural studies, investigations, and histories of individual states, cities, architects, and buildings of Northern Mexico will be written.

Contested Definitions of Northern Mexico The definition of what exactly constitutes the region of Northern Mexico is undoubtedly a complex issue, intertwined with the larger, slippery discussion of “place” in contemporary discourses of physical and cultural geography, cultural studies, architectural theory, and philosophy. It encompasses issues of materials, labor, economics, globalization, electronic media, and local practices, as well as the aspects of topography, landscape, climate, and biology, among others. For purposes of this book, I define Northern Mexico as the states of Tamaulipas, Nuevo León, Coahuila, Chihuahua, Durango, Sonora, Sinaloa, and Baja California Norte and Sur. Of course even this list has led to some debate among my colleagues in Mexico. Chilangos (people from Mexico City) and people from other states in Central Mexico consider Zacatecas and San Luis Potosí part of Northern Mexico. In contrast, many norteños do not consider Durango, and definitely not Zacatecas or San Luis Potosí, part of the north. Yet Torreón, the largest city in the border state of Coahuila, forms part of a metropolitan area with Gómez Palacio and Lerdo, Dgo. While both San Luis Potosí and Zacatecas were considered part of the northern frontier of Mexico during the colonial era, they are still considered by most to be part of the culture of Central Mexico.

Organization of the Book Given the breadth of work produced over close to two centuries, the question arises how to examine this vast body of undervalued work? After examining various alternatives, I decided to organize the book the way a person would probably directly experience this work: by state, using the existing jurisdictional states in Northern Mexico, by city, discussing its architecture and its urban landscape. The question also arose of how to order the states in Northern Mexico themselves. I decided on an organization that combined easy orientation for the reader, similar climates, economic and cultural connections, and historic ties. In this way interrelationships and similar themes could be discerned by the reader. Thus, the book

4  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico is organized from east to west, with climates that generally range from humid to dry. The exception to this order is the humid coastal region of the southernmost-lying state of Sinaloa, whose history is intertwined with Sonora. I begin the discussion of individual states with the undervalued state of Tamaulipas on the Gulf of Mexico with its hot, humid coastal plain. I then move west to Nuevo León, with its climate that is humid in its eastern portion and dryer in its western portion. This is also a useful point in the book to elaborate on the economic, commercial, and cultural dominance of the colossus of Monterrey, NL. I continue westward in the Chihuahua Desert to the dryer states of Coahuila and Chihuahua, which both had close historic ties to Nuevo León. Then I head south to discuss the state of Durango. Moving farther west to the Sonora Desert, I look at the state of Sonora; then I go down the coast to hot, humid, Sinaloa, which historically had close ties to Sonora. Crossing the Gulf of California, I end by discussing the arid states of Baja California Norte and Sur, whose economics and politics were linked to Sonora. Each state is briefly introduced in terms of its own particular geography and history. Then cities and their architecture within the state are discussed from north to south. The cities that were selected in each state were those with major undervalued works of architecture during the time period. The discussion of each city begins with the intertwined relationship of the landscape, history of the city, and urban morphology. This is followed by a review of individual buildings, generally organized from the oldest in the urban core of the city to the newest at the perimeter.

The Time Period Besides filling a much-ignored area of Mexico’s architectural history, the time period of the book from 1821 to the present coincides with the emergence of Mexico as a modern nation, when probably 98 percent of the building fabric of the cities in Northern Mexico was produced. Even a cursory review reveals the pivotal events that shaped the northern region and the country. Mexico and the region endured a chaotic period beginning with independence from Spain (1821) and extending through the Wars of Reform and Foreign Intervention (1832, 1838, 1846–1847, 1861–1867). The Porfiriato (1877–1911), including the pivotal arrival of the railroads in Northern Mexico (1882), served as the initial catalyst for the modernization of the region. The upheaval of the bloody Mexican Revolution (1910–1919), in which approximately 1.5 million perished, was largely initiated and fought in the north. The early postrevolutionary years (1920–1939)

brought on rebuilding and land reforms, while the scale and order of the city fundamentally changed with the industrialization brought on by WWII and the dominance of the automobile in the postwar economic boom (1940– 1980). The Mexico City Olympic Games (1968) showcased Mexico as a modern country, followed by the economic booms and crises (1982, 1994) and the trade agreements: General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT; 1986) and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA; 1994). The emergence of the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) party in Northern Mexico ended the monopoly of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) in 2000, while contemporary pressures on cities and local cultures include electronic information technology, globalization, and automobile sprawl.

Approach, Strategies, and Tactics Because this work is so largely unknown, I included as many significant works of architecture as possible within the publisher’s limitations on the length of the book. Thus, the book is not equally weighted across all eras. Additionally, I selected individual works on the basis of those that lingered in the memory long after I had directly experienced them in terms of their relationship (both empathetic and contrasting) to particular places, body-oriented sensory experience, and materiality. In short, I included those works that exhibited what Michael Benedikt, in his slim but important book For an Architecture of Reality, has termed “presence.” Implied is a certain tautness, attentiveness, assertiveness. Well constructed . . . experienced not only visually, but by a coherent appeal to all the senses . . . edges are distinct . . . articulated parts are mutually poised . . . [it] stands precisely where it needs to be and ends there . . . every material and texture is fully itself and revealed . . . enhancements of every kind have been devised to “bring out” a building’s shape and its harmonics . . . a building with presence . . . seems attentive to our presence. It awaits for our return.6 The most memorable and significant buildings in each city are discussed in greater detail, while other buildings are discussed briefly with the prospect that others will continue to document, discuss, and analyze this largely undervalued work. To make the text easy to search, key buildings in each city appear in bold typeface. (In the appendix, the names of architects, engineers, designers, and builders in Northern

Introduction  5 Mexico also appear in boldface.) To make the book accessible to a broad audience, including travelers, owners, daily users, citizens, clients, students, architects, landscape architects, builders, public officials, and city planners, as well as those interested in the arts, humanities, and material culture of the region, many historical and architectural concepts are explained. Due to the publisher’s constraints on the length of the book, the following conventions were observed. Baja California Norte and Baja California Sur were combined in one chapter, though they are two separate states in Mexico. The short form of citation has been used in the notes, with full reference information provided in the bibliography. Websites are referenced only in the notes. A number of footnotes unfortunately had to be eliminated to reduce the length of the book. Many of the descriptions of individual buildings that are not footnoted were formed by my own direct experience or from photographs. Unfortunately, the notes and a number of photos in the “Biographies of Architects” appendix at the end of the book were not able to be included. States in Northern Mexico are indicated with their common abbreviations as Tamps. (Tamaulipas), NL (Nuevo León), Chih. (Chihuahua), Coah. (Coahuila), Dgo. (Durango), Son. (Sonora), Sin. (Sinaloa), BC (Baja California Norte) and Baja California Sur (bcs). Many buildings in the early nineteenth century up to the 1920s in Northern Mexico were designed by those with local building expertise: civil engineers, military engineers, or builders, but after 1920 the profession of architecture became more fully developed and formalized in Mexico.7 To conserve space, the abbreviation of the title arquitecto or arquitecta, abbreviated “Arq.,” is not used in identifying each building’s architect. However, those designed by an ingeniero or ingeniera (engineer), abbreviated “Ing.,” or a builder or sculptor are listed. “Anon.” refers to those designers who are unfortunately still anonymous. I urge those colleagues or family members who have information about individual architects that I have listed as unknown, or construction completion dates that are currently unknown, to contact me through the University of Texas Press. Every effort has been made to correctly attribute photographers of images used in the book. However, if any attribution of a photographer or publisher of an image given in the text is incorrect, please contact the author through the Press so that this information can be updated in possible future editions. Prior to the discussions of each state, each city, and individual works of architecture that are the primary focus of this book, a brief overview and summary of the geography

and landscape of Northern Mexico is presented, followed by a discussion of the history of Northern Mexico in relation to changing urban and architectural types. This will be useful to the reader in understanding this body of work in Northern Mexico in terms of its physical, historical, economic, intellectual, material, and cultural contexts.

6  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

The Geogra phy an d Lan d s ca pe s o f N orth e r n M e x i c o Soy puro mexicano nacido en este suelo, en esta hermosa tierra que es mi linda nación . . . (I am pure Mexican, born of this place, in this stunning land that is my beautiful nation . . .) —From “Viva México,” a mariachi song by Pedro Galindo

To provide some background for the discussions that follow, I will present a brief overview and summary of the geography and landscape of Northern Mexico here. This will be very useful to a general audience of readers in the United States, in other countries, and even in Mexico itself, to understand the body of work of the region in terms of its topographic, material, hydrologic, climatic, landscape, and wildlife contexts.

Subregions of Northern Mexico The physical geography of Northern Mexico can best be understood as series of north-to-south-running parallel layered subregions. From east to west, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean, these are the Gulf Coastal Plains, Eastern Sierra Madre, Central Highland Plains, Western Sierra Madre, Sonora and Sinaloa Plains, and the Baja California peninsula.1 Significantly, the plant and animal life of the region reflect a condition of exchange between North and South America that have met and commingled here; this is also mirrored in the architecture, landscape, and urbanism of the region. Accordingly, this text will explore these subregions in terms of their interrelated geography, history, culture, and architecture. After the Mexican American War, the northern boundary of Mexico in the states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas was established at the Río Bravo, called the Rio Grande in the United States. Fed by melting snows in the high mountains of New Mexico and the Río Conchos that flows through Chihuahua, the Rio Grande for centuries provided habitat for numerous bird and animal species and watered rich farm and ranch land on both sides of the border. However, recent rapid development of agricultural land along the banks of the Río Conchos in Chihuahua2 and the proliferation of nonnative water

grasses in the Rio Grande have slowed the flow of the Rio Grande to a mere trickle at its terminus at Matamoros on the Gulf of Mexico. Thus, the wildlife habitat along its banks has deteriorated, and farmers in both South Texas and Tamaulipas struggle to work the land.

The Gulf Coastal Plains In the east, the Gulf Coastal Plains of the Gulf of Mexico date from the Cretaceous period, with low hills up to 650 ft. high formed by sedentary deposits. The coastal plain is hot and humid and features a series of beaches, sandbanks, and areas of swamps and lagoons. The north coast has few good natural harbors, which made Tampico, with its nearby rich oil deposits at the terminus of the Río Pánuco, a strategically important port throughout the nineteenth century and both world wars and also a major petroleum exporting port today. The Gulf Coast is home to tropical plants such as palms, mosses, and bougainvillea and numerous tropical animals, birds, and mammals, and it supports a major fishing and shrimping culture near Tampico, Tamps., and the small port of La Pesca, Tamps.3

The Eastern Sierra Madre From the large bend of the Rio Grande a series of low hills formed by the folding of sedimentary strata run to the southeast. South of Monterrey, these mountains rise to form an imposing chain of mountains: the Eastern Sierra Madre, formed during the late Mesozoic period, with peaks of 7,000 to 10,000 ft. The valleys are narrow and steep sided and run north and south, such as at the Huasteca area near Monterrey, NL. Of the rivers that have carved their way through the eastern flanks of the Eastern Sierra Madre, the most important is the Río Pánuco,

The Geography and Landscapes of Northern Introduction  Mexico  7

Map of Mexico © 2007 by World Trade Press, www.worldtradepress.com. All rights reserved.

which reaches the Gulf of Mexico at the port of Tampico, Tamps.4

The Northern Highland Plains

Palms on Plaza, Tampico, Tamps.; photo ERB

The heart of Northern Mexico is the vast Northern Highland Plains, a high plateau between the Sierra Madre Occidental and the Sierra Madre Oriental. Only a small amount of rainfall passes over these mountain-range barriers to reach the interior that includes grassland at higher elevations and the vast lowland of the Chihuahuan Desert. This plateau is not uniform and consists of several large valley basins transected by rift valleys. Rainfall, primarily occurring during the rainy seasons, pours through these gorges and drains away. The lower Northern Highlands are made up of broad, featureless depressions (bolsones) without outlet to the sea, such as those near Mapimí. The right-hand tributaries of the Río Bravo drain into the Gulf of Mexico. The northern portion of this wide alluvial valley floor, lying between 3,000 and 4,000 ft., is varied with sand dunes, salt steppe land, occasional lakes, and, on the lower slopes of

8  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico hills, alluvial soil. There are numerous deposits of gold, silver, lead, mercury, zinc, coal, and iron ore. The oases are watered by the Ríos Casas Grandes, Conchos, Nazas, and Aguanaval—all originating in the Western Sierra Madre. When these rivers flow into depressions, they lose much of their water by evaporation, seepage, and diversion.5 La Laguna, a region of three dry lagoons in the Chihuahuan Desert and the three cities it encompasses, Torreón, Coah.; Gómez Palacio, Dgo.; and Lerdo, Dgo., is watered by the Ríos Nazas and Aguanaval. A number of oasis areas have also been created by seasonal flooding of low-lying land on the Rio Grande such as Ciudad Juárez and Ojinaga in Chihuahua. The desert and semidesert regions are inhabited by species equipped to cope with drought conditions, for example, succulents that can store large quantities of water in their fibers, such as prickly pear and creosote, which are common species in the area. The grassland and scrub steppe have more abundant vegetation, and after a sufficient rainfall can produce short-lived grasses. Numerous cacti, as well as mesquite, chaparral, yuccas, and agaves, also grow here. In the nineteenth century, railroads linked oasis towns and mining centers with

Chihuahuan Desert near Van Horn, TX; Wikimedia Commons, Leaflet

one another, Mexico City, and cities throughout the United States.

The Western Sierra Madre The mountain chains of the Western Sierra Madre are approximately 160 miles wide with peaks rising above 6,000 ft. The configuration of the main mountain chains and gorges was largely formed by folding movements during the Mesozoic era and the older stratifying of the basement rock.6 In the western part of the range are barrancas (gorges) over 5,000 feet deep. Only two main roads and the railroad line that traverses Copper Canyon (completed in 1961) link the Central Highland Plains with the coastal plains of Sinaloa and Sonora. The vegetation in the Western Sierra Madre is rich with deciduous and coniferous forests of oak, arborvitae, and junipers, as well as pines and other conifers at higher elevations. The ground cover consists of coarse grasses and close-growing plants. At higher elevations, bear, wolves, badgers, bighorn sheep, raccoons, and squirrels are found.

The Geography and Landscapes of Northern Introduction  Mexico  9

Copper Canyon near Creel, Chih.; photo ERB

The Sonora and Sinaloa Plains

Cabo San Lucas, BCS; photo ERB

The Sonoran and Sinaloa Plains were formed during the middle and late Tertiary period and consist of parallel ranges of hills and broad valleys in the northeast of the state of Sonora that contain copper and silver.7 The dryer, hotter area of the coastal plains of Sonora contains over three hundred varieties of cactus, with some used by indigenous peoples as food, drink, medicine, building material, or fish hooks, among other uses. These hot coastal plains become semitropical wetlands as one moves south into the coastland of Sinaloa, where cotton, wheat, rice, sugarcane, and fruits and vegetables are grown. In the Sonoran Plains, between the Río Sonora and the Colorado River that divides and waters southern California and southern Arizona, only a few rivers reach the sea. The Sonoran Desert is fragile but rich with animal life, particularly near washes, such as deer, javelinas, squirrels, rabbits, and numerous reptiles, including lizards and the Gila monster. Sonora is also a major pathway for migrating birds that travel each year between Mexico and Canada. The Sinaloa Plains are humid and watered by the Yaqui, Mayo, Fuerte, Sinaloa, and Culiacán Rivers. The coastland

10  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico is predominantly flat and sandy, with a number of lagoons and deepwater bays surrounded by rocky hills, such as at Guaymas, Son., and Mazatlán, Sin. The area between Guaymas, Son., and Mazatlán, Sin., is also a major shrimping area. Coastal amphibious lands with mangroves, and even crocodiles, occur near the port of Topolobampo, Sin.

The Baja California Peninsula The Baja California peninsula, including Baja California Norte and Baja California Sur, is a long, narrow peninsula about 775 miles long with an average width of only 90 miles and was formed during the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods. Southern Baja was formed with marine deposits and volcanic activity during the Pleistocene and Holocene periods. The backbone of the peninsula is a series of crystalline mountains mostly over 5,000 ft., with broad strips of desert plateaus on either side of the Sierra de Santa Clara.8 The Baja California peninsula is primarily hot, arid desert that is home to over 120 different species of cactus of varying shapes and profiles, some growing to 60 ft. tall. On either side, there are bays that form important harbors, including Ensenada, BC, on the Pacific Ocean and La Paz on the Gulf of California; while Cabo San Lucas is at the tip of the peninsula where the Gulf of California meets the Pacific. The waters off the coast of Baja California host dolphins, sea lions, and seals and are some of the richest fishing areas of the world, with sea bass, swordfish, and red snapper. Each year thousands of whales migrate from the icy Bering Strait to the lagoons of Baja California.9

Introduction  11

A Histo rical Ove rv i e w o f N ort he r n M e x i c o Evolving Urban, Architectural, and Landscape Types ¡Pobre México! ¡Tan lejos de Dios y tan cerca de los Estados Unidos! (Poor Mexico! So far from God and so close to the United States!) —Attributed to Porfirio Díaz, dictator and president of Mexico (1876–1911)

Before I turn to the detailed discussion of each state, specific cities, and individual works of architecture that are the focus of this book, some historical overview of Northern Mexico is warranted. Particular attention is paid to historic shifts and their impact on emerging urban and building typologies. While this history may be well known to specialists, it will assist a general audience of readers in the United States, Mexico, and other countries understand how this body of work emerged from its complex historical, geographic, economic, intellectual, material, and cultural contexts.

The Pre-Columbian Era, 5000 BC–AD 1580 Unlike the monumental architecture of the Olmec, Maya, Zapotec, Teotihuacan, Toltec, and Aztec cultures of Central and Southern Mexico, native peoples in Northern Mexico built few large-scale religious precincts or urban settlements with large concentrated populations. Smaller village settlements along the banks of rivers that varied with the geology, landscape, and climate were built from adobe, reeds, and palms, but almost nothing remains of the temporary architecture of competing nomadic groups. Thus, the character of Northern Mexico was established even at this early date as a contested ground for access to water. Indigenous peoples of the north during the pre-  Columbian era were considered uncivilized by the dominant cultures of Central Mexico, as they spoke an undecipherable language. They were derisively called Chichime-  ca (Barking Dogs), a term applied to a range of seminomadic hunter-gatherer peoples in Northern Mexico of varying ethnic and linguistic groups. The notion of Northern Mexico being culturally less legitimate than the center of the country was cast even at this date. While many of the peoples who were called Chichimeca

have vanished or were absorbed into other indigenous or mestizo groups, other Chichimeca peoples have maintained a distinct identity, including the Yaqui, Mayo, O’odham, and Tepehuán. Contemporary native peoples of Northern Mexico include the Kumiai, Cucupá, Paipai, Cochimí, and Kiliwa of Baja California; the Papago, Seri, Chontal, Pima, and Yaqui of Sonora; the Mayo of Sinaloa; the Tarahumara of Chihuahua; the Kikapu people who migrated from the United States to Coahuila about two hundred years ago; the Tepehuán and Acaxee in Durango; the Chichimeca and other nomadic groups in Nuevo León; and the Huastec culture of southern Tamaulipas.1 Today, indigenous groups in Northern Mexico, particularly in Sonora and Chihuahua, struggle to maintain their culture in an era of globalization. The northern limit of Mesoamerican culture and the Nahuatl-speaking Aztec region was the hilltop city La Quemada in Zacatecas. Thus, many place-names north of Zacatecas in Northern Mexico have roots other than those found in Central Mexico or Maya names in Southern Mexico; for example, towns such as Cusihuiriachi, Uruachi, and Satevó in Chihuahua are related to local indigenous languages.

The Colonial Era in Northern Mexico, 1580–1821 The decision by Hernán Cortés to keep the capital in Mexico City after the conquest of Tenochtitlán (1521) only reinforced the centralization of authority in the Valley of Mexico. Even the decision to retain the Aztec symbol of an eagle perched on a cactus devouring a snake, a divine sign of where to build their capital, as the national symbol of Mexico contributed to this continuity. Today, it is difficult to imagine how isolated Northern Mexico was from Mexico City during the early colonial era, as Northern Mexico and the American Southwest were only vaguely indicated

12  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico on maps of the time. During the early colonial era, settlers in the north were primarily miners of gold and silver; soldiers sent to fight Apaches, Comanches, and other indigenous groups; and priests on missions to convert the indigenous population. Ranching and agriculture during the period was limited to feeding these early settlers, and Spain controlled the development of industry to such a degree that nearly the only industry allowed was mining. Due to the lack of large, concentrated indigenous centers of population in the north, the scale of devastation from epidemics was somewhat less than in Central Mexico, where upward of 90 percent of the indigenous population died from diseases for which they had no immunity. Travel to Northern Mexico was not unlike navigation at sea with astrolabes and orientation by means of the stars in the night sky. The earliest unpaved road from Mexico City ran through Zacatecas, Zac.; Chihuahua, Chih.; and Paseo del Norte, Chih., and terminated in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Traveling its length was a bruising journey that might take six months or more over boulder-strewn trails. Weeks could pass before turbulent, rain-swollen rivers subsided to permit travelers to cross. Initially, a number of the ethnic groups as far north as Zacatecas rebelled in the First Chichimeca War (1546– 1600), with areas of resistance persisting until 1721. Later, many of the indigenous groups in the north and especially in Nuevo León were pacified during the Second Chichimeca War (1620–1721). The native peoples of Chihuahua and Sonora continued to resist colonization, and their resistance in the Yaqui-Mayo Wars in Sonora lasted until 1929. The final Yaqui peace treaty with the Mexican government was not signed until 1932. Colonial cities in Northern Mexico were typically loosely organized as gridded cities that followed the precepts of the Laws of the Indies (1573).2 These laws prescribed the location, siting, orientation, organization, and sizes of lots and surrounding pasture and agricultural lands where they occurred, as well as conversion and rights of Native Americans and the responsibilities of settlers. The first act in establishing a city was the demarcation of the plaza. (“The main plaza is to be the starting point of the town.”)3 The size and proportions of rectangular plazas were specified with different characteristics in cities large enough to have more than one plaza in relationship to churches.4 Over time, plazas for mercados (markets) were generally developed as a hardscape, while those of a more civic character generally had shade trees. Shaded portales provided market space around the main plaza. (“Around the plaza as well as along the four principal streets that begin there, there shall be portals, for these are of considerable

convenience to the merchants who gather there.”) Around the main plaza, lots were established for churches, government buildings, custom houses, and arsenals. The width of streets was related to climate and shade and specified as “in hot places narrow.” The design of individual buildings was considered in relationship to the city. (“They shall try as far as possible to have buildings of one type for the sake of the beauty of the town.”) Private residences were aligned with the street, with shops on the ground floor, continuous cornices, and rooms organized around courtyards, with secondary patios and corrals for the horses and work animals. Hospitals, butchers, and tanneries were located on the outskirts of the town for sanitary purposes. A plan of the town was required to be updated. (“The town shall maintain a plan of what is being built.”)5 Common agricultural and grazing lands at the perimeter of the city had their origins both in Spain and in communal lands of the pre-Columbian era. Then as now, vernacular, informal, self-built housing was constructed near sources of production at the perimeter of the city. The most idealized, gridded cities in the north were Durango, Dgo., and Monterrey, NL. However, many cities in the north adjusted their gridded streets for natural landscape elements, such as rivers (Chihuahua, Chih., and Culiacán, Sin.), existing coastal bays (Guaymas, Son.), and hills and mountains (Parras, Coah., and Hermosillo, Son.). Saltillo, Coah., was unique in that it was a loosely gridded town that also had an adjacent gridded town of indigenous immigrants from Central Mexico. Other towns in Northern Mexico evolved from military presidios that determined the pattern of the block or were incorporated into later buildings. Alamos, Son., and Parral, Chih., are examples of organic town plans whose form was largely determined by their relationship to undulating rivers and topography. Water supply was critical, and colonial towns were sited on a river or near natural springs. Water was distributed by means of acequias (irrigation ditches) at Hermosillo, Son., and Monterrey, NL; aqueducts at Chihuahua, Chih.; and public fountains at Monterrey, NL, as well as from wells in individual patios and courtyards. The urban fabric of colonial cities in the north consisted of an architecture of walls that defined the public street edge, with continuous cornices on deep lots, and organized around L-shaped or C-shaped buildings constructed around courtyards that were private and introspective. Generally, the main rooms opened onto a garden court, sometimes with a fountain, while the rear court served as a service court for cooking and animals. During the colonial era and continuing up to the Mexican Revolution of 1910, the hacienda (from the Spanish

A Historical Overview of Northern Introduction  Mexico  13 verb hacer, “to make”) typology evolved. The hacienda was a closed and self-sufficient world of workers and a ruling elite and a place of production (agricultural, ranching, or mining), dwelling, and religion. The Mexican type was derived from earlier types imported from Spain with a walled compound of stables, warehouses, spaces for production, a chapel, and the casa grande for the owners with courtyards and gardens. Haciendas typically featured buildings that formed a series of interconnected outdoor rooms that were spatially differentiated according to their function and degree of privacy, with articulated gateways between compounds, and composed as austere wall-  dominant architecture.6

Independence, the Civil Wars of Reform, and the War of Foreign Intervention: 1821–1876 Napoleon I’s invasion of Spain (1808) precipitated Mexican autonomy. When Miguel Hidalgo, a liberal Catholic priest, declared Mexico’s independence (1810), the Wars of Independence (1810–1821) waged for over a decade. After independence was finally won, a fundamental conflict arose that would contribute to the ongoing volatility of Mexico in the nineteenth century. The Centralist movement favored a strong federal government directed from Mexico City, while the Federalist movement, largely favored in the north, advocated state’s rights, independence, and state control. Furthermore, the emerging nation was burdened by political disagreement over the political philosophy and agenda for a multiethnic nation; a poor network of roads; tremendous debt; unpaid soldiers and bureaucrats; and a series of devastating epidemics, including smallpox and cholera (1825, 1826, 1831, 1833), that killed many. One victim was the noted neoclassical architect Eduardo Tresguerras, who died in the cholera epidemic of 1833. Until the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz (1876–1911), two emperors, several dictators, and enough provisional executives and presidents held power that a new government in Mexico was created on average every nine months. Struggling governments in Mexico City initially ignored the sparsely settled north, since it was thought that it possessed little wealth. Innovation in terms of architectural urban types during the early postcolonial period was limited. Soon, Mexico was dominated by President Antonio López de Santa Anna (president seven different times: 1833–1835, 1839, 1841–1842, 1843, 1844, 1847, 1853–1855, not counting four other terms of shorter duration). The fed­eral government attempted to establish firmer control over the northern frontier by encouraging colonization by foreigners and Mexicans in Coahuila y Tejas, but these

pol­icies proved largely ineffective. As a result, almost half of what Mexico claimed as national territory was lost during the Texas War of Independence (1836) and the Mexican-  American War (1846–1848). In the process, the border  condition of many of the states of Northern Mexico was created. Political leaders in Mexico City were initially reluctant to create railroad links to the region, as the deserts of Northern Mexico served as a barrier from another potential invasion by the United States. Although this lost territory was claimed by Mexico on a map and its loss was a source of shame and anger to many Mexicans, contrary to popularly held views, this land area was in fact sparsely settled by Mexicans or Anglo-Americans, who formed a very small percentage of the population of the region. The vast majority of the people in this land area were Native Americans,7 who absolutely did not consider themselves part of either Mexico or the United States. During the ongoing Apache and Comanche Wars (especially from 1830 to 1885), towns, haciendas, and ranches in Northern Mexico, and particularly in Chihuahua and Sonora, were frequently ravaged. Thus, many cities in Northern Mexico, such as Monclova, Coah.; Janos and Altar, Son.; and several in the American Southwest, such as Tubac and Tucson, were originally designed as presidio towns for defense against indigenous attacks. Some of these presidios were later integrated into buildings, while in other cases the presidio determined the block size as the city grew. Native American raids were so destructive, with brutal killings; scalpings; the abduction of captives; and the plundering of precious horses, cattle, and livestock, that Mexico and the United States agreed to allow troops

Gen. John Wool and staff, Calle Real to south; U.S. dragoons in Saltillo, Coah., during the Mexican-American War; Yale Collection of Western Americana, YB

14  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico of both nations to cross the border in pursuit of Native American raiders (1882–1896).8 The varied geography and climate of Mexico, the distance of many regions to the capital of Mexico City, limited development of the country’s transportation network, and even the emphasis placed on the family have led to a strong regional identification and a preference for local practices and local initiatives in many parts of the country. Thus, la patria chica, or the identification with regions, cities, and towns as opposed to nationhood, is deeply rooted in the history and development of all of Mexico, but particularly in Northern Mexico. Due to geographic and political isolation, a lack of water and good agricultural lands, and unrelenting Apache and Comanche raids, settlers in Northern Mexico developed a culture of independence, self-reliance, and entrepreneurship unlike elsewhere in Mexico. Presidio towns in Northern Mexico, especially in Chihuahua, obtained a large degree of independence and autonomy as a reward for successfully fighting the Apaches on the northern frontier.9 Porfirio Díaz’s reneging on his promises of self-determination from the federal government

Portrait of Geronimo (ca. 1886); LOC

was a root cause of the Mexican Revolution (1910–1919) against the dictatorship of Mexico City.10 The reforms proposed by Benito Juárez, a Zapotec  Indian and leader of the Liberals, to curb the power of the Catholic Church (1855) were unacceptable to the clergy and the Conservatives. The bloody Wars of Reform (1857– 1861) were fought in the north and throughout the country and limited both economic development and stability. Mexican Conservatives invited France to support their cause, and the army of Napoleon III invaded Mexico (1861) and installed a member of the Hapsburg royal family of Austria, Maximilian and his wife Carlota, as “Emperor and Empress of Mexico” (1864). Maximilian constructed a number of important public works projects, including the Teatro Carlota (1861–1865) in Matamoros, Tamps.; and architects, engineers, and builders rapidly changed sides to provide architectural services to the regime in power. Simultaneously, the U.S. Civil War (1861–1865) erupted, and Yankee naval blockades closed off Gulf ports, including those of Texas. The Confederates established alternative trade routes through Northern Mexico that allowed vast quantities of Southern cotton to be exported from Texas, while European goods flowed into Matamoros, Tamps.; Bagdad, Tamps.; and Tampico, Tamps. When Northern forces seized Brownsville, TX (1863), commerce shifted up the Rio Grande to Laredo, TX, and Eagle Pass, TX. This led to the explosive growth of Monterrey, NL, as a regional distribution and economic center. When the empire of Maximilian collapsed (1867), Juárez again became president, the republic was restored, and a new constitution was written that among other things confiscated the vast landholdings of the Catholic Church. During this volatile era, nineteenth-century town de­sign in Northern Mexico largely continued to follow the precepts of the Laws of the Indies from the colonial era. Port cities founded in the mid-nineteenth century, such as Tampico, Tamps.; Mazatlán, Sin.; and Loreto, BCS, largely followed strictly organized grids. In contrast, latenineteenth-century hillside mining towns such as Batopilas, Chih., and Cananea, Son., were shaped in large part by their dramatic topography. Urban infrastructure developed that included the vital water supply system that distributed water via acequias, aqueducts, and fountains. Institutional building types included the church, the Palacio de Gobierno (government building), the aduana, the prison, and the hospital, which roughly followed colonial models in terms of organization. Following the struggle for independence, the Academia de San Carlos (founded in Mexico City in 1783) remained closed until Antonio López de Santa Anna reopened the

A Historical Overview of Northern Introduction  Mexico  15

Comparative urban design morphology of Chihuahua, Chih.; Monterrey, NL; Saltillo, Coah.; and Tampico, Tamps., at the same scale, showing plazas, churches, and public buildings, as well as major urban pedestrian connections and sensory experience; drawings by Ricardo García-Báez

school (1843), and architectural education resumed (1856). Although public building was limited in the first decades after independence, an abstracted and restrained neoclassical vocabulary was utilized, most notably practiced by Manuel Tolsá and Lorenzo de la Hidalga, as opposed to the more exuberant language of the Baroque, best exemplified in the north in Monterrey, NL, at the redesigned façade of the Palacio Municipal (Papias Anguiano, 1852) and the Iglesia del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús (anon., 1874–1902). Later, foreign teachers were brought to the Academia de San Carlos, the most notable being the Italian Javier Cavallari (1810–1879), who reorganized architectural studies (1857) and promoted an eclectic, historicist approach of the French École des Beaux-Arts.11 Street trees also appeared along main public thoroughfares in the center of desert cities such as Chihuahua, Chih., and Hermosillo, Son., in the mid-nineteenth century, as well as at the edges of cities to define streets where buildings had not yet been built. The alameda (a lush urban park with shade trees and shrubs) was typically built on the edge of the town in addition to the centralized plaza as a kind of outdoor living room (for example, in Monterrey, NL; Saltillo, Coah.; and Durango, Dgo.).

The bandstand was added to the plaza and alameda for live music for the paseo, the evening promenade for engaging in socializing and displaying social hierarchy. The cemetery continued to be located on the perimeter of the city, both for health and symbolic reasons, and became a public space and another kind of city, a necropolis with monuments such as in Lerdo, Dgo. Barrios within the city developed in relation to churches, places of employment, and escuelitas (small private schools), while mixed-use small businesses such as groceries, tortillerías, and barbershops created social ties. The urban fabric of cities was a mixed-use commercialresidential architecture of walls with continuous cornices that defined the public street edge, built in a dense urban fabric with public space carved out to create plazas and arcades. Shops primarily featured imported goods, as national manufacturing was limited, and after the missions in what is now the Southwest became secularized (1833), there was a massive reduction in products traded to Mexico. Paradoxically, although Mexico had fought several wars with France and the United States, French fashions and other goods from Europe and the United States were highly coveted.

16  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Academy of San Carlos, Mexico City (Javier Cavallari, 1863–1864); photo ERB

In contrast, the private domain was introspective and organized around the courtyard, such as at Chihuahua, Chih.; Hermosillo, Son.; Mazatlán, Sin.; and elsewhere. These residences were generally built on deep, narrow lots and continued to be organized as L- or C-shaped courtyard buildings. The rural hacienda type expanded rapidly in the north during this time and was a self-contained city. Before the arrival of the railroads (1882), transportation to the north was by means of the diligencia (stagecoach). Two main routes to the north developed between 1856 and 1876, with most major cities served by 1880. The western route, the colonial-era Camino Real, was from Mexico City through Querétaro, Qro.; Zacatecas, Zac.; and Durango, Dgo., to Santiago Papasquiaro, Dgo., with a more informal, sporadic connection via burrow, horseback, and mule train to Chihuahua, Chih., and El Paso del Norte, Chih.,

and ending at what is today Santa Fe, New Mexico. The eastern route was from Mexico City, through Querétaro, Qro.; San Luis Potosí, SLP; Matehuala, SLP; and Saltillo, Coah., to Monterrey, NL, with another connecting line to Matamoros, Tamps. In the northeast there were lines from Tulancingo, Hgo.; Pachuca; and Huejutla to Tampico, Tamps., and also from Tula, Hgo., and San Luis Potosí, to Altamira, Tamps. In the northwest a line went from Acaponeta, Nay.; Culiacán, Sin.; Álamos, Son.; and Ures, Son., to Arizpe, Son., that linked that isolated part of the country. As late as 1870 the states of Sonora, Sinaloa, and Baja California had only 3 percent of Mexico’s total population.12 Along the main routes was a series of towns and inns one day’s journey apart (about 25 miles) that provided food and a place to sleep for passengers, drivers, and the exhausted teams of mules and horses. Forts and garrisons protected the stagecoach against attacks by hostile Native Americans and bandits. Travel during this era often involved horses and mules that easily panicked and ran away, broken wheels and axles, and roads that became quagmires during the rainy season. The trip from Mexico City to El Paso del Norte (today Ciudad Juárez) took about five months, and to Santa Fe, New Mexico, nearly six months.13 Significantly, there were no stagecoach lines to the cities and states south of Mexico City, which hindered southern Mexico’s economic development. Furthermore, between 1877 and 1882, 68 percent of Mexicans walked, 25 percent used a horse or mule, and only 7 percent used a stagecoach.14 The poor continued to live in self-built vernacular architecture characterized by its directness and logic that changed little over time as it responded not only to local preferences and culture but also to local climate and materials. These varied in each subregion, but generally consisted of walls predominantly of heavy adobe or local stone construction with dirt floors in arid areas such as Chihuahua, Coahuila, Sonora, and Baja California; and with lightweight frame walls with roofs of reeds, palms, and thatch in the hot, humid coastal areas of Tamaulipas and Sinaloa.

The Porfirio Díaz Era: Modernization, Railroads, and Industrialization in Northern Mexico, 1876–1911 General Porfirio Díaz maintained power for a period of thirty-five years (1876–1911) as a dictator of Mexico with relative prosperity and peace but with tremendous social inequality among the poor and working classes. During this period, the country’s transportation infrastructure improved significantly due to increased foreign investment. When Díaz came to power (1876), there were only

A Historical Overview of Northern Introduction  Mexico  17 400 miles of track linking Mexico City with the port of Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico and with Querétaro in Central Mexico. By 1910, Mexico had 12,000 miles of railway and telegraph lines that linked Mexico City to the major cities and rural areas of Northern Mexico and to the markets of the United States and the world, which served as a major catalyst for industrialization. By 1910, three rail lines linked Mexico City with the U.S. border, but no lines existed south of Mexico City. The first of the railroad lines from Mexico City north to Texas was the Mexican Central Line (constructed 1881– 1882). The Mexican Central route from north to south, with the population of each city in 1880 was as follows: El Paso del Norte, Chih. (8,000); Chihuahua, Chih. (16,000); Jiménez, Chih. (approx. 800–1,200); Torreón, Coah. (200); Lerdo, Dgo. (6,000); Zacatecas, Zac. (64,000); Aguascalientes, Ags. (35,000); Silao, Gto. (38,000); León, Gto. (82,000); Guanajuato, Gto. (63,000); Irapuato, Gto. (21,311); Salamanca, Gto. (19,450); Celaya, Gto. (30,000); Querétaro, Qro. (48,000); and Mexico City (300,000). The Mexican Eastern Line (constructed 1880–1883) from Mexico City crossed the Mexican Central west of Querétaro, Qro., then went on to San Luis Potosí, SLP; Saltillo, Coah.; Monterrey, NL; and Nuevo Laredo, Tamps.,

at the Rio Grande. After crossing into the United States, it connected directly with the lines of Texas and the other southern states and provided a direct route from Mexico City to St. Louis, MO, and to the East Coast and New York. The Mexican National route from north to south with the population of each city in 1880 was as follows: Nuevo Laredo, Tamps. (approx. 800–1,200); Monterrey, NL (42,000); Saltillo, Coah. (17,000); San Luis Potosí, SLP (45,000); Querétaro, Qro. (48,000); Mexico City (300,000). The Mexican Western Line (constructed 1880–1888) ran from Mexico City through Toluca and Morelia before reaching Guadalajara, then west to Tepic and Manzanillo on the Pacific coast. The line then connected with Mazatlán, Sin. (a vital shipping route to San Francisco, CA), continued northward to Hermosillo, Son., and the border town of Nogales, Son., and initially ran to Benson, AZ (later Tucson), where it then connected with the U.S. transcontinental lines. The Mexican Western route from north to south, with the population of each city in 1880, was as follows: Nogales, Son. (approx. 800–1,200); Hermosillo, Son. (9,000); Guaymas, Son. (5,200); Los Mochis, Sin. (approx. 1,200); Mazatlán, Sin. (16,000); Manzanillo, Col. (?); Tepic, Nay. (?), Guadalajara, Jal. (105,000); Morelia, Mor. (?); Toluca, Méx. (?); and Mexico City (300,000).15 When the train station was required to be at the center of the existing colonial city, urban fabric had to be demolished to allow the train to turn around, such as at Hermosillo, Son., and Culiacán, Sin. In Monterrey, entire new neighborhoods developed around the railroad lines and new factories at the then northern and eastern edges of the city. With the arrival of the trains, urban tram lines that were initially horse and mule drawn and later electric appeared that linked the town to the train station and suburban and industrial neighborhoods. Elegant Beaux-Arts urban hotels also appeared, such as the Hotel Salvador (Ing. Federico Wulff, 1904–1907) in Torreón, Coah., and the Hotel Ancira (anon., 1907–1919) in Monterrey, NL.

Industrialization and Foreign Investment during the Porfiriato, 1876–1910

Portrait of Porfirio Díaz (ca. 1900); postcard, published by JK, ERBPC

During the Porfiriato, Mexico entered the industrial era, and the political and economic dominance of Mexico City continued. Utility infrastructure in larger cities included electricity, street lighting, telephones (1879 and 1884 in Mexico City), piped water (1870s), and gas (1870s).16 Technological innovations provided new ways of viewing the city with daguerreotypes (1839) and from above in hot air balloons (1842). With the completion of the railroads in the north, industrialization and foreign investment followed,

18  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Paseo del Norte, Chih. 1,313,355

Paseo del Norte, Chih. 8,000

Chihuahua Chih. 784,000

Chihuahua Chih. 16,000

Monterrey, NL 30,000 Torreon, Saltillo, Coah. Coah. 200,000 Durango, 17,000 Dgo. 28,000

Monterrey, NL 3,664,331 Torreon, Saltillo, Coah. Coah. 1,110,890 725,259 Durango, Dgo. 526,000

Gulf of Mexico

Gulf of Mexico

Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

Graphs comparing population growth (left, 1880 and right, 2010) of major cities in Northern Mexico; Edward R. Burian and Ricardo García-Báez. Note the explosive growth of Monterrey, N.L.

and a building boom dramatically changed the architecture and urbanism of the north in cities such as Tampico, Tamps., and Monterrey, NL, where the largest steel mill in Latin America was established. New gridded cities aligned with railroad tracks emerged around railroad junctions such as Torreón, Coah., and Los Mochis, Sin. At this point, Mexico was fully engaged in the project of modernity with a future orientation and a belief in progress and humangenerated change.17 The Law of Colonization (1883) Gulf permitted foreignof Mexico ers to acquire huge areas of land in Northern Mexico to develop its resources. The rapid industrialization of cities, best Pacificseen Ocean in Monterrey, NL; Ciudad Juárez, Chih.; Torreón, Coah.; and Hermosillo, Son., brought about new urban types, including banks, cervecerías (beer breweries), retail commercial architecture, and factories. New institutional buildings also began to appear, such as the Palacio de Gobierno Federal, Palacio de Gobierno Estatal, Palacio de Gobierno Municipal, and prisons constructed as fortresses and temples of reform that conveyed the authority of the Porfiriato at Chihuahua, Chih.; Hermosillo, Son.; and elsewhere. Private schools were typically designed as courtyard types in a neoclassical Beaux-Arts vocabulary, such as at Ciudad Victoria, Tamps. The public bullring emerged as a venue for popular entertainment and as a monumental urban type at the edge of town, such as at Ciudad Juárez, Chih., and Tijuana, BC. This era of capitalist development and industrialization began to affect the skyline of the city, and typically the three tallest buildings were the cathedral, the Palacio de Gobierno Federal or the Paseo del Norte, Chih. 1,313,355

Chihuahua Chih. 784,000

Monterrey, NL 3,664,331 Torreon, Saltillo, Coah. Coah. 1,110,890 725,259 Durango, Dgo. 526,000

Palacio de Gobierno Municipal, and the cervecería, best seen at Hermosillo, Son. With the increased prosperity of elites during the Porfiriato, new housing types appeared. In the center of cities, the urban mansion and row house appeared, but by the 1880s elites began to dwell at the perimeter of the city in Anglo-American garden suburbs, and the suburban mansion emerged, best exemplified in Chihuahua, Chih. The love affair with French culture during the Porfiriato was reflected in the utilization of the Belle Époque and eclectic Beaux-Arts architectural vocabulary for institutions and elite residences. The Beaux-Arts in Northern Mexico also had a particular resonance in that it was highly inventive; was an inherently hybrid compositional vocabulary; utilized modes of production from both sides of the border; and was, in a philosophical sense, more “modern” in this regard. With improved transportation infrastructure, new materials were able to be utilized. For example, bricks and cast-iron components were shipped from England to Tampico, Tamps., where they were used in the design of the Edificio de la Luz (Abel Navarro, 1923–1924). Bricks from England were even shipped by train to the deserts of Torreón, Coah., where they appeared as facings of adobewalled residences. The urban middle class lived in the courtyard houses, while the vernacular and formal residential architecture in border cities of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries blended Mexican and U.S. architectural vocabularies and modes of living. Vernacular Mexican residences

A Historical Overview of Northern Introduction  Mexico  19 featured flat roofs in dry climates, exterior street façades with deep recessed openings, and plain walls with decorative quoins and cornices. A more formal classical mode featured U- or L-shaped plans around a courtyard that used plant material from both sides of the border and classical ornamentation such as cornices, pilasters, and wroughtiron balconies. The appropriation of U.S. vocabulary was evident in the use of the Anglo-American central hall or asymmetrical Victorian floor plan, the exterior chimney, and Victorian and other eclectic vocabularies.18 The urban design and architecture of this era can still be seen in the Nuevo León towns of Villa Santiago, Villa García, Bustamante, Mina, Linares, and Montemorelos. The majority of the urban poor continued to live in self-built vernacular architecture. Basic sanitation was nonexistent for the poor in urban areas, and the poor in rural areas generally fared better than those in cities dwelling in jacales.19 While some Mexicans were amassing fortunes under the Díaz regime, foreigners were making even more money, as their enterprises were largely unregulated and exempt from most taxation. Mexico was the third-largest producer of oil in the world by the turn of the century, with Tampico, Tamps., serving as a major distribution center. The oil industry was almost entirely a monopoly of U.S. companies such as John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil and Edward L. Doheny’s oil fields near Tampico, Tamps., as well as British companies such as Lord Cowdray’s El Aguila Mexicana. U.S. corporations alone controlled half of the oil concessions and three-fourths of the mining with companies such as Anaconda and Guggenheim.20 British interests controlled 30 percent of foreign investments in Mexico, primarily in oil, mining, and banks. Americans such as William Randolph Hearst were active in the cattle trade and mining in Sonora, Chihuahua, and Baja California. Chinese immigrants prospered as merchants and grocers in Sonora, Coahuila, and Baja California. The economic development of the country under the Díaz regime failed, however, to benefit the majority of the population. While Díaz had modernized the country, the majority of Mexicans still lived in appalling conditions. The average life expectancy of the general population was twenty-seven years and the infant mortality rate was 25 percent. Most of the population was malnourished, and about 30 percent of the deaths at the time were due to digestive tract disorders, primarily due to contaminated water supplies and a lack of basic sanitation. The majority of Native Americans were landless farmers tied to the haciendas for life because of their debts to hacienda owners in a feudal-like system. In 1910, out of a total population

of 15,000,000, only 20 percent were literate.21 Nearly all of the productive land was concentrated in the hands of three thousand families, and seventeen families owned one-fifth of Mexico’s total land area, with the largest of these haciendas being over 7,000,000 acres. In Baja California, four individuals owned 30,000,000 acres, while the Terrazas family owned 17,000,000 acres in Chihuahua.22

Northern Mexico and the Mexican Revolution, 1910–1919 Not surprisingly, the Mexican Revolution (1910–1919) began in the north in the states of Sonora, Chihuahua, and Coahuila and in many respects represented the revolt of the north against the authority of Mexico City. During the revolution, towns with major railroad junctions were fiercely fought over for their strategic value. Thus, Torreón, Coah., at the intersection of three vitally important railroad lines, was the site of seven separate, bloody battles. The railroads radically altered the military tactics of the revolution, especially for Pancho Villa, who created a new mobile architecture devoted to moving troops, horses (boxcars sheltered the horses while his troops and women and children rode on the roofs), heavy machine guns, and artillery. Other support trains repaired tracks and provided food supplies for his troops and the starving countryside, while Villa’s innovative hospital trains treated the wounded.23 During the Mexican Revolution, between 1 million and 1.5 million people died, or about 10 to 15 percent of the total population of the country. About 300,000 or so were battlefield-related deaths, while typhus outbreaks after major battles killed 1,000 people a week. However, the majority of the deaths were of noncombatants who died from malnutrition, starvation, and diseases resulting from poor sanitation and contaminated water supplies.24 Many cities in the north suffered severe damage to their water, electricity, railroad, and communications infrastructure, which contributed to the spread of disease and created widespread suffering. Few buildings were able to be built during the revolutionary years, and many public and major private buildings in the north were ransacked, burned, or destroyed. From 1918 to 1919 the worldwide influenza epidemic also raged in Mexico, where it killed an estimated 500,000.25 This does not include the millions of women, men, and children who were wounded; became homeless, orphaned, or malnourished; or were raped or otherwise traumatized. At a personal level, almost every family in Northern Mexico can tell several traumatic stories of their

20  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico family’s struggle for survival during the violent, bloody years of the Mexican Revolution.

Postrevolutionary Mexico to World War II, 1920–1940 General Álvaro Obregón (1880–1928) from Sonora assumed the presidency after the revolution (1920–1924) and curbed the role of the Catholic Church, improved education, and took steps toward instituting women’s civil rights. Relative peace finally descended across the north and the rest of the country, and public and private building resumed (ca. 1923). After negotiating certain rights with Obregón, conservative Mennonites from Canada settled in Chihuahua and Durango (1923–1925), where they retained and adopted specific cultural preferences and produced a distinctive regional architecture.26

Railroad at Puente de Metlac, Ver.; postcard, published by JK (ca. 1900), ERBPC

Federal troops leaving bullring at Ciudad Juárez, Chih., during the Mexican Revolution (1911); Yale Collection of Western Americana, YB

Public mural art projects gave a rationale for the sacrifices of the revolution, and abstract modernist architecture evolved initially in Mexico City in the late 1920s and later as a progressive, modern vision in the north from the 1930s onward in cities such as Monterrey, NL, and elsewhere.27 The policies of succeeding federal governments have only continued the centralization of the nation’s political, corporate, and cultural bureaucracies in Mexico City into the present. During the worldwide Great Depression (1929–1939), the activist administration of President Lázaro Cárdenas marked the beginnings of an era of economic reform following the Mexican Revolution. He started land reform by distributing land to poor peasants via the ejido system of community-based farms, nationalized the railroads (1937), created the National Polytechnic Institute, provided free textbooks for schoolchildren, removed the army from political power (1936), and angered foreign investors when he nationalized the oil industry (1938) and formed Petróleos Mexicanos, trademarked as PEMEX. From the 1940s onward, Mexico City and the many large cities of Northern Mexico followed a policy of economic growth through urban industrialization (a policy that was supported by political leaders and also by Mexican intellectuals), which created explosive growth that continues unabated today. The widespread use of the automobile began, although in the city the automobile was accommodated but not yet dominant. The pedestrian experience was still primary, and a more comprehensive street tree program connected and integrated to landscaped plazas still remained intact, as for example in Torreón, Coah. Bus travel between cities also provided inexpensive mass transit that generated more mobility for the average citizen than ever before. The first generation of resort tourist hotels appeared, including the Agua Caliente Resort (Wayne McAllister and Corinne McAllister, Tijuana, BC, 1927–1928), Riviera del Pacífico (Ignacio Díaz Morales, Ensenada, BC, 1930), and Hotel Playa Cortés (Ignacio Díaz Morales, Guaymas, Son., 1934). The postrevolutionary program of public education, clinics, and hospitals introduced new building types in the north. These buildings typically deployed a neocolonial revival or art deco vocabulary with abstracted Mexican iconography as an expression of national identity, such as in the remodeled uanl Colegio Civil (FyUSA, 1933–1939) and the Universidad de Sonora (Leopoldo Palafox Muñoz, Hermosillo, Son., 1940–1942). These compositions generally maintained traditional relationships to the street, with traditional bases, middles, and cornices, and were largely

A Historical Overview of Northern Introduction  Mexico  21 produced by handcraft. The poor began to have better access to public services, including public education and clinics, but continued to live in self-built vernacular architecture, in courtyard houses in poorer urban neighborhoods, or in jacales in rural villages.

The Expansion of Industrialization in Northern Mexico to the Mexico City Olympic Games, 1940–1968 Following World War II, the federal, state, and municipal governments emphasized industrial economic growth and recorded an impressive 6 to 7 percent annual GDP growth (1940–1970), termed el milagro mexicano (the Mexican miracle). However, economic challenges persisted due to the balance of payments, monetary instability, poverty, and vast disparities in income. During the administration of Miguel Alemán (1946– 1952), industrialization and the construction of public institutions were emphasized, especially the influential modernist campus of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (1949–1952) in Mexico City. Cities in Northern Mexico grew rapidly as they shifted away from the scale of the pedestrian to that of the automobile, and Mario Pani developed urban plans for the northern cities of Matamoros, Tamps.; Ciudad Juárez, Chih.; Piedras Negras, Coah.; and Mazatlán, Sin.28 While abstract modernist architecture was embraced from the 1940s onward, a response to local conditions was still reflected in the use of local materials and natural ventilation as opposed to air conditioning. Thus, a more regionally inflected modernist architecture developed during this time for motor motels, government buildings, schools, and hospitals. With rapid industrialization, the modernist factory appeared as an idealized icon of progress and functionalism in projects such as Nylon de México (Eduardo Padilla, Monterrey, NL, 1965). In the late 1960s, the first freeways began to appear in Saltillo, Coah., and elsewhere as well as high-speed roads between the major cities of Northern Mexico. Monterrey, NL, Mexico’s industrial and distribution center for the north, was influenced as much by its proximity to the United States as it was to Mexico City. After the bracero program ended, the Programa de Industrialización Fronteriza (Border Industrialization Program) was initiated in 1965. Maquiladora (assembly plant) factories began to appear that imported components from the United States, assembled them in Mexico, and re-imported them as finished products to the United States virtually tax free. These factories drew numerous

Mexicans to border cities in search of work. An industrialized, self-built vernacular commercial architecture also began to appear that featured bold, direct graphics made to be perceived at the speed of the car, so that the building literally became a sign. A self-built low-income vernacular residential vocabulary began to appear on the edges of border towns that used recycled industrialized products, such as the casas cartones (houses made from cardboard cartons), including the Tijuana, BC, riverbed. In rural areas, a self-built architecture related more directly to local materials, climate, and tradition continued. In Mexico and the United States, a new appreciation for the traditional vernacular masonry architecture of Northern Mexico also evolved. The admiration of San Antonio, TX, architect O’Neil Ford for the vernacular stone architecture of Northern Mexico was reflected in his architectural tours across the border (1939–1966), in particular to small towns in Nuevo León.29

The Growth of the Automobile Suburb, 1968–1983 The Mexico City Olympic Games of 1968 were an opportunity to present to the world the image of Mexico as a progressive nation. Postrevolutionary agendas of racial affirmation took a backseat to technological progress.30 The use of air conditioning and automobile sprawl created a globalized architecture in Mexico and around the world. From the mid-1960s onward, new commercial and institutional types were adapted from the United States, including the supermarket and the indoor shopping mall31 in Monterrey, NL; Ciudad Juárez, Chih.; and elsewhere, as well as in government buildings and social institutions such as the Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS;

Constitutionalist hospital train during the Mexican Revolution (ca. 1914); photographer unknown

22  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico Mexican Social Security Institute) Hospitals, for example, in the work of Enrique Yáñez. New transportation systems emerged such as the autopista (freeway), with the conversion of dried urban riverbeds to freeways as at Chihuahua, Chih., and Durango, Dgo., along with freeway interchanges and freeway-related landscape systems. Additionally, bold symbolic automobile-  scaled monuments and sculpture arose, best exemplified by the work of Sebastián in Chihuahua, Chih., and Torreón, Coah. President Adolfo López Mateos’s pronaf (Programa Nacional Fronterizo) initiatives in border cities provided symbols of progress, modernity, and economic development by stimulating the production and consumption of Mexican goods. Directed by the former director of PEMEX, Antonio J. Bermúdez of Ciudad Juárez, a pronaf demonstration project was built in each border state, including the Puertas de México (automobile border crossings) by Mario Pani that were abstract, modernist, sculptural objects.32 Simultaneously, by the 1970s the centers of cities were rapidly being abandoned by the elite, who moved to new exclusive suburbs in Monterrey, NL; Torreón, Coah.; Hermosillo, Son.; and almost every other large city in Northern Mexico. Mass repetitive low-cost housing also began to develop at the perimeter of the city. Increased dependence on the automobile caused air pollution, and the growth of automobile urban sprawl contributed to the depletion of the aquifer. In response, in Monterey, NL, the Monterrey Metro was initiated in 1991. In Tijuana, BC, the casas cartones (cardboard houses) were removed from the riverbed, and construction began of a flood control channel with automobile and pedestrian bridges across the river (1972). With the affluence in the United States after World War II, a second generation of resort hotels developed in Mexico and particularly on the beaches of Northern Mexico, in Ensenada, BC; Cabo San Lucas, bcs; and especially Mazatlán, Sin. By the 1970s, fonatur (Fondo Nacional de Fomento al Turismo) had initiated ambitious plans for the further development of resort hotels to meet the growing demand from U.S., other foreign, and national visitors.

The Economic Boom Years to the Economic Crisis of Carlos Salinas de Gortari, 1984–1995 With the discovery of extensive oil reserves in Mexico (1980), U.S. banks encouraged huge loans to Mexico that dramatically increased Mexico’s foreign debt. This

economic boom drove the economy and spurred building activity, but when oil prices collapsed, it created an economic crisis in all of Latin America. With the devaluation of the peso (1982), even more maquiladoras appeared in border cities, taking advantage of inexpensive start-up and labor costs. Further immigration to cities in Northern Mexico such as Tijuana, BC, and Monterrey, NL, occurred when the Mexico City earthquake (1985) killed thousands of people and made many homeless. Mexico soon joined the GATT Trade Agreement (1986), which spurred industrialization in the north. During the administration of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988–1994), privatization, foreign investment, and globalization were encouraged. Mexico joined Canada and the United States in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA, 1994), which phased out tariffs over a fifteen-year period. Although some critics claimed that the agreement harmed local markets and small producers, the resulting prosperity led to an ambitious cultural building program, particularly in Mexico City. At the end of Salinas de Gortari’s term (1994), the peso collapse (1994–1995) threw Mexico again into economic turmoil, triggering a severe recession. New nationalist architectural programs to encourage patriotism were initiated under President Ernesto Zedillo (1994–2000), including the banderas monumentales (giant 46-foot-by-85-foot Mexican flags flying from 170-foot flagpoles). In Northern Mexico, they were conspicuously erected in the border cities of Tijuana, BC; Ciudad Juárez, Chih.; and Nuevo Laredo, Tamps., to dominate the skyline and were intended to be clearly seen as symbols of autonomy and nationalism from the U.S. side. The largest of these reappropriates the top of the Cerro del Obispado in Monterrey, the site of the decisive U.S. outflanking movement that led to the fall of the city during the MexicanAmerican War. Others in Northern Mexico occur in Chihuahua, Chih.; Culiacán and Mazatlán, Sin.; Tampico, Tamps.; and the port city of Ensenada, BC. Automobile sprawl and the efficiencies of air-  conditioned megachains, supermarkets, indoor shopping malls, and big-box stores surrounded by parking lots were uncritically imported as models from the United States, particularly in Monterrey, NL; Ciudad Victoria, Tamps.; and Mazatlán, Sin. The flight from the center of the city to perimeter subdivisions continued, and gated subdivisions emerged for the elite, especially in Monterrey, NL. The speculative resort hotel and condominium typology continued to grow dramatically in Northern Mexico, primarily on the beaches of Cabo San Lucas, bcs, and

A Historical Overview of Northern Introduction  Mexico  23

Ciudad Juárez night street scene with cars on Avenida Juárez (ca. 1948); postcard, photo by John Floodberg, published by Petley Studios, ERBPC

Mazatlán, Sin., for example, the Hotel Westin Regina (Javier Sordo Madaleno and José de Yturbe Bernal, 1993). Unfortunately, many were also built for quick profit modeled on the multistoried concrete frame tower typologies from the beaches of Hawaii, and built farther and farther from the perimeter of the city, necessitating the expansion of infrastructure to support this development. Prior to the peso collapse, repetitive low-cost mass housing for the lower middle class grew dramatically in Northern Mexico in cities such as Hermosillo, Torreón, Chihuahua, and Monterrey, based around commuting to work by automobile. This housing was typically built as a concrete frame with an infill of masonry or occasionally precast concrete. Many thousands of these houses were built at the then perimeter of the city along highways and

Tori Tori Restaurant, Mexico City (Michel Rojkind, 2011); photo © Rojkind Arquitectos, photo by Paul Rivera

24  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico near factories and centers of employment, typically sprouting television antennas and round gas tanks for cooking and heating. The peso collapse (1995) spurred maquiladora assembly plant construction in border cities, drawn there by a favorable exchange rate, duty-free import of materials, proximity to U.S. transportation systems, and access to inexpensive labor. Paying little in local taxes, maquiladoras rarely provided infrastructure for informally developed neighborhoods near their factories at the perimeter of cities such as Tijuana, BC; Nogales, Son.; Ciudad Juárez, Chih.; Reynosa, Tamps.; and Matamoros, Tamps. Many new squatter neighborhoods for maquiladora workers of scavenged, recycled materials initially had no paved roads, water, sanitation, electricity, telephones, schools, clinics, parks, street trees, or lot titles.

The Explosive Expansion of Trade, Cities, and the Virtual City of the Internet, 1995 to the Present The pri lost the presidency in 2000 to the conservative, pro-business pan (Partido Acción Nacional), the first defeat for the pri since its creation in 1929. While this ushered in a new era in Mexico’s politics, all expectations could not be met due to the economic downturn and new security concerns in the United States after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In the new millennium, a number of new housing types emerged in Monterrey, NL, the most industrialized and expensive city in the north. With more expensive land and security concerns, denser housing has been built (2000–), including multistory towers and housing slabs, such as Torre Platinum (Landa, García, Landa Arquitectos, 2002), which influenced the work of other architects in the city. Today, the car, air conditioning, and electronic information technology are the primary driving forces in the urban form of large cities in Northern Mexico. Car-  dominated transportation systems such as the autopista (freeway) create an architecture, freeway landscape systems, and symbolic automobile-scaled monuments that are to be perceived from the speed of the moving car. In today’s era of contemporary electronic information technology (1990–), entire incremental stages of technology are able to be bypassed by the elite with a credit card and Internet access. As in many countries, an educated, English-speaking, technologically sophisticated elite with desirable “skill sets” or capital for investment no longer will have much in common with most of their fellow citizens. Instead, they will have more in common with international teams that will be assembled for specific projects,

further weakening the notion of being economically, intellectually, or emotionally invested in the region or the nation.33 This has led to the establishment of new developments on the edge of the city in protected, postindustrial enclaves for globalized trade, conspicuous consumption, and escape from pollution that “aspire to be worlds within themselves,”34 for example, Colonia San Pedro Garza García in Monterrey, NL. In terms of architectural design, the computer has allowed architects to conceive of new formal vocabularies that are seemingly weightless, transparent, and inert, not only in Mexico but all over the globe. In Monterrey, NL, some financial transactions for rent and land are beginning to be conducted in U.S. dollars, and middle-class teenagers speak English with their friends. It would surprise few observers if Monterrey becomes an autonomous country and center of exchange, like Hong Kong or a Cold War–era Berlin, with a narrow connecting umbilical cord of infrastructure of high-speed freeways and electronic information technology to the United States. With the computerization of architectural practice, architecture is also becoming more globally connected. Most cities in Northern Mexico continue to develop as horizontal automobile sprawl. However, in Monterrey, land became so expensive that new, denser housing types and hybrids developed, most notably in the work of Agustín Landa. Cities in Northern Mexico expand with little long-term planning, and the water crisis and pollution continue to be growing problems in Monterrey, NL; Torreón, Coah.; Ciudad Juárez, Chih.; Hermosillo, Son.; and Tijuana, BC. Few government programs for social housing exist, instead relying on private investment. Today, the globalized postindustrial urban city coexists with several informal, vernacular architectural traditions. In the cities, an industrialized, self-built vernacular residential and commercial architecture thrives, while in rural areas, selfbuilt vernacular architecture related more directly to local means of handcraft, materials, climate, and tradition continues. In the not-too-distant future, the rural brick maker may be able to buy a low-cost, no-frills computer, probably powered by pirated electricity, and a host of unforeseen, inventive local and globalized hybrids await.

Tamaulipas  25

Tamau l i pa s Ay, Tampico, Tampico, on the Gulf of Mexico Tampico, Tampico, down in Mexico The señoritas, they wave, when you arrive at the dock The native costumes they wear Are slacks and bobby socks . . . —Words (amended for spelling) to the song “Tampico” (1945), composed by Alan Roberts, lyrics by Doris Fisher, recorded by Stan Kenton

Geography Tamaulipas (from the Huastec tamaholipa, “place where people pray frequently”) is located in the northeast corner of Northern Mexico, bounded by Texas, the Gulf of Mexico, Nuevo León, Veracruz, and San Luis Potosí. Situated between the hottest tropical coasts to the south and the cooler plains to the north, Tamaulipas features a variety of contrasting landscapes. These include the hot, humid, fertile coastal plains with miles of undeveloped beaches along the Gulf of Mexico; flat plains along the Rio Grande with temperatures ranging from 98 degrees Fahrenheit with high humidity during the summer to 50 degrees in the winter; cool mountainous regions in the towering Sierra Madre Oriental; and portions of scrub desert in mountain valleys blocked by coastal moisture. Several major rivers water the state and empty into the Gulf of Mexico. The Rio Grande on the northern border with the United States originates in the mountains of New Mexico; while the Río San Fernando, Río Soto la Marina in the middle of the state, and Río Pánuco at Tampico begin in the Sierra Madre Oriental. The Gulf of Mexico has slender, fragile coastal barrier islands that create a unique ecosystem. Portions of the narrow waters between the barrier islands and the coast are envisioned as shipping lanes between the industrial U.S. Midwest and the port of Veracruz. Tamaulipas has also begun to establish biosphere reserves for ecotourism; and trails along the coast lead to springs, limestone sinkholes, and isolated beaches that serve as places for turtles to hatch their eggs, while forested mountain trails abound with plant and animal species.

History During the pre-Columbian era, the southeast coastal plains were inhabited by the Huastec, and their archaeological sites can be found at Pánuco, El Ébano, and

Map of Tamaulipas; portion of Mexico map, CAW

Tamuín. Their religious architecture was characterized by pyramids with simple rectangular or semicircular bases with rounded corners, and a coastal domestic architecture of woven walls and thatched roofs still persists in the vernacular architecture of the region today. The largest sites of the Huastec, attributed by some to the Totonac culture, were farther south in Veracruz during the Early Classic to Early Postclassic periods and include the site of El Tajín (AD 200–AD 1100) and the Late Postclassic site of Cempoala (AD 900–AD 1500).

26  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico José de Escandón established the province of Nuevo Santander as part of the larger colonial program to settle Northern Mexico. The first settlement at Tampico was established in the sixteenth century but was abandoned, and Tamaulipas was not permanently settled until late in the colonial era, with the capital of Ciudad Victoria only settled in 1750. Escandón was also responsible for the colonization of the Rio Grande, establishing a chain of six settlements that included Camargo (1749), Reynosa (1749), Dolores (1750), Revilla (1750), and Mier (1752). Dissatisfied with the inability of centralist governments in Mexico City to protect settlers on the northern frontier from attacks by indigenous tribes, a group of notable citizens from northern states created the República del Río Grande in 1840. Laredo, TX, became the capital of the short-lived republic that attempted to unite Tamaulipas, Nuevo León, and portions of South Texas. After several skirmishes with the Mexican army, the venture came to an end after nine months. Under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), the Rio Grande was declared the boundary between the United States and Mexico, and the cities along the Rio Grande became border towns and points of entry to the United States. Later, José Jesús María Carbajal called for the establishment of the República de la Sierra Madre (1851), composed of lands south of the Nueces River, and his army captured the Mexican cities of Camargo and Reynosa and attacked Matamoros, but Carbajal was arrested in Rio Grande City, ending his vision of a new republic. During the Mexican Revolution, the port and oil center of Tampico was hotly contested both by the warring revolutionary factions and by Allied oil interests during World War I who managed to keep the port open and continue shipping oil by brokering deals with a number of warring revolutionary factions. Today the primary economic activities of Tamaulipas are cattle ranching, fishing, shrimping, and oil production. The state stands in contrast to much of Northern Mexico in that it is remarkably undeveloped outside the major cities, and many of the smaller towns in the state are little changed since the colonial era and for a variety of reasons simply never developed. Driving from Monterrey, NL, on the main two-lane highway to Tampico, one is struck by the telephone and power poles at the side of the road that only carry two wires.

Nuevo Laredo Unlike other border cities, the original settlement of Laredo was established on the north side of the Rio Grande as

Jarvis plaza

San Agustin Plaza

nde

Rio Gra

Longoria Bank

Igl. Santo Niño

Plaza Hidalgo

Pal.Federal

250 m

0 500

1000 ft

Urban plan, Nuevo Laredo, Tamps., and Laredo, TX; drawing by Jorge Arellano, Jesús Piñeda, and Ricardo García-Báez

San Agustín de Laredo (1755) when Captain Tomás Sánchez and three families were granted permission to settle on 66,426 acres of land near an indigenous ford on the river. Named for a town in Santander on the north coast of Spain, the river provided fish, irrigation for crops, and reeds for jacales. The steep banks of the river also provided sandstone, lime, and mud, the materials that later contributed to the town’s tectonic and architectural culture.1 The town plan was established in 1767 by Juan Fernando de Palacios, the governor of Nuevo Santander, who laid out a central plaza and issued porciones (long, narrow land grants with access to the river) to settlers. Town lots were assigned for public and private uses, and 26,570 acres surrounding the town were designated as ejidos, or common pastures. Town lots measuring 20 x 40 varas (55 x 110

Tamaulipas  27 ft.) were laid out around the plaza. The depth of the town lots was platted “for the greater comfort of the owners, and in order that they may build enclosures and patios in which they may keep their cattle and horses.” The streets were designed to be 10 varas (27 ft. 6 in.) wide “so that people may go in and out on horseback with ease and without danger.” Central to the plan was the rectangular plaza that was 100 varas in length and 80 varas in width, used for public gatherings such as the reading of decrees and to corral cattle during roundups for branding. In the following years, the Texas vaquero (cowboy) was born, and ranching sustained the colony. Roundups of mesteños (wild cattle) were regulated by the city council, and brands were publicly registered. The first Texas cattle drives took place along the San Antonio–Laredo road to Saltillo, Coah. In the eighteenth century, Laredo became an important frontier outpost on the lower Camino Real, which stretched from Saltillo, Coah., through San Antonio, TX, to Los Adaes, TX. A trading economy developed as wool and cattle hides were exchanged for food and household necessities. The local Carrizo tribes were hunter-gathers, but they were decimated by disease and eventually assimilated into Spanish culture. In contrast, Comanche and Apache raids wiped out many ranchos and disrupted trade. After Texas won independence from Mexico (1836) and attempted to claim Laredo, most Laredoans remained loyal to Mexico even after the defeat of the Republic of the Rio Grande (1840). Under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), Laredo became part of Texas. Mexicans who wanted to retain their

Iglesia del Santo Niño, Nuevo Laredo, Tamps. (E. R. Laroche, 1888; remodeled 1879–1888); photo Sergio Vela, ERB Col.

Antigua Estación del Ferrocarril (Old Railroad Depot), Nuevo Laredo, Tamps. (anon., 1882); photo by Sergio Vela, ERB Col.

Antigua Aduana de Nuevo Laredo (Customhouse), Nuevo Laredo, Tamps. (Alfred Giles, 1887–1892; burned, 1914, and later partially restored); postcard, photographer unknown, published by Curt Teich, ERBPC

citizenship moved across the river to land that was previously settled as part of Laredo but was then renamed Nuevo Laredo (1848). The approximately 120 refugee families grew to a population of around 2,000 by the 1870s.2 Nuevo Laredo’s ferry crossing was originally situated at Water Street and Flores, and this resulted in the emergence of Flores Avenue as the main business artery in the early nineteenth century. Chalanes (small canoes) were also used to cross the river at this time. The first International Railroad Bridge (anon., 1881) was destroyed by fire (1920), and a new one was constructed (1922). Serious flooding of the Rio Grande (1954) necessitated the construction of the current bridge over which more than seven million pedestrians cross annually. The Plaza Juárez (anon., ca. 1850) is a square void in the urban fabric of the downtown filled with lush trees and with a bandstand at its center. The plaza also features the bronze statue of Santiago Mauro Belden (Taller de Fundición Artística e Industrial de la Ciudad de México, ca. 1894) atop a Doric column and pedestal. Belden (1844– 1892) served as the town’s industrious municipal president (1885–1889, 1890–1892) and built the city’s first water

28  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico plant and tram system, the Palacio Municipal (1891), and the town’s telephone and electric power connections across the International Bridge.3 On the east side of the Plaza Juárez is the Iglesia del Santo Niño (E. R. Laroche, 1888; remodeled 1879–1888) that adjoins the first church of Nuevo Laredo to the north of this church. Although the tower and interior of the church have been changed over the years, the neoclassical façade constructed of brick is flat, taut, and austere. The altar, columns, and moldings were crafted by the Italian architect and sculptor Mateo Matei. Laredo, TX, and Nuevo Laredo, Tamps., celebrated the arrival of the railroad (1881), and coal mines 29 miles northwest of the city assured a supply of fuel for the railroads. The Antigua Estación del Ferrocarril (Old Railroad Depot; anon., 1882) is built of huge Cycladic stone. The Antigua Aduana de Nuevo Laredo (Customhouse; Alfred Giles, 1887–1892), which burned in 1914 and was later partially restored, features a tan brick mission revival façade with white stone trim. The elaborate shaped parapet recalls an espadaña (bell gable), the adjoining warehouse features distinctive steel trusses with continuous monitors at the ridge that emit light, and wide overhangs shade the loading area. Today the facility is used as a cultural complex. The Plano de los dos Laredos (E. R. Laroche, civil engineer, 1881) was a binational town plan designed to accommodate the economic and demographic expansion of the two cities resulting from the dramatic impact of the railroads. The City Map of Laredo (Jorge Pérez, 1890) showed an expanded town plan with twenty-three plazas, with all of the original ejidos of 3 square miles subdivided into blocks. During the Mexican Revolution, the city was occupied by the federal forces of Gen. Huerta in January 1913. Nuevo Laredo was extensively dynamited and burned in April 1914 when the Federalists abandoned the city to revolutionary forces and retreated to Saltillo, Coah., which precipitated a deluge of immigrants to Laredo. Later the city was occupied by Pancho Villa in April 1915,4 before finally being occupied by the forces of Carranza. The best Beaux-Arts building in the city is the Longoria Bank (John M. Marriot and J. Fred Buenz, 1925–1929) near the Plaza Juárez. The building is expressed as a subtly detailed solid volume with a gracious entry formed as an outdoor urban-scaled covered vestibule with an articulated colored ceiling above, framed by engaged pilasters and massive Ionic columns. Windows are composed as vertical elements and feature delicate carved window surrounds. The façade was crafted of cream-colored Indiana limestone, while the interior featured marble floors

Longoria Bank, Nuevo Laredo, Tamps. (John M. Marriot and J. Fred Buenz, 1925–1929); photo Sergio Vela, ERB Col.

Plaza Hidalgo, Nuevo Laredo, Tamps. (anon., ca. 1870), with the Reloj de la Plaza Hidalgo (Clock Tower; Raggi, 1926); drawing by Rodolfo Muñoz, ERB Col.

with bronze teller windows, to better secure the deposits that were often in gold and silver. The bank is beautifully detailed, and some claim the austere classicism was designed to convey stability after the financial uncertainty of the revolution.5 Several blocks south is the rectangular Plaza Hidalgo (anon., ca. 1870) with the Reloj de la Plaza Hidalgo (clock tower; Raggi, 1926). The plaza features lush trees that offer welcome shade in this outdoor public living room. Nearby L- and U-shaped courtyard houses make a continuous wall at the street with flat roofs and articulated brick cornices,

Tamaulipas  29

Palacio Federal, Nuevo Laredo, Tamps. (Alfonso Hurtado and Marte R. Gómez, 1938–1940); postcard, MF, ERBPC

zaguanes (portal entrances) that served as a transition from street to courtyard, and hood molds over arched windows. Reflecting the hybrid condition of the border, some buildings featured late Victorian ornamental cast-iron elements imported from the industrial U.S. Midwest. On the east side of the plaza is the Palacio Federal (Alfonso Hurtado and Marte R. Gómez, 1938–1940), a walldominant building with a continuous shaded arcade at street level and a smaller arched arcade for circulation on the second floor. Major entrances are marked with larger arched openings and a rectangular mass that interrupts. The building’s rooms have a dual orientation with light, air, and a view into the central garden courtyard as well as to the street. The rest of the parapet is scalloped, with shaped merlons at each upswing to provide a complex and memorable profile against the sky that recalls Islamic architecture. The Garita Miguel Alemán (Gonzalo Garita, 1947–1950) forms an optimistic, modernist gateway for motorists and pedestrians as well as a customs and immigration station, and the Train Station (anon., ca. 1965) is composed as two distinct abstract functional blocks. The Iglesia de la Paz (anon., ca. 1967) is a modernist Catholic church that is virtually unknown. It presents a façade at the street that is expressed as a concrete structural frame with horizontally oriented brick infill walls. There are three doors at the

street, with a shaped concrete bell tower that is eroded in the middle and truncated at the top, surmounted with a crucifix. One of the best recent works of architecture is the Casa L+L (Gilberto L. Rodríguez, 2004). A rough-hewn stone wall marks the boundary of the residence in the vast landscape at the edge of the city. The two-story residence is

Train Station, Nuevo Laredo, Tamps. (anon., ca. 1965); photo Sergio Vela, ERB Col.

30  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Casa L+L, Nuevo Laredo, Tamps. (Gilberto L. Rodríguez, 2004); photo GLR Arquitectos

organized as a superimposed L in plan, as a series of varied white masses around discrete courtyards that pinwheel around the kitchen. One courtyard contains a circular swimming pool, another is a garden, and another is for service. Nuevo Laredo has attracted foreign capital for the establishment of maquiladoras. The central districts with higher-income residential and commercial areas include Madero, Jardín, Álamos, and Campestre. Unfortunately, these districts have experienced the worst violence in the city in 2003 and 2010, and it is estimated that 35 percent of Colonia Madero is currently vacant.6 The city has expanded rapidly since the late 1980s, and the large western edge of the city, El Poniente, became a poor, heavily populated area. Districts that are improving their infrastructure and citizens’ living conditions include Nueva Era, 20 de Noviembre, La Fe, El Carrizo, and Unión del Recuerdo. Districts currently without paved streets or lighting, with limited water supplies and extreme poverty are Blanca Navidad, Bruno Álvarez, and Pancho Villa.7 Today Nuevo Laredo and Laredo have a population of about 800,000, and the twin cities form the largest land port for international trade in Mexico as the northern terminus of the railroad, the Inter-American Highway, and

the chief point of entry for trucks and cars driving to Mexico on Highway 35.

Camargo Camargo was the first settlement established in 1747 by José de Escandón in the territory of Nuevo Santander between the mouth of the Rio Grande and present-day Laredo. In 1753, Captain Blas María de la Garza Falcón established a ranch on the northern side of the Rio Grande to manage his ranch operations and called it Carnestolendas after the carnival celebration that precedes Lent. The Republic of the Rio Grande signed its terms of surrender in what would become Rio Grande City, TX, across the river. During the Mexican-American War, Zachary Taylor transported troops and supplies by steamboat to nearby Ringgold Barracks, and Camargo was occupied by U.S. troops (1846). During the U.S. Civil War, southern cotton was smuggled from Rio Grande City to Camargo and then to awaiting English and French ships. In the 1870s, French and German refugees fleeing Maximilian’s Mexico immigrated to Rio Grande City, and a number of them enriched its architectural culture. Heinrich Portscheller, a master mason from Germany,

Tamaulipas  31 developed a local vocabulary that combined neoclassical elements with locally fabricated brick and high craft. The basis for the significance of Portscheller’s craft lies in the completeness of his building designs and in the rare case of a craftsman who produces the material, designs the building and constructs. Among Portscheller’s contributions are the following: 1. The development of a low-heat red brick of modular size that could be used for a wide range of architectural applications. 2. The development of moulded, shaped bricks that could be used for a variety of architectural detailing. 3. The development of modular brick components of various sizes and shapes which could be used to construct architectural shapes in concert with normal brickwork. For example, pie-shaped wedges with a radius were shaped, fired, and used to construct engaged fluted brick columns at the Silverio de la Peña Building in Rio Grande City. 4. The use of brick tiles for flat roofs. The square brick tiles were laid on a wooden roof deck in two courses with staggered joints, mortared in-place, and covered with a lime wash to produce a roofing system that, in some cases, has lasted over 100 years.8 The two-story Palacio Municipal (anon., ca. 1885) faces the Plaza Hidalgo with its bandstand (1898) and features a crenellated façade with narrow, arched openings that utilizes decorative molded brick that was further altered in the twentieth century, and continues to serve as the city’s city hall today. Other significant buildings include the Primary School (Juan Dalton, builder, 1859), the Train Station (anon., 19th c.), the Parroquia Sta. Ana (anon., ca. 1780), and the nearby town of Villanueva Camargo with rustic rubble stone buildings surmounted with later brick additions. By 1899, steamboat traffic on the Rio Grande ended and the town declined in importance. Today the bridge between Rio Grande City, TX, and Camargo is not used for foot traffic, but instead carries large commercial trucks loaded with goods crossing into and from Mexico.

Templo de la Purísima Concepción, Mier, Tamps. (anon., 1789–1795; tower, 19th c.); daguerreotype (1874), photographer unknown

tower that seems engaged into the ground, while the other tower steps upward in increasingly taller elements with an unusual vertically tapered spire. Other significant buildings include the Capilla de San Juan (Ignacio de la Peña, builder, 1836–1840), Aduana (Cristóbal Ramírez, builder, 1857), Casa Gnl. Navarro (anon., 19th c.), and the Casa de Cultura (anon., 19th c.; restored in 1980). Nearby is the Presa Falcón (1946) that flooded much of the town of Guerrero Viejo, including the ruins of the three-aisle church of San Ignacio de Loyola (anon., ca. 1820).

Reynosa Reynosa lies amid hot, humid flatlands with rich soils that support grasslands dotted by mesquite and prickly pear, home to white doves and white-tailed deer that are game for hunters.

Mier The town of Mier (Ciudad Mier) was founded in 1753 and has one of the most unusual, eclectic churches in the state, the Templo de la Purísima Concepción (anon., 1789–1795; tower, 19th c.). The church is organized as a central nave with side aisles. The façade is composed of three bays as an oddly horizontal base. This is surmounted by a stubby

Parroquia de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, Reynosa, Tamps. (Enrique de la Mora y Palomar, 1950–1956); postcard, MF, ERBPC

32  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Rio Grande

Ri o Gr an de Ri ve r

Ft. Brown

Ri o Gr an de

Fort Brown

xt a Ca lle Se

Estero del Bravo

Teatro Reforma Casa Yturria

Presidencia Catedral

Estero del los cuarteles

M.Casa Mata 0

Reconstruction of urban plan, Matamoros, Tamps., c. 1850; drawing by Leslie Book, Ed Burian, and Ricardo García-Báez

50 100

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Tamaulipas  33 The city was originally founded farther upstream in 1749 by 279 settlers. A flood on the Rio Grande that year forced the settlement to relocate to a low hill 5 miles to the east. After the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the city became a border city with McAllen, TX, across the river. The square plaza (anon., 18th–19th c.) is surrounded by the oldest urban fabric of the city,9 including the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (anon., 1810–1824). During the Mexican Revolution, the city was occupied by the forces of Venustiano Carranza (1913). After the revolution, the city continued to grow, and the current Museo de Reynosa (anon.) was built in 1925. The most prominent building in the city is the modernist Parroquia de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (Enrique de la Mora y Palomar, 1950–1956), a variation on de la Mora y Palomar’s design for the better-known church of La Purísima in nearby Monterrey, NL. Built adjacent to the old church, it is composed as a Latin cross plan spanned on each axis by two concrete parabolic vaults. The vault at the street is infilled at the entry as a large glazed element facing the plaza. The entrance is framed by two towers of laid stone that face each other, with horizontal slits at the tops of the towers. The city’s infrastructure grew from the 1940s onward, helped by connection with the interstate highway, three major bridges across the Rio Grande that improved access to markets, and the airport (1974). The San Juan River provides irrigation and drinking water, and biological activated water treatment plants have been constructed. Close to 85 percent of the city’s urban fabric was built after 1975, and today the city has a population of 633,730. Besides the traditional economic activities of farming and ranching, the construction of maquiladoras, oil refineries, and gas production facilities has caused the city to become one of the fastest growing in Mexico. Currently, there are ten industrial parks in the city with over one hundred U.S. and European companies that employ the local population primarily in processing activities and assembly plants. Among the challenges facing the city are soil and water pollution, and some innovative projects are in the planning stages, including the environmental cleanup of lagoons and the production of natural gas from waste disposal sites.10

Matamoros Located near the terminus of the Rio Grande as it drains into the Gulf of Mexico—which today is typically a trickle at this point in its course due to extensive irrigation projects

upstream—Matamoros was founded in 1686 as San Juan de los Esteros Hermosos and was renamed (1793) for Padre Mariano Matamoros (1770–1814), a hero of the Mexican independence movement. The proximity to the Gulf of Mexico accounts for the city’s heat, humidity, and seasonal hurricanes that have at times necessitated the rebuilding and altering of the city’s oldest buildings. Because of the city’s location on the Gulf of Mexico, its architecture between the 1820s and 1840s was heavily influenced by Creole architectural culture from New Orleans,11 while later nineteenth-century brick buildings were influenced by U.S. Victorian architecture. The downtown features nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century vernacular wall-dominant urban courtyard housing. Most of the city’s major buildings are along the main street, Calle Sexta. The Plaza Hidalgo (the former Plaza de Armas; anon., 1814–) was originally established by the founding families of the city in the seventeenth century, but it was relocated to its current location in 1814. The lush plaza features monuments honoring Hidalgo and Juárez, a wrought-iron gazebo topped by a cupola that is flanked by fountains and surrounded by austere, neoclassical brick buildings. The side streets near the plaza are characterized by an urban fabric of one-story courtyard buildings with continuous cornices that tightly align with the street. The Presidencia Municipal H. Matamoros (City Hall; anon., 1831) has undergone radical transformations over the years, demonstrating a remarkable range of changing architectural values over time. Reflecting the close economic and cultural ties to New Orleans, the building was remodeled in a French Creole vocabulary (1870), in a Spanish colonial revival vocabulary (1934), and then in a contemporary modernist vocabulary organized as a richly layered brise-soleil for shade over a glass curtain wall raised on pilotis (Jorge Elizalde, 1958), and today it has been refaced (1995) in the Creole vocabulary of the 1870s. The Catedral de Nuestra Señora del Refugio (Mateo Passement, builder, 1814–1831; Bártolo Passement, builder, 1850s) was built with local donations from the congregation. It has endured a number of hurricanes (1844, 1867, 1880, and 1933) and has been rebuilt over time. The singlenave church with arched side aisles features a centralized barrel vault, although its interior structural elements have been rebuilt in concrete. The plan is oddly skewed as a parallelogram in relationship to its façade that aligns with the street and plaza. The interior is lit with crystal chandeliers illuminating a neoclassical altar with three niches filled with paintings depicting the life of the Virgin Mary.

34  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Street façades, Calle Sexta, Matamoros, Tamps. (various architects, 19th c.); drawing by Daniela Treviño and Ricardo García-Báez

Presidencia Municipal (City Hall), Matamoros, Tamps. (anon., 1831); photo María Fernanda Seceñas

Plaza Hidalgo and Catedral de Nuestra Señora del Refugio, Matamoros, Tamps. (Mateo Passement, builder, 1814–1831; Bartolo Passement, builder, 1850s); photo María Fernanda Seceñas

The façade has a pediment above the three arched doors of the entry with unusual, almost freestanding columns in front. The façade is flanked by two neo-Gothic towers of three levels topped with prominent steep spires, recalling the French Creole Cathedral of New Orleans. Pope John XXIII renamed the cathedral Nuestra Señora del Refugio (Our Lady of Refuge; 1958), an appropriate name for the edifice especially during hurricane season. The Museo Casamata (begun by Gen. Manuel Rodríguez de Sela, 1845; continued by Gen. Juan N. Cortina; completed in 1865; restored in 1970) served as a defensive fort for the town from just before the Mexican-  American War, and it has defended Matamoros against foreign and rebel forces, including an attack by filibusterers from Texas (1851), and during the revolution from the forces of Carranza (1913 and 1915). The typology of the fort is similar to those built to defend Mexico City during the Mexican-American War. One of the oldest sur­viving

Tamaulipas  35

Museo Casamata, Matamoros, Tamps. (Gen. Manuel Rodríguez de Sela, 1845; Gen. Juan N. Cortina, completed 1865; restored 1970); photo María Fernanda Seceñas

buildings from the period, today it has an important museum that exhibits artifacts of the city’s past. Matamoros was the first town occupied by U.S. troops (1846) during the Mexican-American War, and after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, it became a border town. Brownsville, TX, was founded in 1848 across the river, and an animal-drawn standard-gauge tramway from Matamoros to the ferry terminal at Santa Cruz opened in 1873. The Ferrocarril Urbano de Matamoros y Santa Cruz planned to electrify the line (1908) and extend it over a bridge to the United States, but the international tramway was never completed.12 The Instituto Regional de Bellas Artes (anon., 1855– 1905) was originally built to serve as a hospital for civilians and military personnel and has been remodeled over time. It was organized as a one-story wall-dominant building with a lightweight open-air covered arcade around a large courtyard. It underwent alterations in its interior and exterior (1970), and today the institute promotes regional culture. Across from the Teatro de la Reforma, the Casa Yturria (anon., 1860) served as the U.S. Consulate and features a crisp façade with precise vertical arched windows; lightweight cast-iron continuous balconies; and an articulate, prominent cornice. The Casa Milmo (Patricio Milmo O’Dowd, builder, 1860) features a muted façade with subtle brick detailing. Milmo was an Irish expatriate and important businessman in the region who married the  sister of the noted nineteenth-century political titan Santiago Vidaurri. The Teatro de la Reforma (Henry A. Peeler, 1861–1865; restored 1992) was originally named for Empress Carlota.

The current three-story structure is a reconstruction of the original theater that was demolished in 1956, and it maintains the proportions and vocabulary of the original. It is a wall-dominant construction with tightly spaced mortar joints and a large entry hall and balconies inside the theater. Mexico’s national anthem was performed for the first time in Tamaulipas (1904) in this theater by its composer, Don Jaime Nuño. Farther down the street is the Casa de Estrellas (anon., 1870) with articulate second-floor openings and cornice. The Casa Cross (Melitón H. Cross, 1885; restored by Filemón Garza, 1992) was built by the owner, a freemason and the son of a prominent South Carolina family who had settled in Matamoros (1857). The father and son managed the J. S. y M. H. Cross, one of the largest industrial, commercial, and cattle empires in the border region. The

Casa Yturria, Matamoros, Tamps. (anon., 1860); photo María Fernanda Seceñas

Teatro de la Reforma, Matamoros, Tamps. (Henry A. Peeler, 1861– 1865; restored 1992) and Calle Sexta; photo María Fernanda Seceñas

36  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico residence is one of the few Italianate homes in this subregion of Northern Mexico and is organized as two parallel wings of brick around a central stair and hallway. The wings sharply end like prows of ships at the ground floor surrounded by a lightweight filigree of wood verandas. The second floor contains bedrooms that are expressed volumetrically under sloping roofs, perhaps intentionally, as a “cross.” The Juárez Market (anon., ca. 19th c.) features an open market hall that continues to serve as a public market for the city, with folkloric crafts as well. The Colegio Modelo (M. L. Waller and Nicolás Garza, 1923) was based on U.S. typologies and continues to be used as a school. Important early modernist houses include the Casa Amador Garza González (Agustín Reyes, 1950) in Colonia Jardín, Matamoros’s first planned elite neighborhood (1945); the Casa Dr. Juvenal Rendón Sáenz (Sergio Paredes Rangel, 1956) that reinterprets the Usonian architecture

Casa Cross, Matamoros, Tamps. (Melitón H. Cross, 1885; restored by Filemón Garza, 1992); photo María Fernanda Seceñas

La Puerta de México, Matamoros, Tamps. (Mario Pani, 1963); postcard (ca. 1964), photographer unknown

of Frank Lloyd Wright; and the Casa Sergio Treviño García (Ignacio López Bancalari, n.d.), which extends the language of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Douglas Grant House, Cedar Rapids, IA (1951).13 Large-scale planning and infrastructure projects included the Aeropuerto Internacional General Servando Canales (Luis MacGregor Krieger, 1955–1958) and the Plan Regulador de Matamoros (Mario Pani and Domingo García Ramos, 1958) that emphasized efficient vehicular circulation and functional zoning. Among the best modernist urban landmarks in the city that operated at the scale and speed of the automobile were the Puerta de México (Mario Pani with Hilario Galguera, 1963), which served as a new immigration and customs station and structural tour de force that spanned traffic lanes and provided pedestrian crossing; the adjacent Centro Comercial pronaf (Mario Pani with Hilario Galguera, 1964), which aligned with the curving Avenida Álvaro Obregón; and the monumental sculpture, La Puerta de México (Sebastián, 2004). Today, Matamoros is a thriving border city of 462,157 and serves as a model for other cities in Northern Mexico in terms of repurposing its historic urban fabric.

Bagdad

Juárez Market, Matamoros, Tamps. (anon., ca. 19th c.); postcard (ca. 1940), Robert Runyon, ERBPC

Bagdad (from the Spanish for Baghdad, the capital city of Iraq; in Persian “Bag Dad” means “gift from God”) was initially founded as a port in the nineteenth century. It is located 25 miles east of Matamoros at the terminus of the Río Bravo as it drains into the Gulf of Mexico. Early-nineteenth-century maps show a town at the mouth of the river named Real Río del Norte, and reports (1851) mention the town in relation to rebels who were trying to establish the República del Río Grande. During the U.S. Civil War, the city grew rapidly to 15,000 as a vital port for Confederate forces to avoid the Union naval blockade

Tamaulipas  37 in order to export their cotton and other goods. Exports made their way upstream along the Rio Grande, where they were shipped to Bagdad. In Bagdad, these exports were loaded onto flat-bottom boats and taken to waiting foreign vessels bound for Cuba. In Havana, the goods were transferred onto larger transatlantic ships, and the empty foreign vessels returned to Bagdad for another load. Thus, during the Civil War years, millions of dollars in cash and merchandise flowed through the port, and from Bagdad, ships’ masts stretched across the water as far as the eye could see.14 A report in the New York Herald of the time described the “boomtown” of Bagdad as: an excrescence of war, here congregated . . . blockade runners, desperados, the vile of both sexes: adventurers . . . numberless groggeries and houses of worse fame. [Where the] decencies of civilized life were forgotten, and vice in its worse form held high carnival . . . while in the low, dirty looking buildings . . . were amassed millions in gold and silver.15 The center of the town was a loose grid with a main plaza that grew organically around its edges along winding access roads. The architecture of the town looked more like a mining boomtown in the American Southwest with wood-frame buildings covered in wood siding that were rapidly built and had sloping shingle roofs. In 1864, the French imperial forces of Emperor Maximilian seized the port in an effort to control the border and the flow of arms to the Liberal forces of Benito Juárez. Perhaps not coincidentally, the town’s church appears vaguely French, with a single tall steeple in a photograph taken in 1864. In March of 1865, Union forces entered Brownsville, TX, and halted all commerce on the river, and 40,000 Union soldiers were sent to Brownsville to control the border. By November

Romanticized view of Bagdad, Tamps. (ca. 1860); author of drawing unknown (ca. 1865)

1865, French forces were moved upriver to Matamoros, and Liberal forces controlled the city by June 1866. Three major hurricanes hit Bagdad (1867, 1889, 1891), and some believe the town was basically destroyed during the 1867 storm. In any case, due to these hurricanes, as well as shifting sandbars and a lack of interest, nothing remains of the town.16 The area today has returned to a beach for tourists and locals, with campgrounds, restaurants, and recreational facilities to compete with the amenities offered by nearby Padre Island, TX.

Ciudad Victoria The foothills of the Sierra Madre Oriental form a backdrop for the state capital of Ciudad Victoria. Its siting in a high valley at the edge of the Río San Marcos moderates the steamy heat that occurs in the nearby coastal plains and the Rio Grande Valley. Founded by José de Escandón y Helguera, the Conde de Sierra Gorda (1750), the settlement was initially called Villa de Santa María de Aguayo. The settlement’s name was changed to Boca de Caballeros as a rural hacienda with one hundred ranching families under the leadership of José de Olazarán. Upon his death, they obtained permission from Escandón to found the “Villa” at a site near the edge of the Río San Marcos. Villa de Aguayo became the capital of the state (1825), and its name was changed to Ciudad Victoria to honor Guadalupe Victoria (1786–1843), a central figure in Mexico’s independence movement and the first president of Mexico (1824). (Guadalupe Victoria created his name for symbolic reasons: “Guadalupe,” to give thanks for the protection of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and “Victoria,” for victory over Spanish forces. His original name was José Miguel Ramón Adaucto Fernández Félix.) During the Mexican Revolution, the city was occupied by the forces of Carranza in 1913, by Villa in April 1915, and then finally again by Carranza in May 1915. The city is rigorously organized as a grid, and in this respect, is one of the most distinctive urban grids in Northern Mexico. The north–south streets have numbers and names, while the east–west streets have only names. The railroads arrived in the late nineteenth century, and the city was linked by a paved road to Monterrey, NL, and Tampico, Tamps., around 1930. Today, the experience of the city outside of the main plaza and a few adjoining streets is particularly discontinuous, with much of its older urban fabric lost to new construction executed in a variety of contrasting architectural vocabularies. The Plaza Hidalgo is the public communal outdoor room at the heart of the city, and the design of the gardens

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Cd. Tamps. UrbanVictoria, plan, Ciudad Victoria, Tamps.; drawing by Richard Thurman and Ricardo García-Báez

and the kiosks has changed several times over the centuries. The plaza comes alive when the sun goes down and a cooling breeze comes up, when it serves as a gathering place for victorense teenagers, senior citizens, and families. It features a number of kiosks (1992), and on Sundays the municipal band still plays in the plaza. The plaza is bounded by a discontinuous two- and three-story commercial fabric that includes regional restaurants specializing in fish, shrimp, gorditas, and carne asada. At the corner of the plaza is the Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Refugio (anon., 1880–1896; remodeled interior by Ing. Enrique de León de la Barra, ca. 1920), which replaced a simple earlier church of adobe walls with a palm thatch roof. The basilica has a single tower, with a very abstracted, austere neoclassical façade. In contrast, the interior is composed in an ornate neo-Gothic vocabulary with pointed arches. The main altar has an image of Nuestra Señora del Refugio, and the main and lateral altars are crafted of fine carved wood. A small capilla dedicated to “Santísimo” also utilizes a neo-Gothic vocabulary. It was

the headquarters of the Tamaulipas archdiocese (1870) and became a cathedral (1895), although the cathedral status was given to the nearby Sagrado Corazón de Jesús parish church in 1962. Nearby is the city’s neocolonial Hotel Sierra Gorda (Eduardo Belden Gutiérrez, 1939), the most elegant hotel in the city during the 1940s and 1950s, which forms a landmark tower to the south of the plaza. Along Matamoros Street is the modernist Edificio Federal (anon., 1950), a four-story T-shaped block that contained the mail and telegraph offices. Set diagonally on its site, it addresses the Plaza Hidalgo. The glazed entry frames an abstract entry foyer that is the most memorable interior space in the building. Nearby, the Casa de las Artes (anon., 1911–1913) was a former teacher’s college and later a science and literature institute. It is organized around a courtyard in a neoclassical vocabulary and built of brick. The front façade has a portico with four eclectic columns that supports a small pediment with a bas-relief medallion. The cloister-like

Tamaulipas  39

Hotel Sierra Gorda, Ciudad Victoria, Tamps. (Eduardo Belden Gutiérrez, 1939); postcard, photographer unknown, ERBPC

Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Refugio, Ciudad Victoria, Tamps. (anon., 1880–1896; remodeled interior, Ing. Enrique de León de la Barra, ca. 1920); photo ERB

courtyard is a colorful, tree-filled garden surrounded by arcades with brick columns and balustrades. Today, the art institute (1962) offers dance, singing, and piano lessons, as well as poetry and literary workshops organized by the Instituto Tamaulipas de Bellas Artes. To the west, at the end of Calle Hidalgo, is the lush, leafy plaza, the Plaza de Armas, that creates a cool outdoor room for the city. On one side of the plaza is the Parroquia del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús (anon., ca. 1883) with a neoclassical interior that is similar to the Basílica del Refugio but larger, with a rough, simple wooden altar. On the south side of the plaza is the Palacio de Gobierno (Enrique Canseco, 1948–1950). The entry portico faces the plaza, and visitors enter by stairs that also serve as seating for the plaza and are set between four massive, vertically striated three-story columns. Vertical circulation is on axis with the entry by means of monumental stairs, with the mural Tamaulipas histórico (Ramón García Zurita, n.d.) above. The five-story building is organized around a centralized courtyard with movement under open-air arcades

Edificio Federal, Ciudad Victoria, Tamps. (anon., 1950); photo ERB

on each side that frame views into the courtyard with its large splashing fountain and palms. The courtyard was originally open to the sky, and though now covered with translucent material, still maintains its outdoor character. The Centro Cultural Tamaulipas (Eduardo Terrazas y Asociados, 1986) is a distinctly modernist composition with an arcade that provides shade and frames the north side of the plaza. The symmetrical massing, exterior façades of exposed concrete, and horizontal strip windows of this civic building convey a sense of monumentality. Visitors enter a double-height entry hall of hard surfaces, with a mirrorlike rectangular fountain, that frequently houses exhibitions by local painters and photographers. Inside, there are meeting rooms, a theater, and the municipal library. Outside, there is a coffee shop and regional handicrafts shop. Another block west on Hidalgo Street is Avenida

40  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Casa de las Artes, Ciudad Victoria, Tamps. (anon., 1911–1913); photo ERB

Madero, lined on each side with shade trees and a planted median lined with trees. To the north are two of the most important buildings in the state capital. The first is the Palacio Municipal (Ing. Manuel Bosh y Miraflores and Ing. Alejandro Prieto, 1898–1903) at the corner of Calle Hidalgo (old Calle Real) and Madero (Alameda del 17). This two-story neoclassical building originally served as the residence of the governor and is organized around a court. On the façade at the corner of the building is a highrelief medallion with the national coat of arms. The building uses a wide range of materials, including brick, cut stone, ashlar stone, and wrought iron. Inside, an articulated wrought-iron stair open to the air is painted a light green color that seems to open up the space and give the place a sense of refreshing coolness. Adjacent to the stair on the second floor is a mural by Jorge Rosales C., Alegoría de Tamaulipas en el tiempo, which portrays local history from the pre-Columbian era to the present, including the noted “cueras tamaulipecas” (Tamaulipas military leather armor) that originated in Tula, Tamps. Three blocks to the north is the Banco Ejidal (anon., 1929–1935), one of the best buildings in the city that was created after the revolution during the era of agrarian reform. The neocolonial revival vocabulary building is composed with gray cantera and red tezontle with pyramidalshaped merlons at the parapets that create a complex profile against the sky. Entry occurs through three symmetrical doors with balconies and rose windows above. Today it is the Banco Nacional de Crédito Rural, successor to the Banco Ejidal. Farther south on the boulevard is the Estefania Castañeda Kindergarten (anon., 1938), originally built as a park

Parroquia del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús, Ciudad Victoria, Tamps. (anon., ca. 1883); photo ERB

Palacio de Gobierno, Ciudad Victoria, Tamps. (Enrique Canseco, 1948–1950); photo ERB

Tamaulipas  41

Centro Cultural Tamaulipas, Ciudad Victoria, Tamps. (Eduardo Terrazas y Asociados, 1986); photo ERB

and then converted into a kindergarten and named for a local leader in early childhood education. At the other end of the boulevard is the Casa de Campesino (anon., 1929– 1930). The art deco two-story building is organized as an L-shaped courtyard that makes a wall at the street. The façades feature punched window openings and engaged pilasters as vertical elements. The corner entry leads to a dramatic vertical stair that features a memorable mural celebrating agrarian reform. Nearby is the Museo Regional de Historia (anon., 1903– 1909), the former Asilo Vicentino that served orphans and invalids, with a memorable chapel framed by pilasters and a scalloped parapet that seems to roll like ocean waves, flanked on either side by elaborate shaped gates. Today it is adaptively reused as a museum that displays and interprets the tamaulipeca history. At the edge of the city is the Paseo Méndez, a lush, green urban park with public pools. Another sports park

Palacio Municipal, Ciudad Victoria, Tamps. (Ing. Manuel Bosh y Miraflores and Ing. Alejandro Prieto, 1898–1903); photo ERB

42  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Banco Ejidal, Ciudad Victoria, Tamps. (anon., 1929–1935); photo ERB

in the city is the Álvaro Obregón, which is home to the Estadio Olímpico (Ing. Marte R. Gómez, ca. 1940). Other parks include the Adolfo Ruiz Cortines Sports Center and, at the edge of town adjacent to the Río San Marcos, the Parque Cultural y Recreativo Tamaulipas Siglo XXI (anon., ca. 1992), a cultural, recreational, sport, and museum complex. It has a planetarium with a 15-meter-diameter dome and playing fields. There is also an open-air theater that can accommodate 1,500 spectators for concerts and theatrical performances. Outside the city on the old road to Tampico is the Santuario de Guadalupe (anon., 1895–1927), sited atop the Antiguo Loma del Muerto (Old Hill of the Dead) that offers a panoramic view of the city. The hill has been appropriated as a “Guadalupe Hill” that safeguards the city. The sanctuary is composed in a neoclassical vocabulary and is the only church in the city that has two towers. The esplanade (1992) features a polychromatic bronze sculpture of the Virgin of Guadalupe standing on a spherical pedestal located in the middle of a fountain. The nearby neighborhood has retained its distinctive colonial revival architecture of the 1940s, currently in need of restoration. The city receives its drinking water and water for ranching and agriculture from the Presa Vicente Guerrero that also has bass fishing and big and small game hunting. The Parque Recreativo Tamatán (Tamatán Recreational Center) is southwest of the city on the road leading to Tula, Tamps., and San Luis Potosí, SLP. It was designed as a recreational space with gardens and groves of trees and is very popular on the weekends. It features a children’s area, cabañas, sports fields, and a park with an artificial lake, and it has the only zoo in the region featuring animals from all

Estefania Castañeda Kindergarten, Ciudad Victoria, Tamps. (anon., 1938); photo ERB

Casa de Campesino, Ciudad Victoria, Tamps. (anon., 1929–1930); photo ERB

over the state. The Gimnasio Olímpico Edmundo Castro Núñez (anon., ca. 1995) is sited as a well-detailed, mimetic, wall-dominant volume. The Museo de Historia Natural Tamux (Marván Arquitectos, 2003) is one of the best museums in the state, where visitors are able to expand their understanding of the natural world. The building is sited on a small hill in a lush park and is organized as a centrifugal, radial scheme with an overlapping series of pavilions expressed as pure geometrical volumes of primary forms, including cylinders, cubes, and spheres.17 The materials utilized are exposed concrete walls, where voids between the wall systems are infilled with continuous glazing systems, with steel roof framing at long-span conditions. One

Tamaulipas  43 of the most memorable aspects of the buildings is the choreographed promenade through the museum in terms of approach, entrance, and departure. Nearby is the former Tamatán Hacienda (anon., ca. 1895), designed in a local neoclassical vocabulary, that gives the park its name. It was the terminus of the railroad at the first part of the twentieth century and is currently the location of the Escuela Tecnológica Agropecuaria (Technical Agricultural School). Among the best recent residential architecture in the city is the Casa San Ángel (Rodríguez and Guerra Arquitectos, 2006), which utilizes an abstract modernist vocabulary of expressive materiality.18 The perimeter of the city, like almost every medium-tolarge-size city in Northern Mexico, reflects the pressures on local cultures by its proximity to the United States and the processes of globalization. Big-box stores abound, surrounded by parking lots filled with pickup trucks and cars. Shopping malls, modeled on U.S. typologies, feature the requisite six-movie cineplex, Blockbuster, McDonald’s, and Soriana (a huge grocery, drug, and department store, similar to a Walmart in the United States). Two industrial parks have appeared in the city: the Fraccionamiento Industrial La Libertad and the Parque Industrial Nuevo Santander. The latter covers approximately 495 acres with an infrastructure of water, light, drainage, telephone, and water treatment for the manufacture of automobile components and clothing. Located between the oil-rich port of Tampico, the industrial and financial center of Monterrey, NL, and the border city of Matamoros, the city of approximately 300,000 is primarily an administrative and distribution center for agriculture and the nearby PEMEX oil facilities.

Santuario de Guadalupe, Ciudad Victoria, Tamps. (anon., 1895– 1927); postcard, PostaMex, photographer unknown, ERBPC

Apolonia Just outside the town of Apolonia, a portion of a large land grant of about 60,000 acres was sold (1899) to Joaquina Sáinz Trápaga de Meade. The Hacienda El Naranjo (anon., ca. 1905) included a main house, a church, other outbuildings, and even a railroad station for the Tantoyuquita Railroad that served as a connection to Tampico, Mexico City, and the world. The wealthy owner/entrepreneur welcomed the notables of the era, including Porfirio Díaz. After the revolution, prominent visitors who came to the hacienda included Charles Lindbergh (1928) and Gary Cooper, who visited the site in the sixties. Today the hacienda is abandoned. Currently there is an ambitious project to adaptively reuse the hacienda as a tourist resort with areas for conventions and meetings, a summer camp for children, and hunting and fishing.

Tampico Tampico (derived from the Huastec tam-piko, meaning “place of otters,” because they thrived on the banks of the river) is located at the marshy southern edge of Tamaulipas and is literally surrounded by water. These bodies of water include the Gulf of Mexico; the Río Pánuco, which separates Tamaulipas from the state of Veracruz across the river; and a maze of interconnecting lagoons. The city is sited on the northeast side of the Río Pánuco that drains the Sierra Madre Oriental and empties into the port of Tampico and the Gulf of Mexico. The area’s hot, humid tropical climate is characterized by a lush, dense tropical landscape of distinctive palms and bougainvillea. This part of the Gulf of Mexico is a particularly rich fishing ground, and the lagoons along the coast are rich shrimping and crabbing areas that have helped create the regional cuisine. Even the citizens of Tampico are informally known as jaibos (crabs), and the crab emblem is seen on stationary, business envelopes, the sides of buses, and park benches. During the pre-Columbian era, this area was inhabited by the Huastec. Today the pre-Columbian Pirámide de las Flores (Pyramid of the Flowers, AD 1000) is a circular mound site located in the residential suburb of Colonia Flores. Brother Andrés de Olmos founded the town of San Luis de Tampico de Alto (1554) north of the city’s current location. However, the city was subject to a series of battles with buccaneers as well as indigenous peoples, was destroyed by invading pirates, and eventually was abandoned. Years later, the wealth of nearby salt mines and the need for a port on the Gulf of Mexico brought about the founding

44  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Hacienda El Naranjo, Apolonia, Tamps. (anon., ca. 1905); photo Jesús Abraham Aparicio Ayala

of modern Tampico (1823) as Santa Anna de Tampico. Following independence, Spanish forces were decisively defeated (1828), which led to their departure from Mexico. During the port’s peak years in the nineteenth century, silver from San Luis Potosí left its docks and imported goods of clothes and loads of brick masonry and iron arrived that would play a critical role in the city’s distinctive, hybrid, climatic-responsive architecture.19 Hundreds of Creole families descended from free African American people from Louisiana also migrated to the Tampico region in the late 1850s to escape the prejudices of antebellum Louisiana. They brought French Creole tectonic practices and cuisine, such as cypress-boarded houses from Louisiana and the growing of okra for inclusion in the local version of “gumbo.”20 Toward the end of the nineteenth century, port facilities were built to receive coal from Europe. When the coal industry declined, oil was fortunately discovered nearby, and the port became one of the major oil-exporting ports

in the world and of vital strategic importance. During the oil boom years (1907–1936), thousands of immigrants from all over the world arrived to work in the oil industry and helped the city flourish and develop its distinctive culture. The city was designed as a rigorous square urban grid sited at a bend of the Río Pánuco where ships could dock, close to its mouth where it drained into the Caribbean Sea. The Plaza de Armas (Plaza de la Constitución) was the religious and governmental center of Tampico. The tropical landscape of palms creates stippled light and provides coolness. An unusual, exuberant gazebo (Oliverio Cadeño, 1945), from which marimba bands still provide free entertainment to citizens on Sunday afternoons, is located in the center of the plaza. The Templo de la Inmaculada Concepción (original design, Lorenzo de la Hidalga; later José Juan Szymanski and Leopoldo Torres; Francisco Ruiz Garza and Juan Gochicoa, builders, 1831–1928) has been remodeled several times. It was extensively repaired after the 1917 earthquake with donations from the U.S. oil magnate Edward L. Doheny, under the direction of Ing. Ezequial Ordóñez. Its current neoclassical façade of light tan cantera from San Luis Potosí features three enormous doors at an urban scale that give access to the cathedral, framed by four pairs of engaged, colossal Corinthian columns. These support an entablature and abstracted pediment that contains a subtly colored Byzantine-inspired mural. The narrow bays at each end support vertical bell towers divided into three parts that diminish in size as they ascend, and the east tower features a clock from London. The plan is organized as a Latin cross with colonnaded side aisles and a shallow transept with an octagonal dome at the crossing of the transept that allows light to fall on the altar. The interior, which has been refurbished recently, has several wall fresco paintings above side altars. The main altar of white Carrara marble is framed by a freestanding stone retablo set in a semicircular apse. This retablo features pairs of Corinthian columns that support an elaborate curved, broken pediment with a crucifix and a statue of Nuestra Señora de la Inmaculada Concepción at its center. Between the celebrations of the Mass, the church is informally used as a cool semipublic room in the city for instructing children in catechism, prayer, a resting place for senior citizens, and a visiting place between old friends. Next to the cathedral, the DIF (Desarrollo Integral de la Familia) Building (anon., 1925) is one of the best eclectic Beaux-Arts works in the city. The Palacio Municipal (Enrique Canseco, 1928–1933) is on the north side of the Plaza de Armas and has an austere, symmetrical, abstracted neoclassical vocabulary that

Tamaulipas  45

DIF

Inmaculada Concepción

Pal. Municipal

Plaza de Armas

Plaza Libertad

Edif. Alijadores

Edif. de la Luz

Aduana Maritima

100 m

50

Rio Panuco 0

100

200

300 ft

Urban plan, Tampico, Tamps.; drawing by Richard Thurman and Ricardo García-Báez

ingeniously adapts to the hot, humid climate. The section is remarkable, with a thick heavy façade that encloses a series of large rooms facing the plaza with circulation provided by an open-air two-story single-loaded arcade that opens to a narrow, cool, shady courtyard filled with plants. At the interior stair is a mural that reflects the history of the region. Several blocks to the southeast, the Plaza de la Libertad (anon., 1830–1970) was the commercial center of Tampico in the nineteenth century and one of the most unique plazas in Northern Mexico. At the center of the plaza is a gazebo of forged iron where bands played as the public sat on benches on the plaza in an era before radio, television, and electronic information technology. Surrounding the plaza are the city’s most memorable and notable urban buildings from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century of the Porfiriato. Constructed of brick with intricate wrought-iron balconies crafted from wroughtiron columns, beams, brackets, and banisters imported from England, they provide coolness and shade in the hot, humid climate. Many of these memorable buildings were

Plaza de Armas (Plaza de la Constitución), Tampico, Tamps.; gazebo, Tampico, Tamps. (Oliverio Cadeño, 1945); photo ERB

46  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

DIF Building, Tampico, Tamps. (anon., 1925); photo ERB

Templo de la Inmaculada Concepción, Tampico, Tamps. (original design, Lorenzo de la Hidalga; later José Juan Szymanski and Leopoldo Torres; Francisco Ruiz Garza and Juan Gochicoa, builders, 1831–1928); photo Estela Alvarado, ERB Col.

also influenced by architectural types from New Orleans, as well as French and English typologies in the Caribbean. The urban fabric surrounding the plaza in the nineteenth century consisted of former trade offices, restaurants, hotels (Hotel Central, today the Obregón Building); the Post Office (anon., 1907), an urban midblock building organized around a narrow courtyard with a nicely crafted wrought-iron balcony; the Telégrafos Nacionales (anon., 1908), also organized around a narrow courtyard with a restrained neoclassical façade; pharmacies (La Botica Nueva (anon., 1875) that became Farmacias El Fénix, with wrought-iron balconies from England); hardware stores (La Fama and Comanche); and department stores (Las Novedades, Los Precios de Francia, and Casa Autrey). Today this fabric continues to serve as a lively setting for urban life with restaurants, a pharmacy, hotels, a post office, and parking provided beneath the plaza. The wrought-iron patented components that form the arcade and balconies are

emblematic of the tectonic culture of the second half of the nineteenth century when a new industry appeared. England, France, Belgium, and the United States designed, produced, installed, and exported steel and iron prefabricated components, structures, and buildings to developing countries around the world.21 Today, the Plaza de la Libertad that formerly fronted the Río Pánuco waterfront has now been separated from the river with railroad lines and cranes for loading imports and exports. The areas farther down the river away from the downtown have been even more radically transformed with enormous storage facilities, refineries, and oil storage tanks. The Edificio de la Luz (Abel Navarro, 1923–1924) was originally an office building for the petroleum industry, and then became the municipal utility office building for light and power. It plays a notable urban design role in the downtown in the way that it shapes space on the surrounding Plaza de la Libertad with its semicircular plan and sixstory massing, which has been mirrored on the other side of the street with the Hotel Sevilla (anon., ca. 1932). The building’s prefabricated components were shipped from England and then assembled by local labor in Tampico. This remarkable neoclassical building recalls the latenineteenth-century architecture of London as well as the work of Gunnar Asplund. The façade features a crisp, abstracted cladding over its cast-iron structural frame. The façade is expressed as a large base with horizontal stone coursing and continuous arched openings; a three-story middle portion with very abstracted, flat vertical punched windows; and closely spaced, continuous vertical windows that form an abstracted cornice. Inside, restrained neoclassical ornament is used, and the open cage elevators with

Tamaulipas  47

Plaza de la Libertad, Tampico, Tamps. (anon., 1830–1970); photo ERB

Palacio Municipal, Tampico, Tamps. (Enrique Canseco, 1928–1933); photo ERB

Edificio de la Luz, Tampico, Tamps. (Abel Navarro, 1923–1924); photo ERB

48  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico counterweights still operate flawlessly today and provide a memorable means of vertical movement in the building. Views from the upper floors offer long vistas of the port and the city. The Aduana Marítima (Maritime Customs Building; anon., 1898–1902; restoration architect, Alfonso Govela, 1993) is sited at the end of Aduana Street, beautifully crafted, and emblematic of the Porfiriato. The building is organized as a two-story redbrick masonry block with a light green sloping metal roof surrounded by an exterior, shaded, covered open-air veranda and circulation space in response to the hot, humid climate. The roof over the shaded veranda is supported by a series of continuous brick arches trimmed in stone. The arches rest on ornate, elegantly detailed, attenuated vertical cast-iron columns, with a rhythm of four cast-iron columns between each brick pilaster, with lighter, transparent, wrought-iron balustrades with a geometric pattern between. The terrazzo floors of the shaded outdoor veranda are carefully inscribed with a series of geometric circles, while the ceiling of the veranda features cast cream-colored coffers. Vertical movement through the building is by means of cast-iron stairs richly trimmed in stone with elaborate cast balustrades with floral motifs that add a more intimate scale. The ground floor is primarily storage rooms. Many of the building’s components were ordered from a catalog, transported by ship, and then assembled with local labor. The cast-iron elements were imported from France, other components from England, and the wood components for doors and windows came from Louisiana. Some claim Porfirio Díaz chose the design, and he personally inaugurated the completed project (1902). Recently, a bridge has Edificio Alijadores, Tampico, Tamps. (Constructores Mexicanos, 1929); photo ERB

Aduana Marítima (Maritime Customs Building), Tampico, Tamps. (anon., 1898–1902; restoration architect, Alfonso Govela, 1993); photo ERB

been built to facilitate access by visitors to the facility that has been adaptively reused as a museum. The city continued to grow when the Mexican Central Railroad reached Tampico in 1890, and the city’s art deco and colonial revival Passenger Rail Terminal (anon., ca. 1932) was sited only a block from the Plaza de la Libertad. Tampico also had an early urban transport tram system. A horsecar tramway in 1879 went bankrupt and closed, but from 1889 the city had horse-drawn trams, while new electric trams arrived in Tampico in 1914 during the Mexican Revolution. The last line ran to the beach until 1974, when the city eliminated the system, a casualty of the bus and the automobile.22

Tamaulipas  49 During the revolution, Tampico continued to export petroleum despite being occupied by a variety of armed forces. After U.S sailors were briefly detained in Tampico, the U.S. Marines occupied Veracruz (April 21, 1914– November 1914). Ironically, the widely disliked Gen. Huerta briefly grew in popularity in Mexico when he vowed to invade Texas! Tampico was captured by the forces of Carranza in May 1914. Tampico thrived after the major battles of the revolution, and between 1915 and 1920 the city’s population increased 400 percent to 100,000. Driven by the needs of the oil industry, commercial aviation in Mexico started (1921) on a Mexicana Airlines flight between Tampico and Mexico City. In 1926, the first Coca-Cola bottling plant in Mexico was built in the city and is still in operation today. South of the Plaza de la Libertad is the eclectic Edificio Alijadores (Constructores Mexicanos, 1929), then the tallest building in the downtown and accentuated by its vertical windows and prominent corner entrance crowned by a tall shaped dome reminiscent of the Beaux-Arts architecture of the era of San Francisco, CA. The former Municipal Slaughterhouse (anon., 1923), after being abandoned for many years, has been adaptively restored to become the House of Culture. This building made of red brick with arched windows is located half a block away from the Avenida Hidalgo. It also houses the city’s historical records and has several rooms that frequently hold exhibitions of painting and sculpture and other cultural events. The Plaza Pedro José Méndez was originally a place for mule drivers that became a park with activities for children and sports. Here is the Monumento al Padre de la Patria (Ing. Gabriel Rivera Quiroga, 1910) built for the Centenario de la Independencia. Prototypical Anglo-American suburban houses arrived via the port for American oil workers to create foreign workers’ suburbs on what was then the outskirts of the city. Many of these were prefabricated of wood, and then assembled in Tampico by local labor. They were typically made of wood framing clad in wood siding, had sloping roofs, and had a covered front porch to create coolness for outdoor living. Together with the large elegant buildings of the elite, they combined to form a most unusual Mexican suburban landscape. Sinclair Oil, along with Doheny Oil, major U.S. producers of oil in Tampico, built suburbs that were enclaves within the city. Everything was imported by these companies, from food to the 35,000 board feet of lumber in each derrick. All the technicians also were Americans.23

Aguila colony, Anglo-American foreign workers’ suburb, Tampico, Tamps.; postcard (ca. 1914), published by Tampico Optical Co., ERBPC

After World War II, the city of Tampico was linked with two adjoining towns—Almira to the north and Ciudad Madero to the south—that together form the current metropolitan area. The city’s population was 7,000 in 1880, 25,000 in 1915, and today is the fifteenth-largest in the country with a population of 803,196. This city of immigrants with an extraordinary history was built by hard work and with the rich resources of the land and the sea. The centro histórico of Tampico has been proudly restored and rejuvenated by its inhabitants. However, due to its industrial focus, Tampico never gained the popularity of other Mexican coastal tourist destinations, such as Mazatlán, Sin., or Cabo San Lucas, bcs. Among the little-known modernist proposals for the city is a Primary School Project (Juan O’Gorman, 1932).24 One of the best industrial buildings in the city is the remodeled Offices for Pepsi Cola (Carlos Mijares Bracho, 1952), designed by the noted Mexico City architect. The most innovative building from the 1960s is the Escuela de Derecho (Law School; Teodoro González de León, 1966) at the Universidad de Tamaulipas. This project marked the noted architect’s reinterpretation of traditional patios, interest in massive linearity, and innovative use of concrete. The school is organized as two separate blocks, one housing classrooms and professors’ offices, and the other, administration, seminar rooms, a library, and a cafeteria. These blocks define a large 66-by-197foot court shaded by a long span of concrete beams that form a brise-soleil that also shades the glazing at each side of the court. One end of the court serves as the entrance to the facility, and the other connects to the campus. Like Paul Rudolph, González de León used hammered concrete to reveal the colored stone aggregate.

50  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Escuela de Derecho (Law School), Tampico, Tamps. (Teodoro González de León, 1966); from Teodoro González de León and Miquel Adrià, Teodoro González de León: Collected Works; courtesy of the architect

for recreation and water sports, with several residential areas on its edges. The Club de Regatas Corona is a private yacht club that organizes several fishing tournaments throughout the year. The memorable Centro de Convenciones y Exposiciones (Eduardo Terrazas, 2008) is located on the edge of the Laguna del Carpintero and is experienced like a mimetic hill in the landscape with its gently curved roof. It houses a large, flexible exhibition space surrounded by a perimeter of circulation area and services that are glazed and offer views to the lagoon. Adjacent to it is the Espacio Cultural Metropolitano (Eduardo Terrazas, 2004), which provides important public amenities for the region. It includes the “Mediateca” with information technology, an educational services area, a library, a flexible experimental theater, an 1,182-seat theater on two levels, a temporary exhibits gallery, permanent archaeological and ethnographical collections of the Museum of Huasteca Culture, a restaurant, and covered parking. The Puente Tampico (Ing. Modesto Armijo and COMEC Ingenieros, 1998) spans the Río Pánuco where it

Hospital General, Tampico, Tamps. (Enrique Yáñez, 1967); photo Archivo de Arquitectos Mexicanos de la Facultad de Arquitectura de la UNAM

He went on to elaborate his highly personal monumental sculptural vocabulary in the design of numerous government and institutional buildings throughout Mexico.25 The Hospital General Tampico (Enrique Yáñez, 1967) is organized as a courtyard scheme where the lower volumes pinwheel around a nine-story block with a distinctive precast concrete brise-soleil. Less than six blocks away from Tampico’s historical downtown, a palm-lined linear park creates welcome coolness and stippled light and rings the Laguna del Carpintero. A parklike setting is also offered by the Panteón Municipal (anon., 1838–1920) that was the city’s early cemetery, with neoclassical tombs and mausoleums. Other public parks include Fray Andrés de Olmos Park and San Pedro Park, an ecological park with walking paths and striking views of the lagoon. The Laguna Chairel forms an important water reservoir for the region and is also used

Centro de Convenciones y Exposiciones, Tampico, Tamps. (Eduardo Terrazas, 2008); photo ERB

Puente Tampico, Tampico, Tamps. (Ing. Modesto Armijo and COMEC Ingenieros, 1998); photo ERB

Tamaulipas  51

Canal Proposal (Canal de la Cortadura), Tampico, Tamps. (Mario Schjetnan/GDU, 2002); rendering Grupo de Diseño Urbano (GDU)

empties into the Gulf of Mexico and is one of the most extraordinary bridges in the hemisphere. It has a total length of 5,062 ft., is 59 ft. wide, and is divided into four lanes with two pedestrian walkways. The clearance over the Río Pánuco is 180 ft. to permit the passage of large ships into the port, and the bridge was designed to withstand the severe hurricanes of the Gulf of Mexico. Tectonically, two shaped, articulated suspension support towers act in compression for the cable-stayed bridge in a semifan arrangement, and also act as tension cables that support the bridge. The bridge uses an orthotropic steel deck girder for a central section of the 1,182-foot-long main span, while the rest of the main span and the short lateral spans are prestressed concrete girders. Both steel and concrete deck girders have the same external shape. The dynamic analysis of the bridge under turbulent cyclonic winds, the geometry and stress control of the bridge during erection, and revision of the structural project used the French “Scanner” computer program. The bridge makes a new landmark for the city and is best experienced both at a distance from the city as a profile against land, water,

CRIT Tampico, Tampico, Tamps. (Sordo Madaleno Arquitectos, 2009); photo by Fernando Cordero, courtesy Sordo Madaleno Arquitectos

52  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico and sky and by crossing the bridge at high speed through the filigree web of support cables in a motorized vehicle.26 The Canal Proposal (Mario Schjetnan/GDU, 2002–) is an intelligent and thoughtful urban design and landscape proposal that links nodes of activity in the city and is vital for capitalizing on the unique cultural and natural assets of the city. One of the best recent works in the city is the socially responsible center for disabled children, CRIT Tampico (Sordo Madaleno Arquitectos, 2009). Extending the color-saturated wall-dominant vocabulary of Luis Barragán and Ricardo Legorreta, the project is composed of six interconnecting elements that define outdoor green spaces that are related to physical therapy areas inside.27 Contiguous with Tampico is the city of Altamira. Its cathedral (anon., 19th c.) is a solid, austere, earthbound block with a few minimal details, such as a subtle cornice. The Presidencia Municipal (anon., ca. 1928) is an abstracted neoclassical composition. The Palacio de Justicia (anon., ca. 1945) is a modernist Wrightian composition of interlocking volumes executed in brick. Tampico also occupies a fanciful place in the U.S. imagination. Joseph Hergesheimer’s novel Tampico (1926) tells the story of expatriate lives in the city; John Huston’s motion picture The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) is set in Tampico in its opening scenes; Jimmy Buffett sang about his experiences in the city in “Tampico Trauma” (1977), and parts of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland are a fanciful version of the plaza and docks of early-nineteenth-century Tampico.28 Some of the best and most memorable vernacular architecture in the state lies in the smaller towns near Ciudad Victoria and in the hot, humid coastal plain near Tampico. This architecture utilizes local materials; thatched huts along the coastal plain and a hybrid stone masonry and thatched roofs farther inland are some of the most beautiful architecture in the state. In contrast to the hightech Puente Tampico, only a few miles after crossing the bridge into the state of Veracruz is La Ribera, a lush tropical lagoon with rustic fresh-seafood restaurants. This place is built as large, vernacular open-air palm ramadas, with some that sit on thin poles over the shallow lagoons of the Lagunas de Tamiahua. These utilize on-site materials and traditional building techniques, including palm fronds, thin poles from trees, and handmade tied connections from wrapped palm leaf.

Nuevo León  53

Nuevo León Q: What is the difference between a young person in Monterrey and one in New York City? A: The young person in Monterrey is more polite . . . and speaks better English. —A revealing joke overheard in Monterrey, NL, during the fall of 2003

Geography Because of its proximity to the mountains of the Sierra Oriental, the geography of Nuevo León is characterized by extreme contrasts. The eastern portion of the state lies in the midst of this mountain chain and has a subtropical climate and vegetation, while the northern and western plains are primarily arid scrub due to the range blocking the coastal moisture from the Gulf of Mexico. Several rivers pass through the Sierra Madre Oriental, including the Río Salado in the north, the Río Conchos, and the Río Santa Catarina, which flows through the mountain valleys of Monterrey and can become a torrent during the rainy season. These rivers also provide hydroelectric power, which, along with large discoveries of natural gas, supply plentiful energy resources for Monterrey and Nuevo León as Mexico’s industrial and economic giant. Although the state has only a narrow strip of land bordering the United States, the connection to Texas and the United States has been extremely influential in the development of the state.

History Chichimeca nomadic tribes settled near the area of what is now Monterrey prior to Spanish colonization, and the few works of architecture that have survived are cave paintings and petroglyphs in the Cañón de la Huasteca and near the town of Mina on the outskirts of Monterrey. During the colonial era, Spaniards began to settle in the region under the leadership of Luis de Carvajal y de la Cueva (1582–1583), and by the end of the eighteenth century the “Reino de Nuevo León” included Tamaulipas, Coahuila, Zacatecas, Durango, and parts of San Luis Potosí, Texas, and New Mexico. The state was the site of several important battles during Mexico’s War of Independence from Spain (1810–1821).

Map of Nuevo León; portion of Mexico map, CAW

Following independence, the current state boundary was established (1824), and the first federal constitution of Mexico was written in Monterrey (1824–1825). During the mid-nineteenth century, Santiago Vidaurri (1809–1867) created the combined state of Nuevo León y Coahuila (1856), which he controlled as a virtually independent nation. During the U.S. Civil War (1861–1865), Yankee naval blockades closed off all Gulf ports, including

54  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico those of Texas. Confederate agents established alternative trade routes through Northern Mexico, and this lucrative trade set the stage for Monterrey’s dominance as an industrial center after the arrival of the railroads. After the railroads were built (1882), Northern Mexico became dominated by the industrial and economic colossus of Monterrey. The post–World War II nationwide agenda for industrialization only increased industrial production, and Monterrey has continued to grow unabated.

Plutarco Elías Calles visited the town (1928) to be healed. Niño Fidencio performed cures in specific places in the town, including a pepper tree that serves as a place for offerings and a mud puddle in which his followers bathed. According to his devotees, Fidencio also continues to work miracles through objects called “little boxes.” The devotion to Niño Fidencio plays a significant part in the town’s economy through tourism, the sale of religious objects and religious services, and pilgrimages during the weeks of October 17 and March 19.

Bustamante North of Monterrey is the town of Bustamante. The town’s intimate main church, Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel (anon., 18th–19th c.), has a relatively flat front façade that presents a shaped espadaña against the sky to the town’s principal plaza. The arched entrance is flanked by a pair of engaged columns that support an entablature. A narrow window above lets light into the choir, and above it is a niche with a sculpture of the church’s patron saint. The interior features a crucifix, “El Señor de Tlaxcala” (anon., 17th c.), that was brought by indigenous people from Tlaxcala who were early settlers of the town.

Mina and Espinazo Mina is named for the Spanish insurgent general Francisco Javier Mina, who fought for Mexican independence. Vegetation in this region consists of several types of desert bushes, including huisache, lechuguilla, sotol, and several endemic plants, among them candelilla, damiana, la gobernadora, hojasen, and mariola. It remained isolated from the Centralist government and the rest of Mexico throughout the late eighteenth and nineteenth century, and endured violent Comanche and Apache raids from Texas, becoming known as the tierra de guerra viva (land of fierce war). The adobe Hacienda del Muerto is a former agricultural and livestock ranch that served as a fort during many battles, was later abandoned, and remains in ruins. In 1989, mammoth fossils were discovered and the Bernabé de Las Casas paleontology museum was established. Nearby, the town of Espinazo, on the border of Coahuila and located along the railroad line to Piedras Negras, Coah., is a pilgrimage site for El Niño Fidencio (1898–1938), a famous Mexican curandero (healer). Although the Catholic Church does not recognize him as a saint, his following extends throughout Northern Mexico and the American Southwest, where he is considered a “folk saint,” and he is revered by the Fidencista Christian Church. Niño Fidencio began to perform healings in 1921, and even President

Monterrey Any visitor to Monterrey will quickly notice the uniqueness of this city among cities in all of Mexico. It lies in the Valle de Santa Catarina, surrounded by a memorable range of distinctive, craggy, jagged mountains with distinct shapes and names such as La Silla (The Saddle) and La Mitre (The Miter), which embrace, form edges around, and direct the growth of the city. They provide Monterrey with a sense of intimacy and also a constant awareness of the contrasting landscapes of nature and urbanization. These mountains also create a unique ecosystem, as they block moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, and frequent rains are directed to the Río Santa Catarina that flows between these rugged mountains. Monterrey is built among these valleys that create its distinctive climate of rainy winters; mild fall and spring seasons; and hot, humid summers with thunderstorms. In contrast, just a few miles to the west of Monterrey on the road to Saltillo, Coah., moisture is obstructed by the mountains around Monterrey, and the climate dramatically changes to a completely different ecosystem of desert—within a few hundred feet!

Panorama of Monterrey, NL, with La Silla; from Pabellón M tower (Agustín Landa, 2015) under construction, photo courtesy Agustín Landa

Nuevo León  55

Urban plan, Monterrey, NL; drawing by Richard Thurman and Ricardo García-Báez

Prior to Spanish colonization, Chichimeca nomadic tribes settled near the area of present-day Monterrey in small villages along banks of rivers, where they built housing of impermanent materials. After several failed attempts at Spanish settlement, Monterrey was founded in 1596 when Diego de Montemayor arrived with twelve families and settled in the valley. These early founders of Monterrey had lofty aspirations for the small colonial town, ambitiously naming it Ciudad Metropolitana de Nuestra Señora de Monterrey (for Gaspar de Zúñiga y Acevedo, Count of Monterrey and Viceroy of New Spain). This “metropolitan” vision was prescient because today the municipalities of Apodaca, Escobedo, Guadalupe, San Pedro, Santa Catarina, and Monterrey itself, which were all formerly small separate towns, have been assimilated into metropolitan Monterrey. The rich grasslands surrounding the city were ideal for cattle ranching, sheep raising, goat herding, and related activities that dominated the local economy. Even today, carne asada (grilled beef ), cabrito (baby goat roasted on a

spit), and glorias (caramels made from scalded goats’ milk from nearby Linares) form a distinctive part of regiomontano cuisine. One of the best examples of this hacienda ranching economy surrounding Monterrey at this time is the Hacienda San Pedro de Zuazua (anon., 1680–early 19th c.), with its memorable tower and undulating cornice against the sky that reinterprets the Islamic ornamental pattern for water. The sprawling complex is organized around four courtyards surrounded by buildings with a rough plaster finish over ashlar stone. Today, the complex is a museum and archive of the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León (UANL) with an open-air theater, three large exhibition halls, a library, and an auditorium. In 1803, Monterrey was a small town on the north bank of the Río Santa Catarina with only 7,000 inhabitants. As a regional urban-economic system weakly connected to the dominant economy of Central Mexico and Mexico City, it held little promise for future importance. In contrast to other towns in Northern Mexico, mining was of little importance, and the city was primarily a religious and

56  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico administrative center. The nascent town was planned as a loose grid that deformed to accommodate the acequias (irrigation ditches) that watered the town and aligned with a portion of the river. While the original street grid largely remains in the central city, the last remaining portion of this colonial and nineteenth-century urban fabric is preserved as the Barrio Antiguo (restoration by Rocío Garza Leonard, 1988–1992), now a mostly gentrified and chic nighttime destination in the city with “yuppie” bars, restaurants, and art galleries. The town’s status as a regional religious center was reflected in the construction of the Catedral Metropolitana de Nuestra Señora de Monterrey (anon., 1626–1833), with a neoclassical bell tower that was added later (1891– 1899). The current clock in the bell tower was installed in

Catedral Metropolitana de Nuestra Señora de Monterrey, Monterrey, NL (anon., 1626–1833; bell tower, 1891–1899); postcard, MF, ERBPC

Palacio Municipal, Monterrey, NL (Ing. Antonio Salas, 1785, 1818– 1887; façade, Papias Anguiano, 1852); photo ERB

1904, replacing an earlier one (1786). During the Mexican-  American War, the cathedral was heavily damaged by bombardment and its use as a magazine for ammunition. The reconstruction left the interior austere and abstracted, while the apse features the paintings of the noted modernist painter Ángel Zárraga. To the north, the Capilla de los Dulces Nombres (anon., 1833; restored in 1945) was fortunately spared during the construction of the Macroplaza. Its heavy, squat massing makes it seem to emerge from the ground; small slit windows bring in a limited amount of light to the interior. It provides a moment of quiet respite in the midst of the bustling city. The Palacio Municipal (Ing. Antonio Salas, 1785, 1818–1887; façade by Papias Anguiano, 1852) is a good example of the urban portales and courtyard architecture of the period. Until 1978 it was used for municipal functions, and today it is adaptively reused as the Museo Metropolitano de Monterrey. During the Mexican-American War (1843–1846), Monterrey was occupied by U.S. forces, and traces of the war can still be seen if one carefully examines the city’s landscape. The Mexican defense trenches are faintly visible on the back side of the Cerro del Obispado above the colonial Archbishop’s Palace (Bishop Rafael José Verger, 1787– 1797); they were overrun during the foggy early-morning hours in 1846, which led to the capture of the city. Today the palace is adaptively reused as the Museo Regional de Nuevo León (1956). Although the war was devastating in terms of the loss of human life, national prestige, and lost territory, it did not substantially alter the trajectory of economic growth of the city. A little-known cemetery for the U.S. soldiers who

Nuevo León  57 died during the invasion has now been virtually built over northeast of the center of the city. Other mid-nineteenth-century churches include the Basílica Nuestra Señora del Roble (Lisandro Peña, 1853– 1905; remodeled 1964), composed as an austere Roman basilica, with a Romanesque campanile. It now sits at a busy urban corner and is entered through a gate and a large portico with an elaborate golden mural program devoted to the apparition of the Virgin Mary. The austere interior is framed by rows of columns terminating at a baldachino above the altar. Nearby, to the west, the Iglesia del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús (anon., 1874–1902; bell tower by Gabino Elizondo, ca. 1915) is sited across from a lush park. It utilizes an austere, crisp neoclassical vocabulary with an elaborate single tower expressed as five diminishing levels over the main entry, a precursor to churches of this type in Chihuahua. The narrow, eclectic neoclassic church is organized as a single nave with a transept with minor entrances. The ceiling features eleven shallow domes lit with artificial lighting from cut glass and metal chandeliers. The strategy of the single tower at the entry is related to the Templo de San Antonio (Refugio Reyes, 1896–1908) in Aguascalientes.

Iglesia del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús, Monterrey, NL (anon., 1874– 1902; bell tower, Gabino Elizondo, ca. 1915); photo ERB

Basílica Nuestra Señora del Roble, Monterrey, NL (Lisandro Peña, 1853–1905; remodeled 1964); photo ERB

Monterrey’s primary role as a regional administrative and religious center in the colonial era radically changed at the end of the nineteenth century. Active commerce with the southern U.S. states was reflected in increased manufacturing activities and the construction of a major textile factory (1856). During the U.S. Civil War (1861–1865), the city became a trade and vital distribution center to foreign markets for Southern cotton to circumvent the Union naval blockades, creating the basis of many family fortunes in the city. After temporarily declining in importance in the 1870s, Monterrey expanded dramatically in the 1880s as both foreign and national capital was attracted by special tax laws introduced by Governor and General Bernardo Reyes that encouraged industrialization. The availability of adequate water supplies, a relatively skilled work force, and the proximity to U.S. markets were the catalysts for

58  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico industrialization and forged the distinctive entrepreneurial character of regiomontanos. In 1880, the city had 30,000 residents, which doubled to 60,000 by 1900, and 79,000 in 1910 when Monterrey became the fourth-largest city in Mexico.1 In 1882, the arrival of the railroads linked the city not only to Mexico City and the port of Tampico but also to the United States with its additional network of railroads and ports to the markets of Europe and the rest of the world. As a result, many banking institutions were founded that led to the rapid modernization of Monterrey. The Plaza Zaragoza (1692; remodeled ca. 1892) was renovated as an outdoor garden room in the rapidly industrialized city, and industry and commerce became inseparable players in the development of the city. Unlike other cities in Mexico, Monterrey was a city whose image was largely formed by engineers beginning in the late nineteenth century. The first train station from the railroad era was the Estación del Ferrocarril del Golfo (Isaac S. Taylor, 1891) that was designed by the prominent St. Louis, MO, arch­- 

itectural firm. The station was sited at the then northern edge of Monterrey and served as an entry gate for the city that faced the rolling plains of Nuevo León, south central Texas, and the United States. It features a centralized fivestory rectangular mass of rough, Cycladic stone with circular towers at each corner and a picturesque, steeply sloping roof with dormers. This is flanked by two-story wings on each side with brick façades and vertical slots of windows that sit below a hip roof with dormers. A wide veranda at the ground floor wraps around the entire composition and offers shade, coolness, and protection from weather. The Richardsonian Romanesque vocabulary would have been familiar to arriving visitors from the United States, and it symbolized the Anglo-American and globalized aspirations of the city. The facility functioned as the main rail station until 1930, and later was restored and adaptively reused as the museum La Casa de Cultura (1976). In 1883, Monterrey established its first urban transit lines, the Ferrocarril Urbano, using mule-drawn trams, and another company, the Ferrocarril de Monterrey y

Estación del Ferrocarril del Golfo, Monterrey, NL (Isaac S. Taylor, 1891); photo ERB

Nuevo León  59 Topo-Chico, built a tramway to the mineral baths north of town in 1887. Electric tramways appeared when the Monterrey Railway, Light & Power Co. opened the suburban route to Topo-Chico in 1907. In 1930, the tramway was acquired by the Sociedad Cooperativa de Tranviarios y Autobuseros de Monterrey (Tram and Bus Workers Cooperative), which closed the trams in 1932.2 Thus, mule and horse trams had run for only twenty-four years, and Monterrey’s electric trolley cars had run for only twenty-five years, an early indication of Monterrey’s love affair with motor vehicles. The tax exemption laws of Governor Reyes spurred the birth of the “mother industry” of Monterrey, the beer brewing that was the catalyst for related industries. The Cervecería Cuauhtémoc (Ernest C. Janssen and Don José María Siller, builders, 1898–1905; restoration architect, Juan Luis Talamantes, 1966–1980) was a brewery by the noted nineteenth-century St. Louis, MO, architectural firm. (The company still makes the well-known Bohemia, Carta Blanca, and Dos Equis brands.) In 1907, a 1.7-mile track was constructed between the cervecería and the Ferrocarril Nacional station. The brewery complex is composed of a series of Victorian brick buildings for the different processes of brewing beer. The main building is a five-story brick block that utilizes a Victorian neoclassical vocabulary. The flat façade is subtly articulated with inscribed classical orders, white trim moldings, and window fenestration. The ground floor is expressed as a base with a differentiated window system, with a keystone above each arched window; the next two floors have double-story, shallow engaged brick pilasters and tall rectangular windows with arched windows above; the top floor is lighter and steps back from those below. The dominant element is a centralized tower that contains the groundfloor entry, with vertical fenestration set in shallow arched openings, crowned by a hexagonal tower cupola. In contrast to the intricacy of the exterior façades, the interior floors of each block are expressed as simple, open continuous loft spaces. These are supported by columns with steel beams and shallow brick vaults spanning between. The complex was adaptively reused (1977) as the Museo de Monterrey, the city’s museum for contemporary painting. The new building program includes a large series of exhibition spaces, bookstore, library, café, and administration. It serves as Monterrey’s primary collection of modern art from Mexico and Latin America, with a strong permanent collection as well as temporary exhibits. Today, light from tall vertical windows at each side offers flexible exhibition space. Glass bottles for the brewery necessitated the creation

Cervecería Cuauhtémoc, Monterrey, NL (Ernest C. Janssen and Don José María Siller, builders, 1898–1905; restoration, Juan Luis Talamantes, 1966–1980); MCI

of the Vidriera Monterrey S.A., a glass-manufacturing facility sited close to the railroad tracks on what was then the northern edge of the city; the building has been transformed into the Museo del Vidrio (Glass Museum; anon., 1909; restoration architects, Óscar Martínez and Eliseo Garza, 1992). The carefully choreographed promenade is particularly memorable in this museum, and the materiality and expressive details of the project link glass objects with local culture and industrial processes. The well-crafted brick complex includes a vertical, crisp freestanding redbrick building with tall wooden double-hung vertical windows and a steeply sloped roof with dormer windows. The interior features intricate tile floors with slender columns and a ceiling of narrow wood planks. This complex has been converted into a museum with a permanent collection on two floors, with the attic floor featuring the evolution of glass manufacture from its arrival to Mexico in the seventeenth century to the industrial development and diverse production techniques of the present. After passing through this comprehensive exhibit, the visitor experiences a framed view through a glazed opening into the current glass factory, thus linking older objects and manufacturing processes to contemporary glass-  production methods as glass bottles pass before the visitor on a conveyor belt. The visitor then moves to an adjacent storage section of the former factory with massive, thick brick masonry walls, reminiscent of ancient Roman construction, and kilns that feature rotating exhibits of glass artworks by national and foreign artists. In some respects, this recalls the promenade of Carlo Scarpa at his noted Palazzo Vecchio Museum in Verona, where interventions

60  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Museo del Vidrio (Glass Museum), Monterrey, NL (anon., 1909; restoration, Óscar Martínez and Eliseo Garza, 1992); photo ERB

in an older building relate to local culture and tectonic practices. The museum concludes with a gift shop selling local glass objects, and a refreshing café for coffee and soft drinks. Later a cardboard production facility for cartons (1936) was created that ultimately became Grupo Industrial Alfa. This was soon followed by a metal fabrication facility that initially produced bottle caps and soon evolved into the largest steelworks in Latin America, located on the then eastern edge of the city. Thus, Monterrey embraced the values of modernity wholeheartedly, as well as the values of progress, engineering, industrial production, and entrepreneurship.3 The Compañía Fundidora de Fierro y Acero de Monterrey (master plan by a U.S. company; components from

Pittsburgh, PA, 1903) was a foundry for steel and iron designed by engineers and the first of its kind in Latin America. With good railroad connections, raw materials came to Monterrey from Durango, Coahuila, Colima, and Oaxaca. This company served as the engine of Monterrey’s industrial growth, and the sopladores (blast furnace chimneys) of the former foundry appear on the crest of the state of Nuevo León. Although steel production has largely shifted to Monclova, Coah., and elsewhere, the foundry continues to play a major role as a new public symbol in the life of the city. The complex was transformed into an innovative, largescale sculpture in a huge public park for the city as the Parque Fundidora (Eduardo Terrazas, original unbuilt master plan, 1988; Enrique Abaroa, built master plan,

Nuevo León  61 1997–1998) that was funded as a joint public-private effort. Open-air tents lie under the rusting remains of the foundry’s smokestacks, while the blast furnaces are surrounded by grassy areas. The complex symbolizes the industrial roots of the city and is one of the most innovative and ambitious recent urban design projects of Monterrey and adjoins the Cintermex Convention and Exhibition Center. The park now has an amusement park, Plaza Sésamo (Sesame Street); an auditorium; a baseball field; and art and film museums, as well as a racetrack within it for Indy car CART races. The Cineteca-Fototeca de Nuevo León (anon., ca. 1904; Héctor Domínguez, restoration architect, 1997–1998) is a dual exhibition space for plastic arts and film. The  Pinacoteca-Centro de las Artes (anon., ca. 1904; Héctor Domínguez, restoration architect, 1997–1998) is another adaptive reuse of the former foundry buildings as an art museum. The Pinacoteca houses a two-level auditorium space as well as a large exhibition space for traveling exhibits. One of the most undervalued works of architecture in the city and all of Northern Mexico is the Templo de Nuestra Señora de Dolores (anon., 1909), a magnificent BeauxArts composition. The façade is relatively restrained: a pair of columns with an unusual pediment frame the entry, flanked by a pair of stubby towers on each side. The memorable interior is another matter, with a richly layered Latin cross plan composed with engaged, bracketed columns set in a dark Victorian color scheme of cream, pale green, plum, and aged gold leaf. The cupola at the crossing dramatically lights the interior and focuses light on the altar with its retablo that is composed as a freestanding temple of columns in the apse. The visual effect is stunning,

Compañía Fundidora de Fierro y Acero de Monterrey, Monterrey, NL (master plan by a U.S. company, components from Pittsburgh, PA, 1903); postcard, published by Sonora News Company, ERBPC

Parque Fundidora, Monterrey, NL (original unbuilt master plan, Eduardo Terrazas, 1988; built Enrique Abaroa, 1997–1998); photo ERB

but unfortunately, the church has not received the maintenance it deserves and is in need of a new roof, exterior waterproofing, and interior restoration, and will hopefully soon receive the critical attention it deserves. From the Porfiriato onward, foreign architects designed significant buildings in Monterrey, including architects from San Antonio, TX, and St. Louis, MO, both of which had important railroad connections to Monterrey during this period. One of the most important was the expatriate English and San Antonio–based architect Alfred Giles, who received numerous important commissions and designed many important buildings in Monterrey. The Banco Mercantil de Monterrey (Alfred Giles, 1901) is a three-story commercial block composed as a two-story base with vertical windows at the ground floor and arched windows above, and an upper story of paired windows. The crisp stone carving is some of the best craftsmanship in the city. The memorable circular corner entrance has an exquisitely fabricated wrought-iron gate for the outdoor

62  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

(above) Templo de Nuestra Señora de Dolores, Monterrey, NL (anon., 1909); postcard, M. M. López Foto, ERBPC (right) Banco Mercantil de Monterrey, Monterrey, NL (Alfred Giles, 1901); Sandoval Fot., MCI

entry and a balustraded balcony at the top floor. The façade is surmounted by a thick cornice with shaped, carved ornaments with balustrades between that create an elaborate profile against the sky; the corner ornament features the date of construction and the ornaments on each side appear with Mexico’s national symbol of an eagle grasping a snake. The interior at the banking floor features a heavy bracketed ceiling set on wooden Corinthian columns and elaborate paneling and wrought screens at the teller windows. La Reinera (Alfred Giles, 1901) is a two-story commercial block with cladded brick walls and cast-iron columns that was one of the most elegant clothing stores in the city. It is a more restrained, flatter, and tighter version of the Banco Mercantil de Monterrey and again features a prominent circular corner entrance with an elaborate wroughtiron gate and a clock at the shaped ornament at the parapet. The ground floor is expressed as a pragmatic storefront

at the sides with arched windows above surmounted by a balustrade. The Puente San Luisito (Alfred Giles, 1908) spanned the Río Santa Catarina and connected Calles Juárez and Querétaro. This was one of the most innovative urban design projects ever to appear in Monterrey, as it offered a covered bridge connection and market between the old downtown and the emerging neighborhoods on the south side of the river. The interior of the bridge housed the market, with stalls for small merchants, a kind of regiomontano version of the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, Italy. It offers useful urban design lessons today for cities that are separated by riverbeds or freeways. The Arco de Independencia (Alfred Giles, 1910) is a memorial arch to commemorate the centennial celebrations of Mexico just before the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution. It was sited as a northern gateway to Monterrey along the then stately main commercial thoroughfare

Nuevo León  63

Puente San Luisito, Monterrey, NL (Alfred Giles, 1908; now demolished); drawing by Catherine A. Learoyd

Casa de los Castillón, Monterrey, NL (anon., 1901); photo ERB

Arco de Independencia, Monterrey, NL (Alfred Giles, 1910); photo ERB

of the city. The composition reveals the nationalistic ideals of the Porfiriato and the embracing of modernity and globalization, not only with a foreign architect but also by utilizing fabricated components from the United States. A sturdy, thick base/wall with engaged composite

columns holds Mexico’s national symbol of an eagle in cast bronze above. A thin arch springs from this base/wall surmounted by a cast heroic female figure of “Independence.” The strong female figure looks clearly and bravely into the future, casts off the chains of Spanish rule, and proudly presents a globe labeled “Mexico” to the world. Today, although the monument is in the middle of an extremely busy intersection teeming with the noise and smell of automobile exhaust, it still lends dignity to the commercial district and is a very public reminder of Monterrey’s and Mexico’s links to the Porfiriato. Miraculously, the monument has also managed to avoid major damage from auto accidents. El Panteón del Carmen (Alfred Giles, 1892) is entered through a neo-Gothic monumental gate that leads to a necropolis of eclectic, neoclassical, neo-Gothic, and Victorian family tombs and mausoleums. Other notable projects by Giles include the Droguería de León (1910), now demolished, and the Casino de Monterrey (1921–1922), now extensively remodeled. One of the most elegant residences from this period is the Beaux-Arts-inspired Casa de los Castillón (anon., 1901). This two-story building steps back from the street

64  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico behind a wrought-iron fence that makes a small garden at the street. Pairs of arched vertical windows with elaborate wrought-iron balconies penetrate the horizontally striated, taut stone façade with rounded corners and an elaborate cornice. The Palacio de Gobierno (Ing. Francisco Beltrán, 1895– 1909; restored 1985–1991) reflected Mexico’s nationalistic aspirations of the Porfiriato and was initiated by the energetic governor Bernardo Reyes. This memorable twostory building is organized around a large paved central courtyard with outdoor circulation under covered openair arcades at each level that are decorated with painted ornamentation on plaster. Four smaller secondary courts allowed light and air into the building and are now enclosed by glass roofs, including a rear service court that provides a secondary service access from the rear. The main façade features a portico at the scale of the city, facing the Plaza Zaragoza, which has monumental statues of national heroes and is still used for patriotic public assemblies of schoolchildren. The pediment with a dramatic effigy depicting “Victory” profiled against the sky is supported by eight colossal Corinthian columns. This exquisitely crafted neoclassical building features a crisply carved façade of pinkish gray quarry stone from San Luis Potosí and finely crafted wood windows. The leaded stained-glass windows in the entry hall by G. Pellandini feature heroes from Mexican history, including Padre Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, Benito Juárez, Padre Teresa de Mier y Noriega, Mariano Escobedo, Ignacio Zaragoza, and Gen. Zuazua. One of the best Beaux-Arts hotels of the period, at the southwest corner of the intimate Plaza Hidalgo (anon., 18th–19th c.; formerly the Plaza Mercado and still a quiet, shady place to sit), is the Hotel Ancira (anon. architect from Paris,4 1907–1919). The hotel is a five-story urban

block organized around an interior court with 256 guest rooms. The elaborate stone façade has a monumental ground floor expressed as a base with public functions and colossal classical columns. The middle three floors are expressed as wall dominant with vertical window openings interspersed with engaged pilasters on the façade, ballrooms and meeting rooms at the second floor with balconies that overlook the plaza, and guest rooms above. The most expensive guest rooms on the top floor are composed as part of an elaborate cornice, entablature, and mansard roof. The dominant corner entrance is diagonally across from the plaza and is expressed as a rounded corner framed by colossal-scaled pilasters and vertical oval windows; it has an unusual elaborate semicircular pediment with prominent dentils, elaborate swags, and a female figure that looks onto the plaza below. The corner entrance leads to a two-story lobby that Pancho Villa is said to have ridden through on his horse during the Mexican Revolution at the time of his occupation of the city (1915). Unfortunately, the original lobby was lost to remodeling in the 1950s, although the monumental sweeping staircase remains. At the ground floor on the street side, the

(top) Hotel Ancira, Monterrey, NL (anon. architect from Paris, 1907–1919); photo ERB Palacio de Gobierno, Monterrey, NL (Ing. Francisco Beltrán, 1895– 1909; restored, 1985–1991); postcard, JK, ERBPC

(bottom) Alameda, Monterrey, NL (anon., 1898–1926); photo ERB

Nuevo León  65 original bar and its interior with elaborate carved woodwork has fortunately been preserved. Nearby is the Spanish colonial revival Círculo Mercantil Mutualista (FyUSA [Fomento y Urbanización, S.A.], 1933), though a corner of the building was lost to street widening (1969). The Alameda (anon., 1898–1926) provided a green living room for the city, and during the nineteenth century a number of mansions were built facing the park, of which only a few remain. Gateways (Antonio Decanini Galli, ca. 1900) frame the diagonal corner entrances to the park that has become a promenade and social space for recent immigrants to Monterrey from the countryside. During the Mexican Revolution (1910–1919), Monterrey was occupied by the armies of various warring factions: by the forces of Venustiano Carranza (Oct. 1913), then again by Carranza (April 1914), by Pancho Villa (Jan. 1915), and finally by the forces of Carranza (March 1915).5 Although Nuevo León was a center for conflicts between the forces of Villa and Carranza, even in the worst of times during the war, industry was not brought to a halt. In fact, it is believed that various revolutionary armies placed their thirsty troops’ encampments near the cervecería in exchange for their promise not to destroy the factories of the city. After the revolution, industrialization and urbanization continued, and the population in 1921 reached 88,000 as new furniture and food industries were established. Despite the problems caused by the Great Depression in the United States (1929–1939) and the weakness of world economies, many companies continued to be established. Many firms were fused into conglomerates that combined industrial capacity with banking and commercial expertise to dominate national markets. The changes in the national economic structure as a result of the labor and land reforms of the 1930s also affected Monterrey. The expropriation of the oil industry by the Cárdenas regime in the Tampico-Huasteca and Reynosa areas guaranteed a steady supply of petroleum to meet the energy needs of the region.6 New suburban residential neighborhoods developed from the 1920s to 1940s as the city grew. The Colonia El Mirador (Lorenzo Zambrano Gutiérrez, developer, 1925) was built on the west side of the city on the grounds of Zambrano’s family estate. Zambrano was a founder of CEMEX and used concrete for the streets and sidewalks to promote his company, which he featured in his magazine Cemento.7 Many of the residences also utilized concrete construction and were designed in the Spanish colonial revival vocabulary that had been imported from Southern California and was popular among movie stars such as

House in La Colonia Obrera, Monterrey, NL (master plan, engineer, builder, Santiago Belden, 1935–1945); photo ERB

Rudolf Valentino. Among the best is a two-story Residence (anon., ca. 1932) expressed as a tower at the street that uses a hybrid art deco–Spanish colonial revival vocabulary. La Colonia Obrera (Santiago Belden, master plan, 1935–1945) was built just to the west of the former La Fundidora steel mill as dense art deco workers’ housing. Through the efforts of Rena Porsen, it has been rediscovered and revalued as quality moderately priced housing near the center of the city. Nearby is the Spanish colonial revival neighborhood of Vista Hermosa (anon., 1932–1940). New major buildings appeared in the downtown and altered the skyline of the city. The Palacio Federal (Ing. Francisco Beltrán and FyUSA, 1928–1930) was one of the earliest and best art deco works and the first tall building in the city. It is organized as a centralized nine-story tower with symmetrical four-story flanking wings. The façades are designed as a traditional base, middle, and top with fenestration organized in strongly vertical bands with pairs of windows at the flanking wings and three grouped windows in a vertical band at the centralized tower, which terminates in an octagonal parapet and shaped cupola. Ascending a flight of stairs to the main floor is a magnificent three-story central hall with the central post and telegraph office that spatially terminates the axis of the Plaza Zaragoza in front of the Palacio de Gobierno across the street. The building is constructed of expressively formed poured-in-place reinforced concrete exterior walls with cast plaster decorative ornament and wood windows, with carved wood panels and tile floor interiors at the entry hall. It also brought the postrevolutionary nationalistic pre-Columbian sculpture program of Mexico City to Monterrey in the design of its sculptural friezes and exterior stairs. The Hotel Monterrey (Eduardo D. Belden Gutiérrez, 1934; now extensively remodeled) was a landmark of the

66  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Palacio Federal, Monterrey, NL (Ing. Francisco Beltrán and FyUSA [Fomento y Urbanización, S.A.], 1928–1930); postcard, publisher unknown, ERBPC

city and an important early exploration of reinforced concrete construction with a clad stone façade. The sevenstory block utilized an abstracted Spanish colonial revival and art deco vocabulary. The façade was organized as a traditional ground floor base, a middle section of five stories, and an articulated top floor. The fenestration at both street façades was ordered with groups of three windows in strongly vertical bands. The memorable octagonal corner that faced the Plaza Zaragoza and the mountains that surround the city was expressed as vertical bands of single windows between pilasters that terminated as a crenellated tower surmounted by a transparent neon-  illuminated sign that welcomed guests and created a complex profile against the sky. The Hospital Muguerza (Herbert Green and José F. Muguerza Lafón, 1934) is notable for its stepped massing and modern use of an abstracted classical vocabulary. The hospital façade is expressed as a base with a five-story central tower containing the entry, flanking fourstory wings, and three-story wings at each of the corners. Windows are composed as vertical multistory slots. A circular drive creates an entry garden with shaped hedges and flowerbeds. The Hospital Civil (Eduardo Belden and Alejandro Quijano, 1937–1943) is accessed by means of a palm-lined circular drive that creates an entry garden with lawn and flowerbeds. A centralized, strongly vertical entry tower clad in light green terra-cotta tile is flanked by two angled six-story wings. This striking project embraced the idea of technological pregress and is one of the great art deco works in the Americas. The Escuela Industrial Álvaro Obregón (anon., 1928–1930, 1934) makes an urban edge at the street and features a hybrid neo-Gothic and art deco vocabulary with a memorable diagonal two- 

(top) Hospital Muguerza, Monterrey, NL (Herbert Green and Jose F. Muguerza LaFón, 1934); postcard, photographer unknown, ERBPC (center) Hospital Civil, Monterrey, NL (Eduardo Belden and Alejandro Quijano, 1937–1943); postcard, photographer unknown, ERBPC (bottom) Escuela Industrial Álvaro Obregón, Monterrey, NL (anon., 1928–1930, 1934); photo ERB

Nuevo León  67 story lobby at the corner with stained-glass windows by the noted artist Roberto Montenegro (1934). The overwhelming success of the famous Agua Caliente Resort (Wayne and Corinne McAllister, 1927–1928) in Tijuana, BC, led to the construction of the picturesque Spanish colonial revival Topo Chico Resort (Wayne and Corinne McAllister, ca. 1933) on the outskirts of Monterrey, although the project was never completed. The business and technology culture of Monterrey also has made a dramatic impact on the universities of the city, and a concern for education has been a priority since the mid-nineteenth century, when the first Escuela Normal (primary school) was established. In the nineteenth century, the Colegio Civil was established (1870), and it evolved to become the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León (UANL). The UANL Colegio Civil (hospital, Juan Crousset, builder, 1793–1797; fortress, Colegio Seville, Fernando de la Garza, 1870; façades remodeled, FyUSA, 1933– 1939; restored, Juan Casas García and Elisa R. Sánchez, 2004–2007) faces a public plaza and is organized around a series of open-air courtyards. The front façade (1939) is composed in colonial revival mode, thus linking it to the colonial roots of university education in Mexico City in the sixteenth century. The main theater is a kind of secular church with beautifully crafted stained-glass windows by Roberto Montenegro entitled La ciencia, la industria, la agricultura y el arte (Science, Industry, Agriculture, and the Arts; 1934), featuring scenes of progress and industrialization in Monterrey. The 2007 restoration is one of the best in Northern Mexico and serves as a model for similar much-needed projects throughout Mexico. It has uncovered the original building that was buried under layers of thoughtless post-1950 additions. Today the open-air courtyards have been replanted and restored, and well-detailed translucent roofs allow them to be used for assembly and exhibition. The careful restoration creates new exhibition space, reveals the different epochs of the building’s life, and introduces new HVAC and lighting systems; a new rear façade has been composed based on the front façade, which faces a much-needed parking court. The UANL Campus Master Plan (team of UANL School of Architecture faculty, Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, advisor, 1958–1963) was developed on the model of a campus of buildings in a suburban parklike setting, like many in the United States, on what was then the perimeter of the city. A former military base, Ciudad Militar Joaquín Amaro (Ing. Juan Lobeira Castro, 1933–1939), on the campus has been converted to the Pinoteca de Nuevo León. The sleek, aerodynamic one-story facility features a pair of curved, sweeping projecting wings in poured-in-place concrete,

UANL Colegio Civil, Monterrey, NL (hospital, Juan Crousset, builder, 1793–1797; fortress, Colegio Seville, Fernando de la Garza, 1870; façades remodeled, FyUSA, 1933–1939; restored by Juan Casas García and Elisa R. Sánchez, 2004–2007); photo ERB

which feature wrap-around windows that draw the visitor into the entry. The Universidad de Monterrey (UDEM) features the expressive sculptural work Centro Roberto Garza Sada (Tadao Ando, 2013) with its striking entry and receives light through a dramatic narrow court. By 1940, when the national political and economic climate in Mexico promoted massive industrialization, Monterrey was able to take advantage of this policy. Like Mexico City, Monterrey grew rapidly with the influx of capital due to the commercial demand for both raw materials and products by the Allied Powers during World War II. In a city whose image was determined in large part by engineers after World War II, hillsides around the city sprouted television and radio transmission towers. Symbols of modernity and technology, such as power lines and radio and television towers, became proudly and unashamedly dominant in the city, set atop major hills and along the Río Santa Catarina. The banks of the Río Santa Catarina became a route for electric transmission towers and a

68  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico freeway, giving Monterrey its image of a city of industry and commerce bustling with economic activity. After World War II, Monterrey became the third-  largest city in the country. Highways linked the city with the U.S. border only two hours away, at Laredo, TX, that in turn linked to the I-35 corridor of San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, and Fort Worth, TX. Besides having the largest iron and steel foundries, the city became a major cement, glass, and beverages producer. With about 90 percent of its urban and suburban fabric largely built after 1945, much of its rich, undervalued historic fabric was destroyed. Monterrey’s love affair with progress and engineering technology evolved from a number of factors, including a culture largely unburdened by appeals to a mythic pre-Columbian or even a colonial past that was largely destroyed in the project of modernization along with its nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century urban fabric; a multiethnic culture marked by religious tolerance and a notably strong Protestant culture; and its proximity to the United States. All of these factors forged a culture of pragmatism, technology, and commerce. A strong sense of a commercial culture of applied technology would lead to the regional development of the extruded metal, glass, structural steel, and concrete industries—materials frequently utilized in post–World War II architecture. Echoing this embracing of modernity, the Iglesia la Purísima (Enrique de la Mora y Palomar with Ing. Félix Candela; Ing. Armando Ravizé Rodríguez, builder, 1940– 1946), on the site of the former colonial church, was one of the earliest modernist churches in Mexico and was widely acclaimed throughout Mexico as a symbol of innovation and progress. La Purísima is a thoughtful investigation of local materials, including poured-in-place concrete, stone, and glass in a traditional Latin cross plan composed of parabolic volumes; tectonically it is composed of a series of parabolic concrete ribs with a thin-shell concrete vault spanning between. Eight smaller-scaled perpendicular vaults intersect the main parabolic vault at its edges and create smaller side altars. A contrasting vertical bell tower made of local stone masonry reminiscent of Neutra’s work in Southern California features an articulated belfry with horizontal slots. The glazed front portal faces a small plaza and features cast bronze sculptures portraying the twelve apostles. In contrast, the opposite façade behind the altar is composed of a curved strip of glazing between the structural vault and an infill wall of local stone masonry. The interior contains the image of La Virgen Chiquita, one of most venerated icons in the city, as many believe Monterrey was miraculously saved during the torrential floods of 1756 due to the intercession

of the Virgin. The sculptures of angels at the bottom of the exterior windows and the Immaculate Conception at the top of the tower are by Adolfo Laubner Mayer (1902– 1967). Other modern painters and sculptors represented include Jorge González Camarena (1908–1980), Herbert Hoffman, Benjamín Molina, Federico Cantú (1908–1990), and Jesús Guerrero Galván (1910–1973). Unfortunately, a series of HVAC window units today mar the project and have been thoughtlessly inserted into the windows of the side altars. It is hoped that the parish and diocese will reconsider the much-needed redesign of a less obtrusive and more integrated HVAC system in the future for this important contribution to Mexico’s and the hemisphere’s architectural culture. This redesign would be an excellent project for any of the many schools of architecture in Monterrey as part of their technical support courses. The church faces an important park, and several prominent

Iglesia la Purísima, Monterrey, NL (Enrique de la Mora y Palomar with Ing. Félix Candela; Ing. Armando Ravizé Rodríguez, builder, 1940–1946); photo ERB

Nuevo León  69 nineteenth-century residences remain, including a BeauxArts Residence (Lorenzo Guinesi, 1909). Notable mixed-use housing projects of the era include the Spanish colonial revival Apartamentos California (Lisandro Peña Jr., 1946) and the streamlined Apartamentos Zambrano (Marcelo Zambrano, 1947). Among the noteworthy cinemas of the period are the Cine Encanto (Luis Fernando Flores García, 1942), the Cine Monterrey (Lisandro Peña Jr., 1947), and the Teatro María Tereza Montoya (Eduardo D. Belden, 1956). The ITESM (Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey) Campus Master Plan (Enrique de la Mora y Palomar, 1942) was a rational, gridded “tartan” plan for the private, nonsectarian university modeled on MIT—unapologetically and proudly devoted to the training of leaders in business, technology, and engineering for the needs of the industry and the business community. The early buildings of the campus were conceived as rational, functionalist, narrow four-story concrete blocks, with the aulas (classrooms) oriented north to south. These had open-air circulation that led to open-air loggias at each floor that served as social gathering places with views to grassy outdoor garden rooms with trees between the blocks. The Rectoría (Enrique de la Mora y Palomar, 1943) acts as the symbolic entry to the campus from the street with a high-relief carved mural with mosaic elements by the noted Mexican painter Jorge González Camarena (1954) that recalls the mural program at the UNAM campus in Mexico City, which heroizes pre-Columbian culture, despite Monterrey’s distinctly different pre-Columbian tradition. Comingling modernist ideas of progress and change with imagery of pre-Columbian divinities, it portrays the struggle between Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca.8 Nearby is the Gymnasium (Ricardo Guajardo, 1965), an expressive sculptural composition of intersecting curved volumes with infill glazing. So successful was this educational model that ITESM campuses have opened up all over Northern Mexico and elsewhere in the country. In the fall, American football is played to large crowds in the poured-in-place concrete Stadium (Maiz Mier, builder, 1950; second-story addition, Eduardo Padilla, 1965). In an interesting hybrid pregame ritual, on the Friday before the big game with the UANL, a piñata of the UANL tiger mascot is kicked around the campus by a group of students, accompanied not by a marching band but by a mariachi group. The suburban planned community of Colonia del Valle San Pedro Garza García (Alberto, Manuel, and Ignacio Santos and Enrique Martínez Abrego, 1943–1946) was established in a former agricultural valley 3 miles south of

(top) ITESM Rectoría, Monterrey, NL (Enrique de la Mora y Palomar, 1943); photo ERB (bottom) ITESM Gymnasium, Monterrey, NL (Ricardo Guajando, 1965); photo Rodolfo Barragán Delgado

Monterrey’s city limits, separated from the city by the Río Santa Catarina and Loma Larga. With relatively flat land on 960 fertile acres; good views; a slightly cooler climate; and the promise of safety, security, and prestige, it soon developed into the wealthiest suburb in all of Mexico. With extremely innovative financing for utilities, infrastructure, mortgages, and public services, it is viewed as a model residential suburb.9 The development is organized around a grand avenue with two roads 230 ft. wide in each direction divided by a tree-lined, landscaped median 98 ft. wide with a walking and jogging trail, not unlike Bel-Air or Beverly Hills in West Los Angeles, CA. The existing irrigation ditches featured large trees that were also integrated into the development. High-end commercial shops, elegant

70  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico restaurants, and popular American restaurant chains line the avenue, with winding residential streets that feed off it and climb the sides of the surrounding hills. Club Campestre, a prestigious social club for elites, moved to the area in 1954, and today a number of other colonias have been added nearby. With the development of some of the most affluent office parks, discos, and restaurants, and with 70 percent of the high-quality educational institutions of the city located nearby, the suburb became an autonomous postindustrial enclave. Today the colonia is navigated by SUVs with tinted glass that take well-dressed mothers talking on cell phones to lunch and luxury shopping, children to exclusive play dates, and teenagers to trendy discos, not unlike North Dallas, TX.10 A controlled tunnel has been constructed through Loma Larga to connect it more directly to central Monterrey. The Hospital del Seguro Social (IMSS; Depto. de Construcciones del IMSS, Guillermo Quintanar and Antonio Serrato; Ing. Antonino Sava, builder, 1952–1959), on the northern edge of downtown Monterrey, recalls Le Corbusier’s unbuilt League of Nations Competition project and is one of the major modernist works of Northern Mexico that deserves wider attention. The hospital is composed as a series of interlocking, interpenetrating, contrasting blocks of five, seven, and ten stories in the form of an H that create two courts on its urban site. An entry court at the street provides a semicircular ramp to an upper entry level at the seven-story brick block with fenestration expressed as horizontal slots. On one side is a five-story concrete block. On the other side is a remarkable ten-story concrete block reminiscent of the work of Erich Mendelsohn, with articulated functions of support, vertical and horizontal circulation, and south-facing patient rooms. It features thin cantilevered concrete slabs at each floor that are curved at the corners and thin horizontal steel guardrails and glazing to suggest the optimism, speed, and movement of modernity, as well as the abstraction of cleanliness and health. South-facing patient balconies at the upper floors were provided for sunning, believed at the time to be extremely helpful in various cures. Other notable modernist work from the period includes the IMSS Building (Depto. de Construcciones del IMSS, Guillermo Quintanar, 1950), the Edificio Peña Blanca (Plácido Bueno Leal, 1951), and the Edificio Gyro, S.A. (Ing. Miguel Osuna Treviño, 1957), which unfortunately is abandoned today. By 1950, the population of the city had increased to 354,000 and almost doubled to 699,000 in 1960. In the 1950s and 1960s, the economy of Monterrey grew even more robust, thanks to secure supplies of gas, oil, and el- 

(top) Hospital del Seguro Social (IMSS), Monterrey, NL (team of IMSS architects; Ing. Antonino Sava, builder, ca. 1950–1958); photo ERB (center) IMSS Building, Monterrey, NL (Depto. de Construcciones del IMSS, Guillermo Quintanar, 1950); photo ERB (bottom) Edificio Gyro, S.A., Monterrey, NL (Ing. Miguel Osuna Treviño, 1957; currently abandoned); photo ERB

Nuevo León  71 ectricity. Migration from within Nuevo León and from the adjacent states of San Luis Potosí, Coahuila, Tamaulipas, and Zacatecas contributed to the expanding population. The city soon outgrew its administrative boundaries as middle- and upper-class subdivisions and squatter settlements appeared in outlying areas and also illegally infringed on national park lands that were set aside during the Cárdenas administration. Emblematic of the U.S. influence on Monterrey is the American School (CRS Architects, 1958), an abstract, tectonically expressive concrete-frame and concrete-shell essay by the well-known Houston-based firm that initially made its mark in school design. The elite private school proudly teaches all of its classes in American English. San José Obrero (Enrique de la Mora y Palomar and Ing. Félix Candela, 1959) was built as a church for workers and their families in an area of new factories that were built in what was then the perimeter of the city. This innovative church is composed of two thin concrete hyperbolic shells that span a tilted concrete structural frame. A freestanding choir loft spatially floats at the rear of the church. Light enters the interior from above at the articulated void between the two structural frames and from the side between the frame and the infill wall. The Umbrella House (Rodolfo Barragán Schwarz, 1958–1959) was an early exploration regarding discrete systems of enclosure. It was distinguished by its very elegant section and a cantilevered umbrella roof that was supported on a single column with a thin non-load-bearing membrane exterior enclosure. The differentiated systems of structure and enclosure are made distinct by a high window at the top of the exterior wall that offered framed views of the surrounding mountains. Unfortunately, the residence has been destroyed. The architect, recalling the project, offers this commentary: I developed the project and supervised the construction for a small house “under a reinforced concrete umbrella.” A company that was related to Félix Candela’s Cubiertas ALA offered this type of structure throughout Mexico at a very low price. In this project, the wood framework was left “hanging” as the interior finish surface, since it was going to be used only for one time and for reasons of economy.11 The Steel House (Rodolfo Barragán Schwarz, 1958– 1960) was designed in what was then the outskirts of Monterrey, NL. The house is located in a neighborhood that was originally a country club with a golf course but was transformed into a middle-class residential neighborhood

(top) San José Obrero, Monterrey, NL (Enrique de la Mora y Palomar and Ing. Félix Candela, 1959); photo ERB (bottom) Analytical model of San José Obrero, Monterrey, NL (Enrique de la Mora y Palomar and Ing. Félix Candela, 1959); Texas A&M Dept. of Architecture graduate students, ERB Col.

in a Master Plan (Mario Pani, ca. 1958). The suburban residential garden site of the house was formed by the curvilinear road system. The residence is a remarkable early essay on the transparency of light steel-frame construction that corresponded to the local industrial base of the important steel industry of Monterrey, Mexico’s industrial center. The house is carefully integrated with its garden site as a series of discrete pavilions connected by covered walkways, reinterpreting the regional tradition of courtyards integrating interior space and garden and responding to the specifics of the site in terms of landscape and climate. This important project is unfortunately little known in the United States—or Mexico for that matter—and should be seen as a parallel development with the well-known Case Study House Program in Southern California that featured architects such as Pierre Koenig, Charles Eames,

72  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico and Craig Ellwood, among others. In discussing the project, Barragán Schwarz states: I became interested in the published work of Charles Eames, Craig Ellwood, and other architects from Southern California who were exploring the use of steel in residential projects. I also had the opportunity to meet John York, an architect who graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, and visited his own house in McAllen, TX, that was built with thin steel columns, joists, and decking. He was a great help in the years to come, as he introduced me to the tricks of fine detailing in light steel construction . . . The Fundidora de Fierro y Acero of Monterrey entrusted me to explore the idea of building an experimental house using their products, to be raffled to obtain funds for the state university. Local companies involved with construction were requested to donate or offer their products at production cost. These factors determined the programmatic and constructive requirements (steel structure, clay and ceramic floors and sunscreens, glass curtains and aluminum frames) . . . The project was executed under constrained time and completed to minimum detail. The supervision was executed (in my absence and with great care) by collaborators from my office who assumed this responsibility, since I departed to begin my graduate studies at the Yale University School of Architecture.12 The Condominio Acero (Ramón Lamadrid with Mario Pani, Ing. Salvador Ortega, 1959) consists of a three-story base expressed as a band of storefront glazing at the ground floor with two stories of taut metal cladding “floating” above. The uppers floors step back from the street with a transitional floor and then a taut thirteen-story tower clad in an alternating system of fixed windows, operable

Steel House, Monterrey, NL (Rodolfo Barragán Schwarz, 1958–1960); courtesy of architect

windows, and fixed metal panels, surmounted by a penthouse. The interior spaces, and especially the lobby, are experienced as a series of complex spatial sequences that indicate the work of a mature architect. There is still much speculation today about the authorship of the building. It is similar to other works by Pani, such as his Condominio en Reforma in Mexico City, which are also curtain-wall skyscrapers that rise from a larger base that completely fills their site and have alternating patterns of transparent and colored glass on their façades. Details such as the handrails on the interior stairs of the Condominio Acero reflect the hand of Pani’s office, which oversaw the development of the construction documents for the project.13 Other notable high-rise towers with similar massing strategies include the Edificio Monterrey (Ricardo Guajardo, Ing. Armando Ravizé Rodríguez, 1960), an austere box with a gridded egg-crate brise-soleil set atop a lightweight base, and Edificio PH (Ricardo Guajardo, 1962). The Condominio del Norte (Edificio Latino; Ricardo Guajardo, Ing. Izmael Garza T., 1962) reflects the cosmopolitan and global nature of Monterrey’s commercial culture and features a bottle of Coca-Cola on its side façade (1993). Among the most significant and undervalued commercial office interiors is the Brancusiadas (Brancusian Notions; Mathias Goeritz, 1984), an homage to Constantin Brancusi in terms of the design vocabulary Goeritz used. Both the Universidad Regiomontana (UR; Bernardo Hinojosa, 2005) and the Universidad de Monterrey (UDEM; Bernardo Hinojosa, 1995), a Catholic university organized on the model of a corporation for training ethical leaders in technology, engineering, and business as well as humanities, were established in 1969. The UDEM campus is set on the edge of a valley on a sloping hillside site organized as rational three- and four-story openair slabs oriented to views of the steep mountains beyond. During the 1970s to 1990s, the city continued its explosive growth, rapidly doubling and tripling in size. The demographic shift toward the perimeter of the city occurred as the population grew from 1,096,000 in 1970 to 1.7 million in 1980. Because Monterrey is set in valleys surrounded by rugged mountains, a rational system of perimeter freeways was not practical to construct. Thus, the Río Santa Catarina became a servicing component, lined by freeways and electric transmission towers, while hills became sites for telephone and television transmission towers. The Batarse House (Rodolfo Barragán Schwarz, 1969– 1970) reflected the increasingly cosmopolitan nature of the city and was designed for a married couple from very different cultural backgrounds (Germany and the Middle East), which became the inspiration for the design.

Nuevo León  73

Condominio Acero, Monterrey, NL (Ramón Lamadrid and Mario Pani, 1959, with Palacio Municipal (Ing. Antonio Salas, 1785, 1818–1887; façade, Papias Anguiano, 1852); photo ERB

Soon two different formulations of “home” were both embraced yet were conflicted. I solved this contradiction by organizing the social part of the program under a great “nomadic tent” and around a “fireplace” and by disposing the bedrooms and family area around a “courtyard.”14 The Aceros Planos Office Building (Rodolfo Barragán Schwarz, 1973–1975) served as a computer systems building for La Fundidora Monterrey steelworks, located nearby

on Avenida Churubusco. The Barragán Schwarz firm won an invited competition for the corporate building complex for this industrial giant of Monterrey, but it was the only building constructed from the original master plan for the complex.15 This two-story office building housed a megacomputer and support office space for information systems. The project is an essay on the modernist ideas of articulated systems of nested enclosure and expands on many of the ideas explored by Eero Saarinen in the John Deere World Headquarters in Moline, Illinois (1963). The

74  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Aceros Planos Office Building, Monterrey, NL (Rodolfo Barragán Schwarz, 1973–1975); photo ERB

materials utilized are, appropriately, steel for the primary structure and the hanging perimeter sunscreen, glass for the exterior skin enclosure, and brick for the vertical circulation and service cores. The relational, classical system of proportions of the façade are based on Francesco di Giorgi’s “Harmonia mundi” proportional system. The project is one of the great buildings produced during this time in Northern Mexico and deserves wider critical attention. The Casa Barragán (Rodolfo Barragán Schwarz, ca. 1984) was designed as the architect’s residence for his family. The house investigates ideas related to flexibility and change over time that typically occur in commercial office buildings, and also reinterprets the organization and rough tactile finishes of traditional courtyard architecture of the region. The reinforced concrete frame structure was designed for an additional floor, and all the plumbing and electrical systems are divided in two zones to allow for future subdivision and conversion into two townhouses. The interior wall partitions are nonstructural to allow for this future transformation. The directional structural bays of space that open to outdoor patios are infilled differently according to their particular functions. The project is experienced as a series of episodic indoor and outdoor rooms, with varying framed views to the garden courtyards and mountains beyond that feature different types of enclosures that filter light.16 Other prominent architects in Monterrey of the 1970s include Tito Camargo, Javier Meléndez, and Andrés González Arquieta. The Centro Cultural Alfa (Fernando Garza Treviño, 1978) is a monumental interactive museum of science and technology sponsored by the Alfa Industrial Group. It is

organized around classicized major and minor cross axes that define the outdoor circulation of the project. The cross axes feature gardens with low walls that lead to striking monumental freestanding figural modernist sculptural pavilions that utilize primary forms. From the parking area, visitors arrive at the minor access through a narrow entry pavilion with a continuous barrel vault that contains a huge glass mural, El Universo, by Rufino Tamayo (1978). Visitors then proceed to the intersection defined as a circular enclosure of the two axes, where they can go forward to an astronomical observatory. They can also move onto the major axis and proceed to a pre-Columbian-inspired garden or to a freestanding monumental museum at the other end. The sculptural massing of the museum is a cylinder tilted 27 degrees, 130 ft. in diameter and 112 ft. tall at its highest point, built of reinforced concrete and clad in aluminum panels. The museum has become the symbol of the entire complex and houses five stories of galleries, interactive exhibits, and an IMAX theater. Returning to their vehicle, visitors leave the complex and pass by an aviary that is expressed as two small globes and a winding path. The architecture reflects the dilemma of the late 1970s in which it was designed, when architects trained in modern architecture were being influenced by the monumental abstracted classicism of Étienne-Louis Boullée and others that was being reexplored by neoconservative postmodernists. Despite the somewhat arbitrary forms, the complex has become a new sculptural landmark for the city, particularly the museum. The New Basilica of Guadalupe (Pedro Ramírez Váz­ quez and Rafael Mijares with Antonio Elosúa, 1975–1981) is a dramatic, articulated sculptural object, not unlike an

Centro Cultural Alfa, Monterrey, NL (Fernando Garza Treviño, 1978); from Wikimedia Commons, Limbo@MX

Nuevo León  75

New Basilica of Guadalupe, Monterrey, NL (Pedro Ramírez Vázquez and Rafael Mijares with Antonio Elosúa, 1975–1981); photo ERB

abstracted pyramidal sacred mountain. It is also an expressive construction of local industrialized materials. The church is on a sloping site on the Cerro de Independencia in the established Colonia Independencia neighborhood, analogous to the Cerro de Tepeyac in the Valley of Mexico where the Virgin of Guadalupe first appeared (1531). The new church is sited in relationship to the existing Antiguo Santuario de Guadalupe (attributed to Anastacio Puga, 1895), and a series of dramatic tipped and juxtaposed roof planes are joined so that the void between is glazed with flowing clerestory stained-glass windows by Ángela Gurría that provide daylight from above. The dramatic interior features highly polished dark marble floors and concrete base walls clad in light-colored marble; the ceiling of the angular roof planes is clad in delicately striated aluminum acoustical panels. The focuses of the church are

the altar, expressed as a solid, earthbound mass, and the portrait of the Virgin, which receives light from above that is bounced against a retablo of steel cables and stars, metaphors for her mantle, creating an ayate virtual (virtual mantle). The side altar further connects this place to Mexico’s “sacred ground,” with a block of gray stone from the Cerro de Tepeyac in the Valley of Mexico. In a sense, it is a scaled-down and more local version of the Shrine of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe in Mexico City, designed by the same architects. Each year around December 9, the church is a terminus for citywide processions to honor the Virgin, when different working-class neighborhoods dress in elaborate pre-Columbian costumes and perform pre-  Columbian-inspired dances with drums and rattles through the city’s streets followed by long lines of parishioners. The city has experienced further growth with the con­- 

76  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico struction of maquiladoras, foreign-owned plants that use low-wage labor to produce/assemble goods exported to the United States. Natural gas piped in from Texas and coal and petroleum from the neighboring states of Coahuila and Tamaulipas were also major sources of industrial activity. This optimism regarding the progress of the city was reflected in the megaproject of the Macroplaza (Eduardo Terrazas, Óscar Bulnes, and others, 1981–1985) that created a huge open void in the middle of the city that entailed the controversial demolition of forty city blocks and streets, obliterating entire neighborhoods of colonial and nineteenth-century urban fabric and destroying 427 separate buildings. According to some reports, entire neighborhoods were declared dangerous to public health and were razed. The resulting, largely empty plaza of 100 acres is one of the largest in the world and larger than St. Mark’s Square in Venice, Red Square in Moscow, or even the Zócalo in Mexico City! This unmitigated urban design disaster is one of the most tragic urban design interventions in the hemisphere. It joins the disastrous public works projects of the 1960s and 1970s that destroyed portions of the downtowns of Fort Worth, TX; El Paso, TX; Tucson, AZ; Phoenix, AZ; and Los Angeles, CA, from which these downtowns may never fully recover. The best part of the Macroplaza project, by far, is the existing nineteenth-century Plaza Zaragoza, at street level with the cathedral and nineteenth-century urban fabric, which is heavily used. It features large shade trees and a more intimate scale. Adjacent to it is an urban-scaled sculpture, Homenaje al Sol, by the noted Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo, that is both ancient and modern, figural

Macroplaza, Monterrey, NL (Eduardo Terrazas, Óscar Bulnes, and others, 1981–1985); photo ERB

(top left) Torre Faro del Comercio, Monterrey, NL (Luis Barragán Morf ín with Raúl Ferrera, 1981–1984); photo ERB (top right) Palacio de Justicia, Monterrey, NL (Rodolfo Barragán Schwarz, 1991); photo ERB (left) City Hall, Monterrey, NL (Jorge Albuerne and Nicolás Jadjopulos, 1973); photo ERB

and abstract. Fortunately, at the edge of the Plaza Zaragoza is one of the few memorable landmarks of the Macroplaza, the Torre Faro del Comercio (Luis Barragán Morfín with Raúl Ferrera, 1981–1984), built to commemorate the centennial of the founding of the Chamber of Commerce in Monterrey and sited to contrast with the cathedral and in empathetic relationship to La Silla and other surrounding mountains. Two narrow poured-in-place concrete slabs, brightly painted reddish orange and closely spaced apart, rise 230 ft. into the air. At night, the top of the monument is equipped with a laser with green lights that points upward into the sky and can be seen from all over the city.17 Near the northern terminus is the Palacio de Justicia (Rodolfo Barragán Schwarz, 1991), a carefully massed project that extends the geometry, exposed poured-in-place concrete, and formal vocabulary of Louis Kahn. The southern terminus of the Macroplaza is marked by an unusual City Hall (Jorge Albuerne and Nicolás Jadjopulos, 1973) raised on pilotis, an odd symbol for a responsive government, as it hovers above its citizens. Although the walls of the courtyard contain a vivid, colorful mural, the busy

Nuevo León  77

MARCO (Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey), Monterrey, NL (Ricardo Legorreta, 1991); photo Lourdes Legorreta, courtesy of Legorreta + Legorreta Arquitectos

streets on both sides fill the courtyard with noise, which limits its usefulness. The MARCO (Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey; Monterrey Museum of Contemporary Art; Ricardo Legorreta, 1991) forms an urban edge and is sited across from the Plaza Zaragoza and adjacent to the cathedral. The 30,000 sq. ft. museum is one of the largest in Latin

America. One-half of its space is used for art exhibits; the remaining space includes an auditorium, a cafeteria, a shop, a library, workshops, and a dazzling central indoor atrium. The front of the building is guarded by a gigantic bronze sculpture, La Paloma (The Dove), by the noted Mexican artist Juan Soriano, that has become a symbol of the museum. Particularly memorable is the beautifully

78  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico composed experience of the architectural promenade through the building with an indoor atrium court that provides the spectacle of the floor of the atrium being flooded by a sheet of water and then drained, providing both a refreshing sound and coolness. The majority of the sloping site that makes up the Macroplaza is a concrete roof deck for a dark, frightening twostory parking structure below, which is completely disconnected from the adjacent sidewalks and streets two stories below and makes dark, scary uninhabited canyons at the edge of the urban fabric. The concrete roof deck does not permit large trees to grow, and it is largely deserted, even on the weekends. A sunken garden makes for a risky “lover’s lane,” a refuge for the homeless, and an outdoor public toilet, while a vulgar fountain with nymphs, Fuente de la vida (Luis Sanguino, ca. 1985), appears as if it was borrowed from the front of a Nieman Marcus in Dallas, TX, or Beverly Hills, CA. The transition to the older Explanada de los Héroes is down a flight of awkward stairs, which are unloved and uninhabited except for a memorable bulbous bronze sculpture, El Caballo (The Horse), by the noted Colombian artist Fernando Botero (2008), that one must walk around while descending the stairs. The other memorable part of the plaza occurs at the northern end of the project on the Explanada de los Héroes, paved in rose cantera with colossal bronze patriotic statues that face the Palacio, which is used for large patriotic assemblies of schoolchildren and on which free music is provided for the evening paseo on the weekends. At the center of the city and perpendicular to the nearby Macroplaza is the Plaza 400 Años (Grupo Ardiex, Enrique Abaroa Castellanos, Eduardo Flores Calderón, 1994). This monumental entry plaza honors the founding of the city of Monterrey with a fountain that dramatically spills into the canal project below. However, the best public space of the plaza is the cool, shaded lower level at the beginning of the canal, which is lined with small stands that offer tasty, inexpensive antojitos (snacks) that working families can enjoy, and where children can delight in splashing their hands in the gurgling water that falls from a large circular opening above. Two-person paddleboats can be rented to traverse the canal, offering a new urban experience. The Paseo Santa Lucía (RTKL Architects, 2007) serves as an urban connector that links the Macroplaza with the Parque Fundidora. It echoes the acequias that once watered the city and the ojo de agua (natural spring) of Santa Lucía and also curiously transforms the typology of the well-known symbol of San Antonio, TX, the River Walk. The most memorable portion of this urban intervention is a brick masonry bridge near the Plaza 400 Años,

Paseo Santa Lucía, Monterrey, NL (RTKL Architects, 2007); photo ERB

Museo de Historia Mexicana, Monterrey, NL (Augusto H. Álvarez and Óscar Bulnes Valero, 1994), and Plaza 400 Años with the Paseo Santa Lucía, Monterrey, NL (Grupo Ardiex, Enrique Abaroa Castellanos, Eduardo Flores Calderón, 1994); photo ERB

which reinterprets the tectonic tradition of the city in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Adjacent to the plaza is the Museo de Historia Mexicana (Augusto H. Álvarez and Óscar Bulnes Valero, 1994), dedicated to the dissemination and preservation of the history of Mexico in Monterrey. The program for the museum includes permanent exhibits, temporary exhibition areas, an auditorium, an additional small seating area with video screens for overflow, an audiovisual library, and an Internet café. The museum is conceived as a neutral loft space that is completely internalized, with services articulated as wedge-shaped figural elements on the perimeter, although the crisply detailed, horizontal stone-clad façade is eerily reminiscent of a corporate building in an office park in

Nuevo León  79 suburban Dallas, TX. Temporary exhibits, administrative offices, and storage are at the ground floor. The most memorable interior space of the museum is a spiral stair at the center of the plan that serves as a sculptural element in a two-story space, links the main levels of the museum, and gives access to the permanent exhibits on the top floor. The well-designed Permanent Exhibition (Jorge Agostini, 1994) is organized into five thematic areas based on the geography, ecology, and history of the country in the preColumbian, colonial, and modern eras. The Museo del Noreste (MUNE; Edmundo Salinas and Manuel Laceras, 2007) is an exploration of the expressive qualities of masonry tectonics, although the cladding is attached to a load-bearing concrete frame. After crossing a bridge over the Paseo Santa Lucía from the Museo de Historia Mexicana, the visitor enters a tall lobby clad in stone and then takes an elevator to the upper floor and descends through the building beginning in the present era and moving down to the pre-Columbian past. The exhibits present a series of interactive scenes of the history of Northeast Mexico, comprising the states of Nuevo León, Coahuila, Tamaulipas, and also Texas, which was an integral part of the history of the region for centuries. The exhibit culminates by returning visitors to the lobby area with its narrow framed views, which provokes the museum goers to rethink their relationship to the city and region. The Metrorrey Project (Metrorey, 1991–1994; stations, Metrorey, 1991) opened its Line 1 as an elevated light rail system that paralleled the old Topo-Chico tram line of 1887. Line 2 (stations by various architects, 1994) began at the former Cervecería Cuauhtémoc, now the Museo de Monterrey. However, the relation of the elevated rail line

Museo del Noreste (MUNE), Monterrey, NL (Edmundo Salinas and Manuel Laceras, 2007); photo ERB

Valdés House, Monterrey, NL (Luis Barragán with Raúl Ferrera, 1981–1983); photo Diego Rodríguez Lozano

Rangel/Mayeux Residence, Monterrey, NL (Cecilia Rangel and James Mayeux, 1995–2000); site section drawing courtesy of architect

to the existing city and the residual space created below it were not well thought out. The later metro lines in Monterrey have learned from this experience and were planned to be underground. South from the downtown, the suburb of Del Valle continued to be developed as an elite residential and commercial enclave. The Valdés House (Luis Barragán with Raúl Ferrera, 1981–1983) is a little-known late work of Mexico’s best-known twentieth-century maestro and signature architect. This inward-focusing pinwheel composition was designed at the end of his career when he was in poor health. Few architects in the city have actually been inside this private residence, and it is not open to the public. The Milmo Studio (Cecilia Rangel and James Mayeux, mid-1980s), a 1,500-square-foot studio at the rear of an existing residence on a heavily landscaped lot, is an essay in expressive construction and light.18 The building has two major spaces, which are tectonically differentiated: a studio for painting and drawing that is conceived as a

80  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico pristine white-plastered and marble-floored counterpart to the inwardly focused brick and wood library. The interior of the tall, rectangular studio opens out to a 19-foot-high window-wall to the north, admitting warm, oblique morning and evening light at midsummer, and cool, indirect daylight at other times of the year. In contrast to the studio, the 15-by-15-foot square library remains shaded much of the day under a brick dome punctuated by an oculus, which transmits a shaft of sunlight that tracks the sun’s journey across the floor. The source for this light is hidden, as a bóveda (a traditional shallow brick dome utilizing handcraft construction techniques) conceals the oculus from view. The Rangel/Mayeux Residence (Cecilia Rangel and James Mayeux, 1995–2000), set in Colonia Olinalá on the slopes of the Sierra Madre Oriental overlooking San Pedro, is conceived as two distinct tectonic and spatial elements. A living space for the extended family is embedded into and also steps down the hillside and opens onto planted terraces. The roof deck of the embedded volume meets the street at the top of the slope to provide an alternate access to the residence. In contrast, above and perpendicular to this is a lightweight pavilion with glass walls and a curved roof that seems to float above the site’s lush landscape. It touches the ground lightly on thin steel columns that mimic the slender trees on the site. This also allows the earthbound pavilion to have a view through the wooded site to the city beyond, framed by the underside of the floating pavilion. Projects by Legorreta + Legorreta Arquitectos in the city include an Office Building (1995) and the UANL Central Library (with Chávez & Vigil Arquitectos, 1994) that is sited in relation to an existing park and composed as a series of simple primary forms with crisp punched openings. It serves as the main information center of the university and as a satellite link with other educational institutions. The recently completed Camino Real Hotel (2007) is conceived as a colored, wall-dominant solid rectangular mass with a repetitive pattern of punched windows that has been carefully incised with several contrasting, asymmetrical multistory elements. This multistory tower block is focused around a dramatic indoor court that is filled with light and contains the vertical and horizontal circulation, restaurants, lobby, and other public spaces. One of the most striking and memorable aspects is a mezzanine restaurant that contains a walk-in wine cooler that is a discrete enclosure in which one may also dine. On the upper floor, an outdoor swimming pool is a statically calming space that is enclosed by walls and is half shaded by a thick concrete and plaster trellis and half open to the sky.

The most prominent contemporary architect of Monterrey and all of Northern Mexico was the late Agustín Landa Vértiz. The work of his firm includes a number of notable public buildings around Monterrey, NL, that have altered the contemporary image of the city. The Corporativo CX Networks (Landa, García, Landa Arquitectos, 2002) utilizes an existing building as a counterpoint for a new office and work space for a software and e-commerce firm on the western outskirts of Monterrey, NL, in Santa Catarina, off the freeway that leads to Saltillo. The design explores the expressive possibilities of new ways of collaboration in response to a less hierarchical management strategy that encourages teamwork and interaction among team members. The project is a modular structure that is the result of building over the old Anderson-Clayton factory with a new frame office building that houses administrative and management offices for a variety of e-businesses, another new building wing that also houses e-business and software development, and a parking structure for 750 cars. These buildings are joined with an articulated zone of public circulation and social interaction of exterior stairs and bridges covered with a suspended tensile roofing system. The buildings themselves are tectonically composed as structural frames of concrete and steel, and are sited to create the usable exterior spaces as outdoor rooms. Next door to Agustín Landa’s CX Networks Building, sited at the north side of the freeway that leads to Saltillo, is the Corporativo Axtel (Ricardo Padilla, 2004), among the best recent industrial projects in the city. The building is expressed as a skin that turns a tautly wrapped volume into a landmark that is perceived at speed from the freeway. Another noteworthy industrial project by Padilla is his Galvak Industrial Complex (Ricardo Padilla, ca. 2000) in the colonia of Apodaca. The Corporativo Martel (Landa, García, Landa Arquitectos, 2002) is an office complex located on a suburban hillside adjacent to a high-speed vehicular highway in a newly developed area of Valle Oriente in Monterrey. The complex is organized in two separate concrete frame buildings that sit on a plinth of a shared concrete parking structure, which adapts to the topography of the sloping site with parking areas at half levels. The high-speed movement surrounding the site is reflected in the horizontal organization of the façade, detaching the office space from the parking structure by means of concrete pilotis, and a freestanding concrete roof canopy that frames the glazed office space. The horizontal organization of the façade also relates to the long horizontal ridge of hills that characterize this particular valley in Monterrey. The modular

Nuevo León  81

(above) Camino Real Hotel rooftop pool terrace, Monterrey, NL (Legorreta + Legorreta Arquitectos, 2007); photo ERB (right) Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León (Biblioteca Magna), Monterrey, NL (Legorreta + Legorreta Arquitectos, with Chavez & Vigil Arquitectos, 1994); photo Lourdes Legorreta, courtesy of Legorreta + Legorreta Arquitectos

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Corporativo CX Networks, Monterrey, NL (Landa, García, Landa Arquitectos, 2002); courtesy of architect

Habitat 1, Monterrey, NL (Landa, García, Landa Arquitectos, 2002); photo ERB

Corporativo Martel, Monterrey, NL (Landa, García, Landa Arquitectos, 2002); photo ERB

Nuevo León  83

Torre Platinum, Monterrey, NL (Landa, García, Landa Arquitectos, 2002); courtesy of architect

dimensioning system for the building is determined by the plywood sheets for the formwork of the concrete work, and this module is used to integrate all the systems of the building. The servant spaces (elevators, toilets, and stairs) are treated as freestanding towers at the back of the site, against the hillside, and are attached to the served open office space with bridges. On a compact, small, steeply sloping urban site located in Colonia Doctores, Habitat 1 (Landa, García, Landa Arquitectos, 2002) is an innovative, dense housing/school program for a culinary school and apartments used by the students and chefs. The school is organized with support functions in the basement, parking and a public cafeteria that also serves as a teaching space for the students at the ground floor, and double-loaded apartments around a corridor on the next three floors; the teaching kitchens and pastry preparation areas are located on the top floor to disperse cooking odors. The circulation space of the corridor is the most memorable part of the building, serving as social space filled with light from windows at each end of the corridor, and is activated by an extraordinary light, delicate tubular steel stair that allows space and light to

penetrate all the way through the building. Overhangs on the south side provide shading for the student rooms, while colored panels from the street provide orientation for the users to identify their room. The tectonic system is a light structure made of a bolted steel frame with a poured-in-place polished concrete floor slab. The façade is made of glass and aluminum panels, and is detached from the floor slab to both allow for movement and to provide thermal isolation. Moving to the realm of multifamily housing, the Torre Platinum (Landa, García, Landa Arquitectos, 2002), with sixty apartments, is organized around three stairway cores with elevators that serve two apartments per floor. The organizing concept of the living area of the apartments is based on maximizing natural lighting and cross ventilation in all the rooms, having solar orientation on two sides to respond to the local climate, and taking advantage of the spectacular views of the mountains that surround Monterrey as well as views of the city itself. The tectonic solution is a slim, narrow structure of exposed post-tensioned concrete that sits on pilotis and a plinth-like base of a concrete two-story parking structure. The units are

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Vasconcelos Dos, Monterrey, NL (Landa, García, Landa Arquitectos, 2009); courtesy of architect

organized on either side of a concrete shear wall with living room, dining room, kitchen, two or three bedrooms, maid’s room, bathroom, and laundry, as well as outdoor balconies on each side of the building. The roof terrace is popular with the building’s users and is a garden, play space for children, and social space on the weekends for large family gatherings often featuring the regional favorite, carne asada. Agustín Landa’s most memorable work is Vasconcelos Dos (Landa, García, Landa Arquitectos, 2009), a remarkable multiuse radial block that turns inward from the street yet offers views to the mountains at the upper floors. With parking below grade, shops on the lower two floors,

housing on the upper floors, a boutique hotel as a gateway at the street, and vertical circulation cores expressed as discrete elements, it offers a new urban typology that could be introduced in many dense urban settings. Adán Lozano has produced a number of high-  quality small-scale residential projects. These include his Mirasierra Residence (2002), the Casa Olinalá (2002) in the Olinalá subdivision of San Pedro Garza García, the Casa de las Campanas (2003), and his poured-in-place concrete Residencia en Corona (2002). The sunken urban Plaza Breve Espacio (2001), with a pool of water that splashes against a fabricated glass sculpture, was developed with Agustín Landa Vértiz.19

Nuevo León  85 The work of Alexandre Lenoir is remarkable for its formal and tectonic precision. An Office Building (Alexandre Lenoir, 2000) in Col. Chepevera is a specific, precise, cost-effective work of lightweight articulated construction. The building is raised on pilotis with parking below. Access is by means of a transparent, articulated steel stair with a canopy to protect users from the elements. The narrow block receives light from each side with an articulated zone of taut glazing. The Hillside Residence (Alexandre Lenoir, 2003) overlooks Monterrey from its lush steep site on the side of one of the mountains that surround the city. The residence is organized as a two-story block that is experienced as an empathetic earthbound wall on one side, clad in green tile, to be perceived against the lush mountain beyond and which defines the circular auto entry court. In contrast, the other side of the block is lighter colored, more transparent, and opens to a lush garden with a play lawn and pool. The block has a distinctive sloped massing that relates to its mountain context, shapes the site, and directs the view to spectacular vistas of the city to the east with a small juxtaposed special cubic room at its most eastern edge. Inside, public functions occur at the ground level, while a transparent lightweight steel stair leads to bedrooms on the second floor. The interior walls are light colored, the rooms have wood floors, and crisp aluminum windows frame both intimate and distant views. A large Courtyard Residence (Alexandre Lenoir, 2004) is carefully sited around large existing trees in an older residential neighborhood of Monterrey. The L-shaped earthbound residence is a remarkable choreographed promenade through a series of outdoor rooms, courtyards, gardens, and interior rooms formed by a series of parallel walls that alternately enclose intimate spaces, frame views, or open to exterior spaces. A massive one- and two-  story block divides the site into entry court and rear garden and contains the public spaces that include living and dining rooms, kitchen, and support functions. After entering through this block into a reception area, visitors experience a tall, long gallery space that receives light from above, has a tranquil pool of water, and offers views to the rear garden. The other block, perpendicular to the first, contains bedrooms that open to the rear garden or private courts. Walls are crafted of masonry block clad in lightcolored stone on the exterior and plastered on the interior. The fenestration is alternately expressed as narrow bands of horizontal slots for privacy or vertical openings to frame views or for connection to the garden or courts. The roofs are poured-in-place concrete slabs with ceilings that either receive a smooth interior finish or have dropped ceilings

with a veneered finish. Among his other best works are the EVO Housing (Alexandre Lenoir, 2008) and the BANORTE Office Building (Alexandre Lenoir, 2010). Since the new millennium, another generation of architects have made their mark on the city. The Librerías Gandhi (Springall + Lira, 2002) provides a highly articulated system of discrete enclosures for this high-quality art bookstore. The building is organized as a large two-story block expressed as a ground-floor void of pilotis, a secondstory wrapper of horizontal steel panels of varying transparency, and a floating “butterfly” roof. Parking occurs at the ground level, and a glazed corner entrance is shaded by a thin aluminum screen. The corner entrance leads to a narrow lobby with an articulated transparent stairway that gives access to the bookstore on the second floor. The second floor receives light from above from a glazed void between the second-story wrapper and the floating butterfly roof, as well as bounced indirect light at the middle of the store from a skylight at the lowest point of the butterfly roof. The interiors are detailed as abstract surfaces with walls of wood paneling, white-painted drywall with colored accents, and aluminum-frame glazing; floors of polished terrazzo pavers; and exposed industrial light fixtures. The Museo Acero (Nicholas Grimshaw and Partners, Monterrey, NL, 2007) is an adaptive reuse of Horno Alto #3, one of the three original blast furnaces in Monterrey’s Parque Fundidora. The abandoned blast furnace and casting hall are the main element and focus of the museum. An interactive exhibit called “the furnace show” allows visitors the experience of the workings of a steel foundry. The original iron-ore elevator on the furnace tower has a new funicular-style cab and climbs 140 ft. for visitors to walk on the original exterior catwalks that meander around the

EVO Housing, Monterrey, NL (Alexandre Lenoir, 2008); courtesy of architect

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BANORTE, Monterrey, NL (Alexandre Lenoir, 2010); courtesy of architect

Librerías Gandhi, Monterrey, NL (Springall + Lira, 2002); photo ERB

Museo Acero, Monterrey, NL (Nicholas Grimshaw and Partners, 2007); photo ERB

furnace and provide sweeping panoramic views of the surrounding city and distant mountain ranges beyond. A new contrasting addition houses an entry and Steel Gallery that is largely subterranean, with green roofs of native grasses that harvest rainwater for landscape irrigation. Computerized steel fabrication methodology is celebrated with a tensile roof over the Steel Gallery with complex faceting,

while a helical steel stair is an exploration of the structural limits of steel. The two main spaces, the Steel Gallery and the Casting Hall, utilize innovative displacement ventilation, which allows enhanced comfort and acoustics with significantly lower energy usage than traditional HVAC mixed-air systems. An underground ice storage system saves energy. The building is passively shaded and

Nuevo León  87

(top) Casa Palo Blanco, Monterrey, NL (Gilberto Rodríguez, 2003); photo GLR Arquitectos (left) Casa Panarey, Monterrey, NL (Gilberto Rodríguez, 2001); photo GLR Arquitectos

insulated to conserve energy, with steel-sheet sun screens to block solar heat and diffuse natural light into the interior space. Gilberto Rodríguez has produced a number of quality works of architecture in the city, including the office buildings Casa Panarey (2001) and Corporativo APC (2002). He has also designed a number of individual residences, including the Casa Palo Blanco (2003), Casa Torres (2007), and Casa BC (2009), and the multifamily housing project Calzada 3Cerouno (2003). On the outskirts of Monterrey is the Casa Estrella (Miguel González Virgen, 2004), in the rural community of El Barrial, near Santiago, NL. The residence is sited on a steep hillside with a rusticated rubble-stone base for storage and support functions, with the living spaces expressed as a cubic volume. One side of the cubic volume is closed

and dense with support functions, while the other side becomes a more transparent frame that contains a multistory living room that opens to views of the surrounding lush rural site. Some of the most interesting recent work in the city is also being done by Ana Santos and Jeroen Kleiman, who won a national prize for their work. The Courtyard Townhouses (Fernanda Canales, 1998) utilize a simple vocabulary of walls that are differentiated by surfaces, including exposed board-formed concrete finish. The project offers a useful alternative for infill courtyard housing. The M Pavilion (Fernanda Canales, 2011) is organized as a series of freestanding pavilions, and offers opportunities for working and living outside under a large overhanging roof that provides shade. The Centro de Estudios Superiores de Diseño de Monterrey (CEDIM) Campus Expansion (Fernanda Canales

88  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico and Arquitectura 911SC, 2008) was the winner of a competition to expand the campus on a 2-acre site for a design school focusing on architectural, industrial, graphic, and fashion design. The objective was to provide flexible buildings over time and greater social interaction among the students. The five buildings totaling 49,000 sq. ft. are organized as parallel fingers that twist according to the topography of the site, with one linear building that cantilevers

M Pavilion, Monterrey, NL (Fernanda Canales, 2011); courtesy of architect

over an entry plaza while another bridges a ravine. The fingers are linked by an interior street that can be used as a gathering space, gallery, or fashion runway. The project is constructed of steel framing and clad in concrete panels and corrugated sheet metal.20 Highpark (Rojkind Arquitectos, 2010), an innovative mixed-use block located on the outskirts of Monterrey, is sited and massed to respond to zoning restrictions, create a new public space at grade, reduce solar gain, and create terraces for each unit. The project is clad in an alternating vertical pattern of stone and glass, which creates a new kind of “pixilated landscape” in relation to the mountains that surround Monterrey. The first two levels are for commercial retail, the remaining eight levels for thirty-two apartments, including a pool, gym, and spa, with three and a half levels of underground parking. Each apartment has a different configuration, with both one-story and twostory units. Among the best recent single-family houses in the city is the Bravo Residence (Agustín Landa Ruiloba, Monterrey, NL, 2006), which is a series of articulated interlocking volumes that frame views and create outdoor rooms. The Monterrey House (Bernardo Gómez-Pimienta/bgp arquitectura, 2010) is sited on a rugged slope organized as a series of parallel bars where light penetrates inside the house between the walls.

CEDIM Campus Expansion, Monterrey, NL (Fernanda Canales and Arquitectura 911SC, 2008); courtesy of architect

Nuevo León  89 (left) Highpark, Monterrey, NL (Rojkind Arquitectos, 2010); photo © Rojkind Arquitectos (below right) Bravo Residence, Monterrey, NL (Agustín Landa Ruiloba, 2006); courtesy of architect (bottom) Monterrey House, Monterrey, NL (Bernardo GómezPimienta/bgp arquitectura, 2010); photo by José Navarro, courtesy of architect

90  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Via Cordillera Ema, Monterrey, NL (Javier Sánchez/JSa, 2013); courtesy of architect

Recent large mixed-use and housing projects by the Mexico City firm JSa (Javier Sánchez) include Neo Fundidora, Micrópolis, Centro Urbano, and Via Cordillera Ema (2013), which features two curved blocks of residences with an interlocking façade, and the recently completed Centro Comercial Soriana (2012), a horizontally layered commercial project clad in dark gray stone with a series of contrasting curved roofs. Recent towers at the edge of the Río Santa Catarina have transformed the scale of the downtown, notably the Pabellón M (Agustín Landa, 2015). This, tall, vertical tower with cantilevered corners is contrasted with a horizontal auditorium that is an oval in section. The project is an essay in technical rationalism, functionalism, and expressive tectonics. Today Monterrey is a metropolis of 3,664,331 whose contemporary urban fabric will initially remind visitors of a denser version of Houston, TX, but with a much older central core. It features radical juxtapositions of use, the domination of the automobile in spite of a recent metro system superimposed over the city, mile after mile of numbing U.S.-inspired automobile-oriented commercial architecture and suburbs—all surrounded by a remarkable range of peaks and mountains.

Villa de Santiago The town of Villa de Santiago is located west of Monterrey at 1,475 ft. above sea level in a mountain valley surrounded by peaks up to 7,500 ft. high from the ranges of the Sierra Madre Oriental. The town grew organically around an irregular curved central plaza that is surrounded by the colonial Parroquia (anon., 1760) and Palacio de Gobierno (anon., 19th c.). Down the street are vernacular nineteenth-  century one-story courtyard housing and commercial fabric.

Pabellón M tower and auditorium, Monterrey, NL (Agustín Landa, 2015); courtesy of architect

Urban fabric, Villa de Santiago, NL (anon., 19th c.); from Web

Nuevo León  91 Today, this rural town has become largely gentrified and a favorite of “yuppies” from Monterrey who, on the weekends, dine in restaurants that line the plaza. Nearby are the Presa de la Boca, with a recreational marina and the famous Cascada de la Cola de Caballo (Pony Tail Falls) that softly showers down over its distinctive rocky setting. Another picturesque landscape nearby is the Cascada del Chipitín, entered through a crevice in the rock that opens to a narrow bowl with its delicate waterfall.

Linares Linares, a city 83 miles southeast of Monterrey, is almost midway between the capital and Ciudad Victoria, Tamps. The city is the largest in the “orange district” of the state, at an elevation of 1,200 ft. surrounded by miles of lush citrus groves. Villa de San Felipe de Linares was founded (1712) by Sebastián Villegas Cumplido in honor of the then governing viceroy of New Spain, Fernando de Alencastre Noroña y Silva, Duke of Linares, and became the religious center for the region (1777). Linares is organized as a rigorous grid crossed from the northeast to the southwest by several streams and arroyos at the edge of the city. These streams include the Pomona, a tributary of the Río Concho, and the San Fernando, a tributary of the Río San Lorenzo. The Plaza de Armas (Main Plaza) and Plaza Juárez form the major outdoor rooms near the center of the gridded city in the midst of dense one-to-three-story urban fabric. The Main Plaza contains the major works of architecture of the city. On the east side is the colonial Catedral de San Felipe (anon., 1779), and nearby is the Templo del Señor de la Misericordia (anon., 1783). Adjacent to the cathedral on the Main Plaza is the Palacio Municipal (anon., 1896– 1897), one of the best nineteenth-century public buildings in Northern Mexico that was constructed over a former Franciscan convent. The two-story building presents an elegant, beautifully scaled public façade to the street composed in a nineteenth-century neoclassical vocabulary and is organized into five bays, with dominant central and corner bays. Despite its diminutive scale, it has a distinctive graceful, refined quality that is unusual for a building of this size. The protruding corner bays feature pairs of Doric columns that support a broken pediment with the city’s coat of arms. The central bay has slender Doric pilasters at the ground floor that frame a narrow arched opening and narrow arched window above, which in turn supports a taller pediment with a clock and coat of arms. The flanking bays have two windows with entablatures at each floor, which are crowned by a transparent balustrade against the

Palacio Municipal, Linares, NL (anon., 1896–1897); photo Pablo Landa, ERB Col.

sky. The other windows on the façade are framed by stone trim that supports pediments above each window. All columns, window trim, and decorative trim are white and are set against a smooth plaster wall with a striking deep orange/red color. The corners of the building feature interesting intercolumniation expressed as distinct articulated systems. Simpler and more abstract façades face a courtyard that admits light and a view to the interior rooms. Also facing the west side of the Main Plaza is the Casino (Hermanos Muguerza, builders, 1923–1928). It is sited a few steps above the street behind a balustrade that creates an entry garden. It features a distinctive two-story loggia set in front of a two-story block. The loggia is expressed as a wall-dominant base punctuated by three narrow arched doorways at the ground floor. Above, pairs of Ionic columns infilled with unusual miniature Ionic columns supporting portions of another entablature above break down the scale of the loggia. These series of columns at the loggia support an entablature and a curved, shaped pediment above that create a distinctive profile against the sky. The major ballroom at the second floor opens out to the loggia that overlooks the plaza and offers a welcome cooling breeze during dinners, parties, receptions, balls, and formal events. On the south corner of the main plaza is the Botica Morelos (anon., 1929–1939), an urban one-story commercial block. Founded in 1924, it houses one of the earliest pharmacies of Linares. It reflects the early nationalistic aspirations of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Mexico and utilizes a unique neo-pre-Columbian vocabulary, with hybrid elements from the Teotihuacán, Toltec, Maya, and Aztec cultures that are combined in an eclectic, abstracted neoclassical and art deco vocabulary. The façade is highly modulated and encrusted with decorative patterns that stretch horizontally across its length and are found in pre-Columbian architecture as well as weaving

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Casino, Linares, NL (Hermanos Muguerza, builders, 1923–1928); photo ERB

Botica Morelos, Linares, NL (anon., 1929–1939); photo ERB

Teatro Benítez, Linares, NL (anon., ca. 1938); photo ERB

and pottery. Belying its nationalistic stance, it also features a cast corner ornament of Mexico’s hero of independence, Father Hidalgo. The interior is still largely intact. The entry is formed as a room with a public counter with distinctive, ornamented coffered plaster ceilings and decorative woodwork at the walls, and lighted with geometric bronze chandeliers. These lighting fixtures illuminate brightly colored ceramic floor tiles that form abstracted masks. This distinctive work of eclectic architecture continues to inspire and serve the citizens of the city as a pharmacy today.21 On the north side of the main plaza is the Teatro Benítez (anon., ca. 1938), an art deco composition that presents an abstracted three-bay façade at a busy commercial street. The façade features a series of continuous, streamlined folds of poured-in-place concrete that stretch up vertically into the sky, while the middle bay subtly jogs upward and

forward with geometricized vertical bands that frame the theater’s neon sign. The façade is punctuated with five upper circular porthole windows that align with a series of windows below that give light and air to offices. A continuous horizontal billboard at the street offers protection and light for moviegoers and announces the upcoming films to the town, while the distinctive neon sign beckons patrons to enter inside. On the Plaza Juárez are the neo-Gothic Templo Presbiteriano (1891) and the eclectic Parroquia del Sagrario (ca. 1892). On the western side of town is one of the earliest industrial buildings in the region, the Ingenio Azucarero (1814–1880), which was built by Italian immigrants. This three-story L-shaped building features walls of sillar, a volcanic stone, and a brick smokestack. Nearby is the direct, straightforward Office (anon., ca. 1870) for the facility, org-

Nuevo León  93 anized around an interior courtyard with an iron stair with floral motifs imported from Italy.22 Outside of the city is the Hacienda Guadalupe (anon., 19th c.) with an abandoned aqueduct with circular stone arches for a sugarcane mill. The Ojo de Agua Park features the San Ignacio Spring with  its thermal waters near Santa Rosa Canyon. Today Linares has a population of approximately 58,000 and features a recently constructed industrial park at the perimeter of the city. The city still celebrates its rural ranching roots with the Villa Seca Fair in August, with unique regional dances and music. There is also a Regional Fair at the end of February. Highlights of the regional cuisine are carne seca y adobada, cabrito, torta compuesta, and the renowned glorias, caramels made with scalded goat’s milk, sugar, and finely crushed nuts.

landscape and the economy of the town when it became a leading town of the “orange district” of Nuevo León. The town’s mostly one-story traditional urban fabric engages and defines the street, and many nineteenth-century vernacular buildings remain. The city’s main churches include the Templo de San Mateo (anon., 18th c.) and the Iglesia del Sagrado Corazón

Ciudad Allende Ciudad Allende lies in a valley surrounded by mountains. Overlooking the town’s main plaza is the Templo de San Pedro Apóstol (anon., 19th c.), the town’s abstracted neoclassical church composed as a Latin cross plan, with the exterior of the dome at the crossing finished in richly colored tile. The walls are crafted with vividly colored bricks of alternating color. The entry façade is abstracted with a pair of engaged columns that frame a rose window. The nicely proportioned Palacio Municipal (anon., mid19th c.) overlooks the town’s plaza that is lined with a filigree of tall palms that establish another urban scale. The two-story building is divided into three bays, with a series of unusual shifting center axes. The front façade features narrow, deeply punched openings, with a strongly horizontal cornice. The entrance to this public building is marked by a series of arched openings at the ground floor, an elaborately shaped parapet that contains a clock, and a small espadaña for bells above.

Montemorelos The town of Montemorelos is located southeast of Monterrey in the rural, mountainous Pilón River Valley that is more humid and subtropical than the rest of the state. The valley was first colonized (1653) by Spaniards from nearby Cerralvo, which was the former capital of Nuevo León. The town of Villa de San Mateo del Pilón was founded in 1701, and when it became a city (1825), it was renamed Montemorelos for Mexico’s hero of independence, José María Morelos y Pavón. Orange trees were introduced to the valley (1892) and permanently changed the surrounding

(top) Iglesia del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús, Montemorelos, NL (anon., 1817); photo Rodolfo Barragán Delgado (bottom) Capilla Gil de Leyva, Montemorelos, NL (anon., 19th c.); photo Rodolfo Barragán Delgado, ERB Col.

94  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Palacio Municipal, Montemorelos, NL (anon., 1907); photo Rodolfo Barragán Delgado

de Jesús (anon., 1817), designed as a neoclassical composition. One of the memorable neoclassical churches in the town is the Capilla Gil de Leyva (anon., 19th c.) with a cream-colored façade with tan trim and what can only be described as fanciful ornament with almost toylike proportions. The single-nave chapel has a memorable front façade with a shaped espadaña and also utilizes a series of inscribed circles and half circles on a bell tower at the side. The Plaza features an impressive and beautifully scaled neoclassical Palacio Municipal (anon., 1907), currently painted in shades of cream and tan, and one of the best nineteenth-century town halls in the state. A horizontally striated, rusticated colonnade with shallow arches supports a large second-floor balcony with a balustrade and finials. The balcony’s position facing the plaza suggests public pronouncements and urban rituals. At the second story, narrow deep windows are framed by engaged columns that support an entablature with an unusual protruding horizontal cornice. The entrance is marked by a shaped parapet with a clock that marks the daily routine of the town. Moving underneath the colonnade and through the entry leads to a lush garden courtyard that gives access to various public offices. The abandoned two-story Antiguo Colegio Industrial (anon., ca. 1900) is a wall-dominant, symmetrical composition constructed with tan cut stone with pink articulated surrounds around window and door openings. Two walldominant corner elements frame a central arcade at the

ground floor and a balcony at the second floor, which are set back from the corner elements. A quiet house in Montemorelos recovers and reinterprets the traditional nineteenth-century masonry architecture of the town, the courtyard house typology, and the progressive growth of the popular house. The Barragán Residence (Rodolfo Barragán Delgado, 1996–1998) consists of an existing nineteenth-century masonry structure and a reinforced concrete addition around two courtyards conceived and built in progressive phases. The original masonry volume with exposed wood framing at the roof faces and defines the street. It was transformed to contain the garage, the vestibule, and a small studio, as well as the kitchen, living, and dining areas in the first phase and the main service area in the second. The first phase (1996), with the reinforced concrete addition, contains the main bedroom, closet, bathroom, and laundry and defines the first courtyard. The second phase (1998) contains a living and dining room axially aligned to the first-phase courtyard and defines the second courtyard and a portico that looks into the garden full of trees.23 Today, Montemorelos is a town of approximately 50,000 with an economy based on agribusiness, and it is connected to Monterrey and the Gulf of Mexico by highway and rail. The town is also home to the Universidad de Montemorelos, a private institution linked to the SeventhDay Adventist Church. Since 1942, the hospital associated with the university has provided medical services for the area. Montemorelos’s citizens are primarily Catholic, but a Seventh-Day Adventist community has been established around the university and has contributed to the unique cultural life of the town.

Coahuila  95

Coahuila . . . these environs of cultivated land, contrasting forcibly in their vivid green with the gray alluvial hills and rocky mountain crests, impart to the place a charm peculiar to all the scenery in Northern Mexico, which has something Levantic, or of a North African character. —Frederick A. Ober, Travels in Mexico and Life among the Mexicans, 1884

Geography Coahuila (Nahuatl for “sliding snake” and the name of the local indigenous people) is primarily situated in the arid Chihuahuan Desert, although portions of the state include oases, springs, irrigated farmland, and mountain forests. Coahuila can be thought of as four distinct subregions: the arid border along the Rio Grande to the north, with Piedras Negras being the most important city; the central semidesert with the colonial city of Monclova; a fertile valley to the east with the capital of Saltillo in the midst of the vast Chihuahuan Desert; and to the west, a low-lying, arid desert region of the Chihuahuan Desert of La Laguna, with Torreón, the largest city in the state. The largely arid state is watered by the Rio Grande on its northern border with the United States, the Río Sabinas, and the Río Nazas, which waters Torreón and forms the border with the state of Durango.

History Coahuila was inhabited by indigenous nomadic tribes and was first explored by Álvaro Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (ca. 1532) during his eight years of wandering across the American Southwest and Northern Mexico after being shipwrecked off the coast of Florida. The first significant colonial settlement was led by Francisco de Urdinola at Saltillo (1575), where he settled native Tlaxcalan peoples from Central Mexico to protect against attacks by the hostile indigenous peoples of the region. Saltillo became an embarkation point for the colonization of what is now the American Southwest. Coahuila has had a long, intertwined relationship with Texas. When Mexico attained independence from Spain (1821), Texas and Coahuila formed a single state with its

Map of Coahuila; portion of Mexico map, CAW

capital alternating between Monclova and Saltillo until the Texas War of Independence (1836). Coahuila was also the site of several important battles during the Mexican-  American War (1846–1848). Later, Coahuila was joined with Nuevo León, but it became an independent state

96  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico in 1868. Benito Juárez set up temporary headquarters in Saltillo (1863) during the era of Maximilian (1863–1867). Several important leaders of the Mexican Revolution (1911–1919) were natives of the state, including Francisco Madero and Venustiano Carranza, and many important battles were fought in Coahuila, with several in Torreón and Saltillo. Today the state has a diversified economy in manufacturing, steel production (especially in Monclova), mining (silver, lead, coal, copper, and iron), ranching, and agriculture (cotton, vineyards, wheat, beans, and sugarcane). The state has also been the site of several popular films, such as Como agua para chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate, 1992), which was shot on several haciendas near Ciudad Acuña and Piedras Negras, and in Chihuahua.

Ciudad Acuña The border town of Acuña, as it is called by its residents, is set in a lush landscape on the Rio Grande just across from Del Rio, TX. The first settlement (1877) was named Villa Garza Galán (1880), renamed Congregación las Vacas (1884), renamed again as Acuña (1912) to commemorate the Saltillo poet Manuel Acuña, and finally received the designation of Ciudad Acuña (1951). Unusual for a border city, it has enjoyed a fairly close working relationship with its sister city of Del Rio, TX, and intelligently coordinated some planning and infrastructure projects in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The International Bridge (anon., ca. 1908) strengthened the commercial relationships of the city with Del Rio and the United States. The downtown is organized around the Plaza Benjamín Canales, bounded by the Palacio Municipal, the museum, stores, and the town’s main church, Santa María de Guadalupe (anon., 1958), built on the location of the original church (1914). The front façade is richly layered and is one of the better-designed churches from the 1950s in the border towns, and the abstracted gridded concrete latticework, decorative elements in granite, and three prominent angels on the façade give it the appearance of an LDS (Mormon) temple. Ciudad Acuña gained prominence in the 1930s when it was the home of radio XERA, known as the “borderblaster” due to its powerful transmitter that was far in excess of those in the United States. Later the town was the location of radio XERF (1962–1964), the super-powered station that established the reputation of the well-known disc jockey “Wolfman Jack.” The main tourist commercial strip along Calle Hidalgo

Santa María de Guadalupe, Ciudad Acuña, Coah. (anon., 1958); photo ERB

Main street and Mrs. Crosby’s Hotel and Restaurant, Ciudad Acuña, Coah. (anon., ca. 1940); postcard, MF, ERBPC

was the setting for Robert Rodriguez’s film El Mariachi, which had several scenes filmed inside the Corona Club Toltec Restaurant and Bar, characterized as “a country music kicker bar.”1 Nearby is the well-known Mrs. Crosby’s (anon., ca. 1940), a popular 1940s and 1950s tourist destination. Calle Madero, which parallels Hidalgo, serves as Acuña’s nontourist commercial strip. An important constructed landscape near Acuña is the Presa de la Amistad/Amistad Dam, an innovative engineering work on the Rio Grande built jointly by Mexico and the United States. The large lake that was created is used for sport fishing, with campsites around the shore, and is part of the Parque Nacional Los Novillos with lush oak trees, hot springs, and streams.

Coahuila  97 Today the city of 126,238 has seen limited growth from new assembly plants and transportation facilities. In October each year, Ciudad Acuña and Del Rio, TX, celebrate the traditional “Fiesta de la Amistad.”

Piedras Negras The border town of Piedras Negras (“Black Rocks,” referring to the coal deposits of the area), lies on the Rio Grande just across from Eagle Pass, TX, at the confluence of the Ríos Escondido and San Rodrigo. Piedras Negras was founded (1849) after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and renamed Ciudad Porfirio Díaz (1888), but reverted to its original name following the Mexican Revolution. Coal was mined in the area at the end of the nineteenth century at Dolchburg, TX, near Eagle Pass. Today, two large coalfired power plants, José López Portillo and Carbón 2, operate 30 miles south of Piedras Negras in the town of Nava and provide electricity to the town and the region. Piedras Negras serves as a gateway for commercial traffic that passes through the town. The gateway to the city just across the Rio Grande was formed by the sculptural Casa de la Cultura/Edificio PRONAF (Mario Pani, 1963) with its figural folded plate, star-shaped roof supported by columns, and discrete system of infill curtain-wall glazing, and the adjacent Mercado Zaragoza (Mario Pani, 1963), a continuous thin-shell barrel vault that made a useful arcade as it touched the ground—both unfortunately demolished. A few blocks away is the downtown with the main plaza and the Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (anon., 1859–1950). Composed as a single nave, it has ashlar stone walls with tight joints and originally had exposed wood rafters at the ceiling. The front façade features an unusual centralized tower that has multiple levels that appear to

Casa de la Cultura/Edificio PRONAF, Piedras Negras, Coah. (Mario Pani, 1963), and beyond El Mercado Zaragoza (Mario Pani, 1963); photo ERB

(top) Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, Piedras Negras, Coah. (anon., 1859–1950); photo ERB (bottom) Edificio de Aduana, Piedras Negras, Coah. (Wahrenberger and Beckmann, 1891); postcard, MF, ERBPC

have been added over time and is flanked by two towers at the corners. The church survived the violence of the Cristero movement (1927), but after an explosion (1934), the church was renovated (1935), and the construction of its towers was initiated (1950). On the west side of the plaza is the Antigua Presidencia Municipal (anon., 19th c.). Unfortunately, the Edificio de Aduana (James Wahrenberger and Albert Felix Beckmann, 1891), one of the great examples of nineteenth-century Belle Époque architecture in Northern Mexico, was destroyed in a fire. On the east side of the downtown, just north of the railroad tracks that lead north across the Railroad Bridge (1882) into Texas, is the Antiguo Hotel del Ferrocarril (anon., ca. 1895), a solid brick masonry building organized around two brick chimneys and wrapped in a light wooden veranda covered by a gently sloping hip roof, now used as informal housing and currently in need of repairs.

98  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Antiguo Hotel del Ferrocarril, Piedras Negras, Coah. (anon., ca. 1895); photo ERB

(top) Claustro Fuentes, Piedras Negras, Coah. (Mario Schjetnan, 1989); photo Mario Schjetnan (bottom) Macroplaza I and II, Piedras Negras, Coah. (anon., 1991); photo ERB

Across the street is the Edificio de Telégrafos y Correos (anon., 1923). The Claustro Fuentes (Mario Schjetnan, 1989) was a multifamily housing project of fifty-three condominiums with two unit types designed around the issues of community and privacy, concerns that reflect Schjetnan’s education at UC Berkeley during the era of Christopher Alexander. The development features limited access by the automobile, private courtyards for each unit, and communal amenities such as fountains in small plazas; gardens; public courtyards with pools and other sports and play areas designed for toddlers, children, teenagers, and adults; and a common room for parties and family gatherings. The tectonic order of the project of masonry walls and sloping clay tile roofs is related to local building traditions.2 The Macroplaza I and II (Plaza de Héroes; anon.,

1991) was named for the huge plaza of the same name in Monterrey, NL, and its mesquites and other native trees and plantings make it a lush place to relax in the city. Nearby, the Museum of the Northern Border (anon., ca. 1940), which was the former tax office, has a memorable façade composed as a series of superimposed thick vertical layers with vertical slot windows. One of the most unusual works of popular architecture in the border region is a new theme park, Plaza de las Tres Culturas (anon., 2005), a nationalistic simulation and homage to Mexico’s Olmec, Maya, Teotihuacán, El Tajín, and Aztec pre-Columbian cultures in the mode of Las Vegas/ Disneyland. The park has reproductions of pyramids of these cultures, with the largest being the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacán near Mexico City. Billed as “a faithful copy from its original,” it is a diminutive miniature (90 ft. x

Coahuila  99 90 ft. and 37 ft. high) with an auditorium inside that seats one hundred. The Pirámide de los Nichos is yet another “faithful copy from its original” (40 ft. x 40 ft. and 26 ft. high), as well as the Pirámide “El Castillo” at Chichén Itzá (45 ft. x 45 ft. and 25 ft. high). The complex also features a children’s playground, green areas, twenty-four sculptures and thirty-six murals of the pre-Columbian era, a reproduction of the nineteenth-century statue of Cuauhtémoc in Mexico City, a musical light and sound show that recalls the show at Teotihuacán, a “cultural building,” a planetarium, a cafeteria, a bookstore, and, of course, a shop that sells souvenirs. It is a popular destination at night when it is filled with families. The Teatro de la Ciudad “Pepe Maldonado” (Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, 2011) is a striking sculptural object composed as a series of angled rectangular volumes generated by the acoustical requirements of the theater interior that seats 810 and is intersected by a glazed entrance lobby. Today, Piedras Negras has a population of 169,771 and is noted for raising some of the best fighting bulls in Mexico that are featured in prominent bullfights all over the country. A number of fiestas each year are significant public events in the town: the Expo Piedras Negras, celebrated in August; the Popular Fair in April; and La Feria del Sol (Festival of the Sun), which takes place during July with industrial, commercial, agricultural, and cattle exhibitions. The city is also the birthplace of the popular Tex-Mex snack the “nacho,” and a fair is held each year to celebrate its role in popular culture. One of the few remaining colonial settlements in the area is the ruin of Misión San Bernardo (anon., 1702) in the nearby town of Guerrero, which was an important colonial staging point for the first settlers who came north to found San Antonio, TX.

Sabinas With the construction of the railroads, Estación Sabinas was established (1883) as an important train stop. As the most important coal town of the state, Sabinas was organized as a rigorous grid bisected by a railroad line. The town was sited adjacent to the turquoise blue Río Sabinas that features large sabino (also called ahuehuete from the Nahuatl word ēhuēhuētl, “upright drum in water”; Montezuma cypress in English) shade trees on either side of its banks that give the town its name. Notable buildings in the town include the neoclassical Templo Parroquial (anon., ca. 1890) and the church of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (anon., 1897–1938) that was initially constructed from adobe (1901), then replaced with a stone colonial revival building with brick transepts

(top) Río Sabinas, Sabinas, Coah.; photo Brenda Aguirre Teatro de la Ciudad “Pepe Maldonado,” Piedras Negras, Coah. (Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, 2011); photo Antonio García Santillan

(bottom) Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe church, Sabinas, Coah. (anon., 1897–1938), and Presidencia Municipal (anon., 1943) and plaza; photo Brenda Aguirre

100  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico (1934); the bell tower was completed in 1938. The Presidencia Municipal (anon., 1943) replaced the original destroyed in a fire (1912) and is a wall-dominant colonial revival composition with punched vertical openings and a subtly articulated centralized entry clock tower. The Casa de Pancho Villa (anon., ca. 1905) was the mansion where Villa finally signed his armistice with the federal government in which the remaining soldiers of his División del Norte finally laid down their arms (1920). Now used as the Sabinas House of Culture, it contains important documentary photographs of this pivotal event in Mexican history. The Museo Nacional del Carbón (anon., 1918) was originally built by the American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO) to serve as the payroll office for miners until 1985. This plastered one-story wall-dominant stone building features elaborate rough-stone window surrounds and is entered through an arched zaguán (transition from street to courtyard). The museum provides an overview of the formation of coal, the coal industry, and the development of industrial coal processes in Mexico. The Benito Garza Ortegón Recreational Park is a lush landscape and recreational area located on the banks of the Río Sabinas that attracts families on the weekends with its grills and fútbol fields. Fiestas include the Livestock Expo, the Sabinas Fair and Expo, and the Santo Domingo-Sabinas Horse Show celebrated in September with agricultural and industrial exhibitions, horse riding, and regional dances that commemorate the founding of the city. Seven thousand equestrians re-create the 186-mile ride from Santo Domingo (in Ramos Arizpe) to commemorate the founding of Sabinas by settlers from Santo Domingo, and a horse parade includes thousands of riders and hundreds of carts and wagons. In 2005, the city had a population of 47,933.

Monclova Monclova, at an elevation of 2,040 ft., was founded as the mining town of Santiago de la Monclova (1689), making it one of the oldest settlements in Northern Mexico. The town was organized as a grid loosely running north to south and roughly parallel to the river. It served as the capital of Nueva Extremadura during the colonial era and was an important base for the Spanish troops and missionaries that founded the missions in what are today the states of Coahuila and Texas. Monclova remained the capital during the early years of Mexico’s independence, but the 1824 Constitution created the state of Coahuila y Tejas, and the capital was transferred to Saltillo. Monclova was

Coahuila-Texas Museum, Monclova, Coah. (anon., ca. 1780; adaptive reuse, 1977); photo ERB

again declared the capital in 1828, but the following year the state legislature convened in Saltillo. The state legislature ultimately decided in Monclova’s favor (1833), and this decision was ratified by President Antonio López de Santa Anna (1834). However, with the enactment of the 1836 Constitutional Laws, the state of Coahuila y Tejas was divided into two states, and Saltillo became Coahuila’s capital. This set the stage for Texas’s bid for independence (1836).3 The only evidence remaining of the oldest colonial church in Monclova is a stone wall known as the La Pared Purísima (anon., 1675). Nearby, opposite the Plaza Juárez, is the colonial church of San Francisco de Assisi (Fray Juan Larios, builder, 1700–1735). In contrast to its simple, restrained stone façade, the interior of the church has an ornate baroque carved, shimmering gilded wood altarpiece with gold finish. The first Franciscans set out from this church to found the missions of Coahuila and Texas.4 On the north side of town is the Coahuila-Texas Museum (anon., ca. 1780; adaptive reuse, 1977), which was

Coahuila  101

Zapopan Hermitage, Monclova, Coah. (anon., early 19th c.; façade restored ca. 1920); photo ERB

El Polvorín (The Powder Magazine) Museum, Monclova, Coah. (anon., 1781–ca. 1840; adaptive reuse as a museum, 1977); photo ERB

formerly the Hospital Real de la Provincia de Coahuila and now exhibits a wide range of regional anthropology, ecology, and history. The building was originally organized as an austere, wall-dominant stone-rubble building with vertical windows and a simple cornice around a large openair courtyard. During the adaptive reuse, the courtyard was covered with a glazed steel pyramidal space frame, reflecting the industrial steel-production culture of the city. The Zapopan Hermitage (anon., early 19th c.; façade restored ca. 1920) is located on a small hill, appropriated for religious rituals, that divided the northern part of the

city from the southern portion during the colonial era and nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This squat, austere, abstracted, stubby church is characterized by its simple tall, triangular pediment and the closely composed, impacted towers at each side. The exterior façade is currently painted white with rose-colored trim. On the south side of the city is El Polvorín (The Powder Magazine) Museum (1781–ca. 1840; adaptive reuse as a museum, 1977), which maintains a collection of arms and weapons. The massive stone-rubble wall originally housed a powder magazine and fort and has only a few slit windows. The experience of the museum is largely internalized from room to room. The Catedral Santiago Apóstol (Jean Crussét, builder, 1775–1815) is opposite the main plaza at the center of the city today known as the Plaza de la Independencia. The exterior of the church was begun in a late-baroque vocabulary of carved cantera stone, but the interiors were completed in a neoclassical vocabulary. The arrival of the railroads led to the construction of the Hotel F. C. de Monclova (anon., 1902), one of the most abstracted Victorian and neoclassical façades in Northern Mexico. The vertical two-story commercial block has pairs of windows that form bays separated by engaged pilasters. Window openings are recessed in the wall with stone lintels and sills. The cornice reveals the tectonic possibilities of brick construction with its three-dimensional zigzag pattern that is simultaneously Islamic and Victorian. During the Mexican Revolution, the Constitutionalists set up headquarters in Monclova, and it is where Venustiano Carranza asked the governors of Chihuahua and Sonora to unite to overthrow Gen. Victoriano Huerta. Monclova was held by competing factions many times during the revolution. It was occupied by the forces of Carranza (March 1913), by the federal forces of Huerta (July 1913), by the forces of Carranza (Jan. 1915), and finally again by the forces of Carranza (Sept. 1915). In the twentieth century, Monclova became best known as an iron- and steel-producing center, home to Mexico’s largest steelworks, which is the primary industrial and economic engine of the city today. The Altos Hornos de México S.A. (AHMSA) steelworks (anon., 1944–) produces much of the steel for building construction in Northern Mexico and currently supercedes Monterrey as a steel-  producing center. The Pape Museum and Library (Harb Karam, 1977) is named after Harold R. Pape, the noted U.S. founder of the city’s AHMSA steelworks, the most important in Latin America. The facility includes exhibition space to interpret Monclova’s history, an auditorium, and a library for

102  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Panorama of downtown with the Altos Hornos de México S.A. (AHMSA) steelworks, Monclova, Coah. (anon., 1944–) beyond ; photo ERB

Pape Museum and Library, Monclova, Coah. (Harb Karam, 1977); photo © mexicoenfotos.com/Museo Biblioteca Harold Pape, Monclova

children and adolescents.5 Unusual in Northern Mexico, the design of the museum reinterprets the late organic vocabulary of Frank Lloyd Wright. A primary circular volume of brick with deep-set punched windows and vertical concrete frames is contrasted with secondary attached lower circular volumes of concrete with vertical slot windows. The Parque Xochipli I y II (Rodrigo Velarde, 1982–1988) is noteworthy in that it originally restored an ecosystem of 22 acres. Today, it encompasses 49 acres and includes areas for sports and cultural activities and is surrounded by lush green areas, lakes, fountains, and waterfalls, with sculptures by the noted Mexican artist Juan Soriano. The Ayuntamiento de Monclova (Franklin Fernández Escamilla, 1969), facing the city’s main plaza, is a mon- 

Ayuntamiento de Monclova, Monclova, Coah. (Franklin Fernández Escamilla, 1969); photo ERB

umental modernist two-story volume that floats on pilotis above a lower floor at the street. A precise concrete brisesoleil controls light at the side façades, while a series of slender steel columns make an abstracted portico at the street, reflecting the steel culture of the city and recalling the work of Giuseppe Terragni and the Italian rationalists. Fernández Escamilla completed numerous other projects in Monclova between 1959 and 1969, including the Altos Hornos Workers Housing, Workers Cooperative, Centro de Justicia, Secondary and Preparatory School at the Instituto Central, School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering at the university, and the Pape family mausoleum. Today the city of 294,191 is the third largest in Coahuila after Saltillo and Torreón. Due to its reputation as an industrial steel-producing center, the city’s rich history and architectural heritage are virtually ignored in both Mexico and Texas. To the south of Monclova is the small town of Baján and the hill that was the site of the ambush of Father Hidalgo prior to his subsequent execution in Chihuahua, Chih. An obelisk of cantera stone marks the spot where Father Hidalgo and the insurgents were captured. The former Hacienda de Guadalupe is also located nearby. Also south of Monclova are a series of picturesque one-story, wall-dominant traditional gridded towns that are each organized around a central plaza and church and set in lush green valleys adjacent to rivers. Among others, one of the most notable is Sacramento.

Cuatro Ciénegas Cuatro Ciénegas was founded in 1800 and is the birthplace of the revolutionary leader Venustiano Carranza. The most important works of architecture are the shady Plaza

R Na io za s

Coahuila  103

Antgo. Museo Revolución

Teatro I. Martinez Hotel Rio Nazas

Edif. Monterrey Church Guadalupe

H. Salvador

Banco Laguna, Casino

Merc. Júarez

Hda. Torreon

50

Wulff Res.

0 100

150 500

250 m 1000 ft

Urban plan, Torreón, Coah.; drawing by Jeremy Kreusel and Ricardo García-Báez

Principal (anon., ca. 1850) with its cast-iron bandstand; the neoclassical Presidencia Municipal (anon., ca. 1880), entered through an arched, shaded portico that leads to a courtyard surrounded by an arched arcade; and the Casa Carranza (anon., 19th c.; restored 1968), now a museum dedicated to the life of Carranza.

Múzquiz The town of Múzquiz has one of the best nineteenthcentury churches in the state, the Templo de Santa Rosa (anon., ca. 1830–1903). The façade is organized as a central volume subdivided into bays, with an arched entry and a niche above containing the patron saint, surmounted by a shaped espadaña. Narrow slit windows let light into the choir. The two nineteenth-century towers are built to different heights and vocabularies and step back as they go upward. They create a remarkable sense of tension between their massive, stubby bases and the sense of elongated perspective created with elaborate profiles and complex surfaces.

Torreón Situated on flat lands in La Laguna in the arid Chihuahuan Desert at 3,773 ft. and surrounded by arid hills, Torreón was founded (1855) around several haciendas on the east bank of the Río Nazas. The arid climate with mild winters and hot summers, combined with irrigation supplied from canals fed by the river, was ideal for cotton and wheat

Model, Hacienda Torreón, Torreón, Coah. (Leonardo Zuloaga, builder and owner, ca. 1855; destroyed 1868; rebuilt 1879); photo ERB

104  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Panorama, Torreón, Coah.; postcard, photographer unknown, published by Sonora News Company, ca. 1910, ERBPC

Wulff Residence, Torreón, Coah. (Ing. Federico Wulff, 1904–1907); photo ERB

production and ranching and led to the development of a distinctive local architecture. The city was named for the Torreón [Defensive Tower]; Leonardo Zuloaga, builder and owner, ca. 1855; destroyed 1868; rebuilt 1879), built for defensive purposes. The tower was a prominent feature of the hacienda that still remains as part of a museum complex in the downtown. Torreón grew as the junction of three railroads: the Mexican Central that linked El Paso, TX/Ciudad Juárez, Chih., with Mexico City and reached the city in 1883; the

International line that linked Monterrey, NL, to Mazatlán, Sin., and appeared in 1888; and the Coahuila-Pacific line that arrived in 1902 and linked Torreón with the state capital of Saltillo. Thus, Torreón rapidly grew as a key transportation, commercial, and distribution center in Northern Mexico. Federico Wulff, from San Antonio, TX, and educated in Germany, was a civil engineer and architect who developed the urban plan (ca. 1888) for the city. His gridded plan aligned with the curving railroad line and subdivided all the land around the future railroad station on what is now the western edge of town. Its focal point was the lush Plaza de Armas (anon., 1905), created as a shady, welcome respite from the desert heat. The Wulff Residence (Ing. Federico Wulff, 1904–1907) was sited in a prominent fold of the craggy Cerro de Noas above the burgeoning city. It was surrounded by a garden, pool, cistern, and engineering and manufacturing equipment. The residence was organized as an octagonal plan to maximize views, with a lower-level service area expressed as a base; living room, dining room, kitchen, centralized vestibule, and stair at the ground floor; and four bedrooms and baths organized around the stair at the second floor. The residence was built of rough-hewn cantera from San Luis Potosí that merged with the rocky site, while the living room and vestibule feature stained-glass windows that filter the harsh desert light. Today the former residence serves as a historical museum (1990) for the city. Wulff was also responsible for a number of prominent commercial buildings in the growing city such as the Hotel Salvador (Ing. Federico Wulff, 1904–1907), the most cosmopolitan hotel in the city, with bellboys who were supposedly able to speak three or four languages. His other hotel was the Hotel San Carlos (Ing. Federico Wulff, ca. 1903).6 The former Museo de la Revolución (Leonardo Zuloaga, 1890) was an irrigation control building sited at the edge of the Río Nazas near a steel-truss vehicular bridge that spans the river, linking the city with Gómez Palacio, Dgo. This small yet important building regulated irrigation for the wide canals for cotton farming that have now been transformed into many of the major boulevards of the city. The building was detailed with three large arched glass windows and an articulated cornice that reveals the tectonic logic of brick construction. Even today, it is still possible to see the bullet holes in the brick walls that were intentionally left unrepaired for visitors to grasp the ferocity of several battles for Torreón. With the arrival of the railroads, Torreón emerged as a major center for cotton production and became a boom town. German, Spanish, Arab, and U.S. immigrants

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(top) Hospital Civil, Torreón, Coah. (anon., 1907; now destroyed); postcard courtesy of Antonio Méndez-Vigatá (bottom) Museo de los Metales Peñoles, Torreón, Coah. (anon., ca. 1900); photo Antonio Méndez-Vigatá

(top) Hotel Salvador, Torreón, Coah. (Ing. Federico Wulff, 1904– 1907); postcard, Fot. Comercial, courtesy Antonio Méndez-Vigatá (center) Museo de la Revolución (former irrigation control building), Torreón, Coah. (Leonardo Zuloaga, 1890); photo ERB (bottom) Typical adobe-walled building clad in brick facing, Torreón, Coah. (ca. 1903); photo Antonio Méndez-Vigatá

flocked to the city. Chinese immigrants opened laundries, restaurants, clothing stores, and banks and developed agriculture and real estate in the city’s eastern neighborhoods (ca. 1906). Thus, Torreón grew from a village of 200 residents (1892) to a city of 34,000 by 1920!7 From 1890 to 1930, a regionally inflected, wall-dominant masonry desert architecture developed around patios and courtyards, with lightweight wooden balconies at the street to provide shade for pedestrians. More elaborate adobe-walled buildings were clad in brick facing, some of which arrived via railroad from Tampico, and had been ballast on ships from England. With vital railroad connections, Torreón developed one of the earliest public urban transportation networks with horse-drawn and later electric tramways that ran until the 1950s. A mule-powered tramway opened from Lerdo, Dgo., to the Mexican Central station in Gómez Palacio, Dgo. (1890), and another line opened to Torreón (1900). The lines were electrified in 1901, with a 650 ft. bridge across the Río Nazas, the first electric interurban tramway in Latin America. A song was written by Pioquinto González to celebrate the event, “De Torreón a Lerdo,” that remains the city’s theme song today. The Compañía de Electricidad y Tranvías de Torreón opened a local streetcar

106  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico system in Torreón in 1904 and had a fleet of thirty-three passenger trams by 1907.8 Early buildings such as the Hospital Civil (anon., 1907; now destroyed) responded to climate with open-air balconies that could be used both for circulation and also as a recuperative space for patients. Nearby the Museo de los Metales Peñoles (anon., ca. 1900) was originally the offices of the prominent silver-producing firm Met-Mex, and today is a metallurgical museum. This heavy, solid brick Victorian building is surrounded by a lightweight, bracketed wooden arcade that provides welcome shade. The Escuela Alfonso Rodríguez (anon., ca. 1910), now also unfortunately destroyed, was exemplary of the wealth of the city after the railroads arrived. This heavily rusticated building created striking shadows in the strong desert sunlight, and its entrance was marked by an ornate centralized portal experienced as a distinct figure against the sky. The distinctive spires of the Church of Guadalupe (anon., ca. 1907) became one of the recognizable symbols of the city. Freestanding, climate-responsive suburban residences of the period are represented by the current Museo de la Revolución (anon., ca. 1905) with a deep arched, covered porch that surrounds the building. The La Laguna Casino (attributed to Louis Chanel, 1910; remodeled by Carlos Gómez Palacio, 1946), which features an elaborate stone façade that faces the main plaza, is composed in an eclectic classical Beaux-Arts vocabulary by an architect who some claim was from New Orleans or Paris.9 The façade is organized into a dominant central bay with a balcony view to the public plaza below, with a flanking bay at each side, a rusticated base and a large-scale two-story top with a centralized two-story arched opening. The interior was described soon after its construction on the eve of the Mexican Revolution: The walls were decorated with huge mirrors and the windows hung with marvelous draperies, all imported from France at a staggering cost. There was a parquet floor which had cost 10,000 pesos. The ballroom was furnished with lovely light furniture (we would call it fruitwood now), and a fine grand piano. There were other rooms too, equally fine, a bar and cardrooms, where men foregathered and women were not invited.10 Sacked and burned during the revolution, today the casino has been adaptively reused, together with the adjacent Beaux-Arts Edificio Arocena (José Bracho, 1920), and remodeled as the Museo Arocena (anon., 2007), with a soaring interior court that is flooded with light and spanned

(top) Church of Guadalupe, Torreón, Coah. (anon., ca. 1907); photo Antonio Méndez-Vigatá (bottom) New Museo de la Revolución, Torreón, Coah. (anon., ca. 1905); photo ERB

with slender, articulated steel trusses. The museum is one of the best in the region, superbly presenting the Arocena family’s collections of paintings and decorative arts from the pre-Columbian, colonial, and modern eras. Adjacent to it is the Beaux-Arts Banco de Laguna (anon., 1911), designed using an abstracted neoclassical vocabulary and with a corner entrance. During the Mexican Revolution, the vital railroad hub crucial to the control of Northern Mexico was the scene of several fierce battles for control of the city. Pancho Villa won an important battle in 1911 for control of the town from Federalist forces. In the hours after the fall of the city,

Coahuila  107

Banco de Laguna, (anon., 1911); La Laguna Casino (attr. Louis Chanel, 1910; remodeled, Carlos Gómez Palacio, 1946); Edificio Arocena, (José Bracho, 1920; remodeled as the Museo Arocena, Torreón, Coah. (2007); photo ERB

the symbols of Torreón’s entrepreneurial establishment— including the Casino, Presidencia (city hall), jail, and most of the city’s banks, stores, pawnshops, laundries, and other commercial institutions, particularly those owned by Spaniards, Arabs, and Chinese—were sacked and burned. In and around the main plaza, Villa’s troops executed 303 Chinese merchants, many of whom had married into Mexican families, and workers, some of whom were brutally dragged by their hair.11 The city was later occupied by Carranza (Oct. 1913), by the Federalist forces of Huerta (Dec. 1913), then by Carranza again (April 1914), then by Villa (June 1914), and finally by Carranza (Sept. 1915). On the east side of the downtown is the Teatro Isauro Martínez (Abel Blas Cortinas, 1928–1930), one of the most important theaters in Northern Mexico. It utilizes an eclectic Moorish and Gothic revival vocabulary, and the exterior façade features decorative stained-glass windows. The experience of making the transition from the heat of this desert city into the dreamlike interior of this darkened, cool place is enhanced by its elaborate, eclectic design. The interior by the Valencian Salvador Tarazona features ornate plaster decoration that utilizes Asian motifs and murals. At intermission the audience can take refreshments on the balcony on the second floor above the entry, adding a public dimension to this work. Next door is a new adaptively reused Galería de Arte Contemporánea (Antonio Méndez-Vigatá, 2006), with a floating roof above a neutral wall-dominant composition, which provides a cool, contemplative space for exhibiting art in the midst of the bustling city.

Teatro Isauro Martínez, Torreón, Coah. (Abel Blas Cortinas, 1928– 1930); photo ERB

In the 1930s, Torreón had eclipsed now dominant Monterrey, NL, as a commercial center and had developed a rich but undervalued tradition of masonry architecture. A unique urban landscape in Northern Mexico also developed with Washingtonia and date palm trees planted along major boulevards such as Avenidas Colón and Morelos, along with other species such as Tamarix africana, a drought-resistant species that absorbs dust,12 planted along secondary streets. Carefully conceived interrelationships between shady tree-lined plazas and public buildings were established, but today these have unfortunately almost all been destroyed. The art deco Mercado Juárez (Ing. Andrés Farías, engineer and designer; José Bracho, builder, 1906; destroyed by fire and façades remodeled by Antonio Molina, 1929) in the downtown is one of the best buildings from that period in Northern Mexico, with a richly carved façade at

108  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico deco and Spanish colonial revival neighborhoods also appeared at what was then the eastern edge of the city. Among the most noteworthy work of the period is the mixed-use Edificio Tueme (Manuel Urdapilleta, 1940s) at the corner of Juárez and Comonfort, which has an unusual

Palm-lined Avenida Morelos in downtown Torreón, Coah. (2003); photo ERB

Edificio Tueme, Torreón, Coah. (Manuel Urdapilleta, 1940s); photo ERB

Mercado Juárez, Torreón, Coah. (Ing. Andrés Farías; José Bracho, builder, 1906; destroyed by fire and façades remodeled by Antonio Molina, 1929); photo Antonio Méndez-Vigatá

its shaped entry. The Hotel Galicia (anon., ca. 1934), with a dramatic corner entry that faces the main plaza, is among the most notable art deco works in the city. The city’s stadium, the Estadio de Revolución (Zeferino Domínguez, 1932) is a significant poured-in-place concrete structure with art deco entry portals. During the 1930s, several art

Church Competition Project, Torreón, Coah. (Jorge González Reyna and Walter Gropius, 1944); from L’Architecture d’Aujord’hui, September 1963 (special issue on Mexico)

Coahuila  109 bulbous, cloudlike undulating façade. This expressionistic work appears to be influenced by Mendelsohn. Nearby, at Falcon between Juárez and Hidalgo, is a four-story Commercial/Apartment Building (Manuel Urdapilleta, 1940s) with shops at the ground floor and three stories of apartments above. An unbuilt Church Competition Project (Jorge González Reyna and Walter Gropius, 1944) is one of the outstanding modernist church projects in Northern Mexico. The scheme is organized as a traditional Latin cross plan but features spanned hyperbolic ribs that lightly touch the ground with a thin concrete shell between the ribs. The bell tower is a freestanding transparent lightweight frame that soars upward. This unbuilt scheme extends the vocabulary of the modernist churches of Enrique de la Mora y Palomar, especially his La Purísima church in Monterrey, NL (1940). Later, the thin-shell vaults of Jorge González Reyna would be realized at the Ciudad Universitaria campus in Mexico City in his Cosmic Ray Lab, one of the best buildings of the modern period. The Jardín Residential Development (Jerónimo Gómez Rubleda, ca. 1948) is one of the best automobile suburbs of Northern Mexico. This development is noteworthy for its axial organization of residential streets and for the creation of a public domain in the wide central garden medians, which have rows of palms and coral trees and pedestrian pathways. Among the best commercial buildings of the 1940s and 1950s are the art deco Municipal Airport (Carlos Gómez Palacio, ca. 1938) and the CIAMCO Building (Carlos Gómez Palacio, 1948). His masterwork is one of the great modernist hotels in Northern Mexico, the Hotel Río Nazas (Carlos Gómez Palacio, 1947–1954). Sited on a boulevard of elegant palm trees on the northern edge of the downtown, this slender multistory block features an articulated central elevator core and corner units with light cantilevered corner balconies. It was an extremely innovative building for its time in terms of its mechanical system, with one of the earliest air-conditioning systems in the country, similar to the system utilized at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. The interior lobby featured murals by the Spanish painter J. Bueno Díaz of the arrival of conquistadors and missionaries to La Laguna and portrayals of the Río Nazas and of the agricultural development of cotton, wheat, and grapes. The main dining room featured paintings by the lagunero painter Alberto Ruiz Vela, and a desert landscape mural, El desierto, adorned the bar. It was considered one of the best hotels in the country and served as an important meeting place for the city’s commercial leaders.

One of the most undervalued projects in the country that deserves wider critical attention is the abstract, modernist Edificio Monterrey (Ing. Armando Ravizé; Ings. José Bracho and Cosme González, builders, 1951–1953) on the edge of the main plaza, which was the tallest building in Northern Mexico for many years. A horizontal eight-story block with strip windows is contrasted with a twelve-story tower with horizontal slots of windows cut into the tower. A two-story shaded entry at the corner faces the main plaza, with a sculptural column by the noted Mexican artist Jorge González Camarena. This poured-in-place concrete work utilizes a visual vocabulary of implied movement and interlocking forces and projects an optimistic vision of a progressive future. The IMSS Hospital General de Torreón (Enrique Yáñez, 1967) at 247 Camas is an orthodox modernist composition. The site plan is organized as an asymmetrical, orthogonal pinwheeling composition of rational sevenand three-story blocks. The free plan of the buildings features façades with vertically dominant brise-soleil to control the intense heat of the city. Other prominent architects at this time in Torreón included Otto Schott, a graduate of the ITESM in Monterrey who was active in residential development in Torreón in the late 1950s and 1960s, as well as Marco A. Rodríguez, who graduated from the UNAM and practiced in Torreón, primarily designing residences in the 1970s. The desert hill above the downtown is crowned by the Cerro de Cristo Noas (Vladimir Alvarado, sculptor; Padre Rodríguez Tenorio, builder, 1973–1983), a massive statue of Christ portrayed as protector for the city with outstretched hands, although today ironically flanked by television antennas. The statue and its dominant relationship overlooking the city were inspired by the statue of Christ on Sugarloaf Mountain overlooking Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Two sculptures act as urban landmarks from the speed of the car along the city’s highways: the yellow Puerta de Torreón (Sebastián, 2003) that rises like two stalks of corn, and the red abstracted, crenellated blossoming Torreón al Porvenir (Sebastián, 2007) that recalls Torreón’s original tower. The Universidad Iberoamericana Torreón (Jorge Ballina, José Creixell, and Fernando Rovalo, 1983) was designed by a team of architects from Mexico City. This undervalued mimetic, earthbound building with a sloping profile features thick walls with punched openings, is organized around a series of shady courtyards, and bears an empathetic relationship to the hills that surround the city. The best recent regional modernist project in terms of

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(right) Municipal Airport, Torreón, Coah. (Carlos Gómez Palacio, ca. 1938); photo ERB (bottom) Hotel Río Nazas, Torreón, Coah. (Carlos Gómez Palacio, 1947–1954); photographer unknown, postcard courtesy of Antonio Méndez-Vigatá

its innovative response to local conditions, pedagogy, and user experience is the Colegio Cervantes (Antonio MéndezVigatá, 1993–2005 and ongoing). The project reinterprets the rich brick and adobe architecture of Torreón from the nineteenth century and the first part of the twentieth. It critically responds to local conditions, including its urban context, site, desert climate, regional cultural preferences, local materials, and contemporary regional construction practices. Located in a recently developed commercial and residential neighborhood on the expanding eastern edge of the city, the school is sited to form a wall at the street with a series of interior courtyards, plazas, and irrigated gardens, not unlike a small city. The facility is organized

Coahuila  111

Edificio Monterrey, Torreón, Coah. (Ing. Armando Ravizé; Ings. José Bracho and Cosme González, builders, 1951–1953); photo ERB

IMSS Hospital General de Torreón, Torreón, Coah. (Enrique Yáñez, 1967); photo Archivo de Arquitectos Mexicanos de la Facultad de Arquitectura de la UNAM

around the regional typology of courtyards, which are used as outdoor rooms as well as circulation space for each of the four grade levels, K–2, 3–6, 7–8, and 9–12. Each courtyard is carefully differentiated, scaled, shaped, and articulated according to the grade level of the students. The school is also tectonically differentiated. Classrooms and support functions are wall-dominant brick buildings with punched openings, while the circulation is expressed as a more transparent concrete frame. The thick walls of the classrooms create deeply shaded windows and also accommodate bookshelves and storage cabinets. Locally fabricated brick was utilized that reinterpreted traditional brick construction of the region while utilizing contemporary methods of construction that modify and control the intense light in Torreón. Local brick allows for ease of maintenance in this heavily used school. The Colegio Cervantes was carefully crafted with hand labor and minimal heavy equipment. This is more cost effective and helps improve the local economy. The buildings are designed for passive cooling and cross ventilation. There is a backup evaporative cooling system that conserves energy, humidifies the dry desert air, and, according to the faculty, promotes better attention among the students. The youngest (K–2) students and administration are housed in a circular courtyard building, which, according to the architect, “is the most focused inward and protected, and suggests two sheltering arms, and creates a sense of security.” As the students advance grades, they literally ascend the circular, shaded, covered ramped arcade to each succeeding grade, terminating in a shaded outdoor mirador that frames views to the mountains on the south side of the city. The intermediate (3rd–6th grade) students are housed in two curved two-story blocks that face each other; are oriented north to south; and form a narrow, shaded garden courtyard that offers a focused view west to the city beyond. The deep brick walls provide shading, while the brick cornice detail recalls traditional brick buildings in Torreón. The middle school (7th–8th grade) students are housed in staggered three-story towers, joined by a connecting ramp, that form another narrow, shaded court. High school students (grades 9 through 12) are housed in a long three-story block that contains classrooms, lab space, and computer rooms. This block is the most open, transparent, and connected to the city, with views to the mountains to the south and a curved double roof that encourages air movement.13 Other projects by Méndez-Vigatá include the Shade Residence (2004–2006), sited in a subdivision that was formerly an agricultural grove of trees and organized as two parallel wall-dominant volumes that preserve existing

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(top) Cerro de Cristo Noas, Torreón, Coah. (Vladimir Alvarado, 1973–1983); courtesy of María Isabel Saldaña (bottom left) Torreón al Porvenir, Torreón, Coah. (Sebastián, 2007); photo ERB (bottom right) Puerta de Torreón, Torreón, Coah. (Sebastián, 2003); photo ERB

Coahuila  113

(top) Colegio Cervantes, Torreón, Coah. (Antonio Méndez-Vigatá, 1993–2005 and ongoing); photo ERB (bottom) Site plan, Colegio Cervantes, Torreón, Coah. (Antonio Méndez-Vigatá, 1998–2011); courtesy of architect

trees and are spanned by a bridge that creates a shaded courtyard. The most notable contemporary commercial project in the city is the Fiesta Inn (Springall + Lira, 2004–2005), a dynamically composed hotel building connected to a shopping mall. Each half of the ten-story double-loaded hotel block is clad with different materials to create an asymmetrical composition with horizontal slit windows at each floor that have a special glazing at one of the middle floors. The block sits on a base of support functions that form a courtyard with a welcome landscaped pool area. Other recent projects in the city include a brick masonry church by Sergio Guerrero Herrera (1998) that has a particularly expressive tectonic order. A series of sensible, well-designed residences, such as the Casa Ibarguen (Rubén González Montaña, 2004), reinterpret and extend the abstracted vernacular wall-dominant vocabulary of the noted Mexico City architect Ricardo Legorreta. This vocabulary makes sense in the hot desert climate of Torreón, and the residence appears to literally engage the earth, is carefully designed to provide for cross ventilation, and frames views to private patios and gardens. The innovative, sustainable Estadio Corona (HKS Archtects, 2009)

114  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico remedial landscape infrastructure along the Río Nazas. It also faces many of the challenges that many desert cities in the American Southwest confront, such as a sustainable water supply, air and soil pollution, suburban sprawl, crafting a contemporary desert architecture that responds to the realities of local materials and labor, and considering carefully what the quality of pedestrian experience will be in a city dominated by the automobile.

Parras Parras, also known as Parras de la Fuente, is situated midway between Torreón and Saltillo at 4,985 feet. This picturesque colonial and nineteenth-century town is a green, lush oasis in the Chihuahuan Desert with orchards and vineyards. The first winery in North America was established in the sixteenth century here, and the powerful Madero family was involved in brandy production.

Fiesta Inn, Torreón, Coah. (Springall + Lira, 2004–2005); photo ERB Presidencia Municipal

seats 30,000 and features water conservation and recycling, a 400-seat Catholic church for the devoted, a precast concrete frame, and a "floating" steel shape roof. The façades are clad in metal screens that give the facility a semi-translucent appearance. As the city expanded horizontally, new automobile residential suburbs have been developed based on the image of gated subdivisions in the United States. Among the best of this work is Las Villas Subdivision Sales Office (Mario A. Talamás Murra, 2004). The office is a distinct assemblage of tectonic types from abstracted traditional and industrial architecture of the city. Today, Torreón and the metropolitan area of La Laguna, which includes the contiguous cities of Torreón, GómezPalacio, and Lerdo, Dgo., has a population of 1,110,890 and is the ninth-largest city in Mexico. The area produces materials for the building industry that have shaped the architecture of the region, including cement, nonferrous metals, and marble; it also has the largest silver refinery in the world, Met-Mex Peñoles, as well as being Mexico’s most important dairy producer. Maquiladoras in the area produce clothing, car parts, and electrical components. This dynamic business-oriented city faces the challenge of measuring up to its rich, undervalued architectural traditions, repurposing its historic architecture, reinvigorating its downtown, developing a street tree program on its major streets, and designing a comprehensive “working”

Templo y Colegio San Ignacio Loyola

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Urban plan, Parras, Coah.; drawing by Orlando Marchan and Ricardo García-Báez

Panorama of Parras, Coah., from Santo Madero Church atop Cerro de Sombreretillo, Parras, Coah. (anon., 1868– 1880); postcard, MF, ERBPC

Coahuila  115 On a low hill at the center of town stand the colonial Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (anon., 16th– 18th c.) with its undervalued baroque and neoclassical retablos, the Jesuit Templo y Colegio de San Ignacio Loyola (anon., 1607–18th c.) with an elaborate golden retablo, and the Iglesia de Santa María de las Parras (anon., 1648) that preserves the city’s decree regarding its founding. The Santo Madero Church (anon., 1868–1880) is a small chapel, featuring a prominent shaped espadaña, that appears balanced atop the rugged Cerro de Sombreretillo. The Alameda (anon., late 19th c.) is a tree-lined park with children’s playgrounds and the Municipal Public Library. The Palacio Municipal (anon., late 19th c.) was modeled on the Palacio Municipal in Saltillo, and the entry for the two-story building is marked by an elaborate shaped parapet at the roof displaying the national symbol. The former Hacienda de San Lorenzo was purchased by Evaristo Madero (1893) and is now the Casa Madero (anon., ca. 1850), which continues to produce wine and brandy. Organized around a series of lush courtyards, it features heavy stone walls with narrow vertical openings and contrasting slender lightweight trellises filled with grapevines that provide welcome stippled light. The Hacienda Antigua de Perote (anon., n.d.) belonged to the Madero family until 1936 but is now a hotel and continues to produce wine and sotol (distilled liquor from the sotol plant).14 The Casa del Abuelo (anon., ca. 1890) is composed in a neoclassical Porfirian vocabulary and was the residence of Francisco I. Madero, the former president and martyr of the Mexican Revolution. The Aqueduct (anon., ca. 1903) is a series of massive stone arches built from rubble and cut stone. Another work from the era is the Presidencia Municipal (anon., 1903) with its crisp hoods over the windows. The plaza at the center of the town has a neoclassical clock tower (anon., ca. 1926) in memory of the martyrs of

Hostal el Farol, Parras, Coah. (anon., mid-19th c.); photo © mexicoenfotos.com/Entrada del Hostal el Farol, Parras de la Fuente

the Mexican Revolution. The dense urban fabric in the center of town is characterized by numerous nineteenthcentury courtyard buildings, which make walls at the street to define urban space and create a private domain inside each courtyard. One of the best of these is a former hacienda, now the Hostel el Farol (anon., mid-19th c.), which is a large-scaled single-story building with a prominent cornice at its flat roof that presents a wall punctuated occasionally by tall vertical windows protected by wroughtiron grills at the street. The most memorable aspects of the building are a series of courtyards that organize the rooms of the complex. The tall public rooms with high ceilings and closely spaced exposed wood beams are organized around a lush front courtyard. The tall interior rooms have mezzanines that are now used as sleeping areas and as guest rooms. The entry courtyard has a fountain at its center and tall trees and flowerbeds symmetrically disposed. The support and service functions are organized around a more informal rear courtyard paved with stone, which was once used for horses and animals and now is used for guest parking, which is interspersed with hedges and plantings. In addition to grapes, the area around Parras is noted for its production of figs, dates, pecans, walnuts, and avocados.

Saltillo

Presidencia Municipal, Parras, Coah. (anon., 1903); postcard, MF, ERBPC

Saltillo (from the indigenous tlacotilla, meaning “high land of much water”) lies in a spring-fed fertile valley that is surrounded by the Sierra Madre Oriental range that encloses the city and shelters it from the vast Chihuahuan Desert.

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Urban plan, Saltillo, Coah.; drawing by Jorge Mendiola and Ricardo García-Báez

Street façades, Calle Hidalgo, Saltillo, Coah.; drawing by Zhao Xu and Ricardo García-Báez

The city’s 5,216-foot elevation creates a mild, semiarid climate. To the north lie the hills of Las Valles, to the west the Sierra Colorada, and to the east the city of Arteaga. To the south lie the Sierra Encantada and the Sierra de Zapalinamé, named for a leader of the indigenous peoples who, according to local legend, can still be seen in the shape of these mountains. Santiago del Saltillo del Ojo de Agua (named for the patron of Spain, the indigenous place-name, and the Saltillo,saint Coah. spring where the city was sited) was founded (1575) as a strategic settlement along the Camino Real (Royal Highway). The settlement of San Esteban de Nueva Tlaxcala was established (1595) on one side of the town near the

present-day Plaza Nueva Tlaxcala (anon., 16th–20th c). Here eighty-seven Tlaxcalan families came voluntarily from Central Mexico to settle and to pacify the local indigenous tribes. The plaza marks the site that divided the two portions of the city: to the east, La Villa, inhabited by the Spanish, and to the west, inhabited by the Tlaxcalteca. The Tlaxcalan people brought their weaving techniques and, with the influence of other indigenous peoples, developed one of the cultural symbols of the city and all of Mexico: the Saltillo serape. Saltillo was loosely planned as a gridded city, and today the southeast corner of the main plaza, at Avenidas Hidalgo and Juárez, forms an axis for addresses in the city. Farming and ranching developed outside the

Coahuila  117 city, and a textile industry developed that is still prominent today. Over time, Saltillo has garnered various informal titles, including “La puerta de entrada a la tierra dentro” (The gateway to the land within); “La ciudad del clima ideal” (The city of perfect climate); and “La Atenas de México” (the Athens of Mexico), due to the city’s early interest in education and the number of important intellectuals it has produced. Appropriately, the city’s late-nineteenthand early-twentieth-century buildings frequently utilize an abstracted, Greek neoclassical architectural vocabulary. Today, the city’s important cultural and educational institutions include the Universidad Autónoma de Coahuila, the Instituto Tecnológico de Saltillo, the Tec de Monterrey Saltillo Campus, and the Universidad Autónoma Agraria Antonio Narro. During the Wars of Independence, Saltillo was one of the first large towns to be entered by the Hidalgo insurgents (1811), and later it was made the capital of the state of Coahuila (1824), which included what is now Texas. During the Mexican-American War, the city was occupied by U.S. General Zachary Taylor (1846), and the Battle of Angostura (1847) that took place just south of Saltillo was the decisive battle that led to U.S. control of northeastern Mexico. Today the Mirador Plaza Mexico (anon., ca. 1942), where Taylor camped, provides an outlook over the city. The Plaza de Armas (anon., 16th–20th c.), with a fountain (1910) of cast bronze nymphs, marks the historic center of the city and is framed by the city’s public institutions. The colonial Catedral de Santiago Apóstol (anon., 1745–1897) is one of the major baroque works of Northern Mexico15 and served as a hospital during the Battle of

Urban fabric of Saltillo with nineteenth-century tower of cathedral beyond; Catedral de Santiago Apóstol, Saltillo, Coah. (anon., 1745– 1897; bell tower, 1893–1897); photo ERB

Casino de Saltillo, Saltillo, Coah. (Alfred Giles, 1898–1900; remodeled 1928); photo ERB

Angostura. The eclectic, distinctive bell tower (1893–1897) casts precise shadows and is unusual in terms of its neoclassical vocabulary and form. It features three tiers of columns and a sharp, prominent cornice, surmounted by a highly inventive curved, bulbous spire. The Casino de Saltillo (Alfred Giles, 1898–1900; remodeled 1928) was built utilizing a neoclassical vocabulary near the cathedral on Calle Hidalgo. Founded in 1874, this beautiful two-story building with crisp stone detailing is set back from the street on a stone base with a light wrought-iron fence and was originally named the Casino Militar. After surviving the destruction at the hand of the Huertista general Joaquín Maas, it was reconstructed (1928) and continues to serve as a meeting place for the city’s social elite. The façade is organized in three bays, with a central entry bay with three arched openings at the ground floor and a lighter arched loggia at the second floor crowned by a pediment with Grecian scrollwork. This is symmetrically flanked by slightly projecting corner bays on each side, with a pair of Ionic columns framing a second-story balcony. After visitors enter, up a few stairs from the street and through the protected entry portico to the ground-floor lobby, an elegant stair leads to a second-story lobby. This upper-level lobby displays photos of the previous beauty queens that have been crowned (1951–) at the traditional black-and-white ball, still a prestigious event for young women and a major social event in the city. The upper-level lobby provides a place of transition and access to the major ballroom and the smaller meeting rooms. The ballroom opens out to the loggia that overlooks the Plaza de Armas and offers a welcome cooling breeze for elegantly dressed couples during dinners, parties, receptions, balls, and formal events.

118  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Palacio de Gobierno, Saltillo, Coah. (anon., 1808; façades, 1862– 1875; third floor, 1925–1929; remodeled 1980); photo ERB

The Palacio de Gobierno (anon., 1808; façades, 1862– 1875; third floor, 1925–1929; remodeled 1980) looms over the plaza and is organized around a courtyard with murals by the Spaniard Salvador Tarazona depicting the political history of the state, as well as a mural by the noted Mexican painter Jorge González Camarena. The façades were further remodeled and clad in a deep pink cantera (1980), and a mural by Salvador Almaraz was completed. Inside, the Museo del Palacio (anon., 2009) displays a collection of photographs, furniture, documents, and objects. On the other side of the main plaza lies the Plaza de Nueva Tlaxcala (anon., 16th–20th c.) that divided the early colonial city into the indigenous Tlaxcalan quarter to the west and the Spanish quarter to the east. The San Esteban Church (anon., 1592–ca. 1850) with its original façade was constructed when this portion of the city was the Tlaxcaltecan town of San Esteban de la Nueva Tlaxcala. Unfortunately, the original interior has been lost to remodeling. Like the cathedral, it was also used as a hospital during the Battle of Angostura. Down the street is the Instituto Coahuilense de Cultura (anon., 19th c.), a former residence with ochre walls and white trim whose courtyard is now covered by a glazed roof. The Barrio Santa Anita has recently been restored, and this traditional colonial neighborhood near the Plaza de Armas features intimately scaled urbanism and streets, including Miraflores and Manuel Moreno among others. Nearby stands the Recinto Juárez (anon., 17th–19th c.), which was one of the seats of Juárez’s government during his retreat north and is now a museum displaying documents and objects of the period. Organized as a courtyard building with circulation under a covered outdoor arcade, it is a good example of the typical building fabric of the city in the mid-nineteenth century.

To the east of the main plaza is the Rubén Herrera Museum (anon., 18th–mid-19th c.; restored by Carlos Villarreal, 2002), originally the Casa Hermanas Figueroa, with an intimate courtyard surrounded by a delightful arched arcade. Herrera (1888–1933) was influenced by the Italian painter Antonio Fabrés and founded the Saltillo Academy of Painting. Today the museum exhibits over four hundred of his paintings and drawings that depict local people and landscapes. After independence, a large number of buildings in the city were constructed of pink quarry stone and limestone, including the Templo de San Juan Nepomuceno (anon., 1879; façade, ca. 1898), a remarkable colonial and neoclassical Jesuit church that deserves wider attention. The neoclassical façade has a dominant central bay with colossal two-story Corinthian columns that frame an arched entry and a delicate circular rose window above and also support an entablature and pediment. At each corner of the façade are bays with narrow arched stained-glass windows

Recinto Juárez, Saltillo, Coah. (anon., 17th–19th c.), with bell tower (1893–1897), Catedral Santiago Apóstol, beyond; photo ERB

Coahuila  119

Rubén Herrera Museum, Saltillo, Coah. (anon., 18th–mid-19th c.; restored by Carlos Villarreal, 2002); photo ERB

and solid, rusticated pilasters that support the entablature. Above this is a transitional level of niches and entablature that would have supported a centralized tower that was unfortunately never completed. The front façade is beautifully crafted of monochromatic tan stone, which brings focus to the well-proportioned façade. The carefully considered proportions suggest the architect had an academic knowledge of classical architecture. The interior features oil paintings by Padre Gonzalo Carrasco (18th c.), sculptures of the evangelists, and a mural of the life of San Juan Nepomuceno. South of the church and up the hill is the Jesuit Colegio de San Juan Nepomuceno (anon., 1890; restored 1993), one of the first Jesuit colleges established after the Jesuits’ expulsion from Mexico and Spain (1767); it was where the revolutionary leader Francisco I. Madero and the historians Vito Alessio Robles and Carlos Pereyra studied. It was extensively rebuilt over time, and today it has been adaptively reused as the Museo de las Aves de México (Museum of the Birds of Mexico) with a collection that represents three-quarters of the birds of the country, the lifework of Aldegundo Garza de León, who created this important collection. This wall-dominant two-story masonry building with vertical punched windows is organized around a vast central courtyard with large trees surrounded by open-air arcades. Each of the blocks surrounding the central courtyard also has a smaller courtyard for light and view. The Casa Purcell (Alfred Giles, 1900–1906), with its steep roofs, irregular picturesque massing, and Tudor entranceway, looks like a restrained collegiate Gothic building from Yale’s old campus. This skillfully and beautifully crafted work of architecture reflected the memories of its owner, Guillermo Purcell, an industrialist who was

(top) Templo de San Juan Nepomuceno, Saltillo, Coah. (anon., 1879; façade, ca. 1898); photo ERB (bottom) Colegio de San Juan Nepomuceno/Museo de las Aves de México (Museum of the Birds of Mexico), Saltillo, Coah. (anon., 1890; restored 1993); photo ERB

120  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico from Saltillo, a cast-iron frame from Belgium, and lighting fixtures from Germany, with copper roofs that glisten in the light. Distinctions for social classes were made architecturally explicit: The main entrance was for “la distinguida sociedad” (high society), while the side door on Allende Street was for “la gente de las orillas” (common people).16 Tragically, a fire was set in 1918 that destroyed the stage, seating, interior walls, and ceiling prior to the sacrilegious, controversial performance of El dios loco (The Crazy God).17 However, the interiors were rebuilt and the façades were repaired (1920) and restored again (1999). Today the Teatro is a cultural center for all with a gallery for temporary exhibitions, and the auditorium is used for lectures, concerts, literary readings, and films. Several blocks west and downhill from the Plaza de Armas is the Alameda Zaragoza (anon., 1889–1920), which offers a cool and refreshing place for relaxing on benches under the shade of large “nogales, álamos y fresnos” (walnut, poplar, and ash trees). This important, lush park acts as the “pulmón de Saltillo” (lungs of Saltillo), a refuge for chaperoned courtship by teenagers and families with

Casa Purcell, Saltillo, Coah. (Alfred Giles, 1900–1906); photo ERB

originally from Ireland. The interior features stained-glass windows that recall Tiffany glass. Today it has been adaptively reused as the Coahuila Institute of Culture (ICOCULT) and houses a café, library, and exhibition halls where temporary exhibits of art are held. Three blocks northwest of the Plaza de Armas, the Plaza Acuña (anon., 19th c.) is surrounded by shops, cafés, and the Mercado Juárez (anon., n.d.), a market that sells traditional regional candy, pottery, leather craftwork, serapes, and sombreros. In front of the plaza is the Teatro García Carrillo (Ing. Henri Guindon, 1906–1910), named for the former governor who initiated its construction. The building is organized as a two-story urban block with a rusticated lower story with arches at each bay, and an upper floor of arched windows flanked by smaller vertical windows that are in turn flanked by pairs of Corinthian columns that support an entablature at the roof. The central axis of the building is marked by a low tower with a curved dome; the façade of the building is deeply layered, and the crisp façade creates strong shadows in the intense light. The façade is monochromatic and meticulously crafted of muted pink cantera from San Luis Potosí, brick masonry

Teatro García Carrillo, Saltillo, Coah. (Ing. Henri Guindon, 1906– 1910); photo ERB

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(left) Alameda Zaragoza, Saltillo, Coah. (anon., 1889–1920); photo ERB (center) Mansion at edge of Alameda Zaragosa, Saltillo, Coah. (anon., ca. 1890); photo ERB (bottom) Escuela Normal Superior, Saltillo, Coah. (Ing. Zeferino Domínguez, 1909); photo ERB

children who buy balloons from vendors, and a nostalgic respite from the bustling city. The alameda features prominent statues with nationalistic themes, including the withdrawal of Maximilian’s forces from the city (anon., 1866), Ignacio Zaragoza (anon., 1897), the Coahuila poet Manuel

Acuña (Jesús F. Contreras, 1918), Father Hidalgo (anon., 1953), and Carranza (anon., 1957).18 A water feature, the Lago de la República (anon., ca. 1940), is a large fountain and lake superimposed on the map of Mexico that contrasts with the lush growth that surrounds it. The fountain creates a rippling surface, and the refreshing splashing sound mingles with the quacking of ducks. The fountain’s source corresponds with the location of Saltillo on the map, acknowledging the hydrological roots of the city. Near the middle of the park is the Biblioteca Pública del Estado (anon., 1948), an oddly scaled neoclassical composition of cantera stone with curious proportions. The edge of the park is framed by elaborate stone residences, including a Mansion (anon., ca. 1890) flamboyantly designed to impress those who passed by. At the north end of the park is the Beaux-Arts Escuela Normal Superior (Ing. Zeferino Domínguez, 1909), with a monumental façade that shelters a shaded courtyard. The arrival of the railroads (1882) spurred the industrialization of the city, although Monterrey, NL, soon superseded Saltillo in that regard. The Antigua Estación del Ferrocarril (anon., 1883) is a picturesque Victorian composition of red brick that connected Saltillo with Mexico City and today is the legislative library. Nearby is the Teatro Fernando Soler (anon., ca. 1979), whose façade of pink cantera features an oddly proportioned classical Greek portico with five doors that lead to the theater. Six slender Ionic columns support an entablature and a pediment with a sculptural frieze of Ceres, goddess of agriculture, surrounded by angels and scrolled grape and apple motifs that reflect the agricultural products of the region. Thus, the ornamental program reflects both ancient and contemporary, distant and local themes. Inside there are murals of nine mythological Greek muses by the saltillense artist Pablo Valero Herrera. The Universidad Autónoma de Coahuila, Facultad de Leyes (anon., 1940s) is a three-story courtyard urban block that utilizes a plateresque, neocolonial vocabulary. The dramatic corner entrance of cantera and marble has colossal engaged estípites (a column shaped like an inverted obelisk, used extensively in 18th-c. Mexican colonial architecture) and pilasters that support an elaborate curved pediment bearing the school’s coat of arms. The other façades are composed with pilasters and tezontle stone infill that refer to colonial buildings in Mexico City. Thus, like the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León in Monterrey, NL, and the Universidad de Sonora in Hermosillo, Son., which were constructed around the same time, their material and formal vocabulary intentionally related to the first university in the Americas. Nearby, the Instituto Tecnológico

122  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Instituto Tecnológico de Saltillo, Saltillo, Coah. (Ing. Zeferino Domínguez, 1945–1950); photo ERB

Interior, Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, Saltillo, Coah. (Ing. Henri Guindon, 1890); photo ERB

Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, Saltillo, Coah. (Ing. Henri Guindon, 1890); photo ERB

de Saltillo (Ing. Zeferino Domínguez, 1945–1950) is a work of abstracted, classical stone architecture with a rusticated corner entrance that shelters a welcome, lush courtyard within. A number of eclectic nineteenth-century churches

were built during the Porfiriato. The Ojo de Agua Church (anon., 1894–1917) is a modest church built by local townspeople to commemorate the spring and small waterfall at the top of the hill from which Saltillo received its name. The colonial Templo San Francisco de Asís (anon., 18th c.) frames the San Francisco Plaza (anon., 19th c.), where a sculpture of the well-known bullfighter of Saltillo, Fermín Espinosa, the “Armillita Chico,” is located. On the northwest side of the city, the Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (Ing. Henri Guindon, 1890) features a neoGothic vocabulary crisply executed in stone with flying buttresses. The stone towers transition from heavy bases to a lacy frame and filigree of stone. The interior is particularly memorable and exquisitely crafted. The Vito Alessio Robles Cultural Center (anon., 1850) is a two-story urban block organized around a courtyard of memorable rough rubble-stone walls punctuated with porticos with thick, heavy arches, with murals by Elena Huerta. It preserves a large and valuable book collection, as well as personal objects of the renowned historian it is

Coahuila  123

Vito Alessio Robles Cultural Center, Saltillo, Coah. (anon., 1850); photo ERB

During the Mexican Revolution, Saltillo was occupied by the forces of Pancho Villa (May 1914, Jan. 1915) and then finally by the forces of Carranza (Sept. 1915). After the revolution, new buildings appeared. Among the best was the Escuela Preparatoria de Campo Redondo (anon., ca. 1900; adaptive reuse study by Antonio Méndez-Vigatá, 2002). This memorable complex establishes a static formal presence, creates outdoor rooms, and responds to local climate. It is composed of three two-story blocks with sloping roofs that form a C and are connected by a thick zone of covered open-air arched colonnades. The central block on the main axis has a thick, engaged colonnaded porch that joins the covered open-air arched colonnades on the cross axis. The colonnade turns the corner and becomes porches on the other buildings that step back behind the colonnade. The brick masonry has worn well over time and is well crafted, and this simple, articulate building continues to serve the public today. The Hotel de Coahuila (Alfred Giles., ca. 1923; now destroyed) was an elegant four-story commercial block, and the contrast with the simpler Hotel de la Plaza was striking. A colossal, two-story entry portico with four Ionic columns sat on tall bases that covered the city sidewalk and supported a third floor and second-floor balconies. Its curved corner acknowledged the traditional center of the city of the cathedral and Plaza de Armas a few blocks away. The façades were crisp, well crafted of brick with cast details, relatively flat and taut, with a rapid syncopation of windows. They were composed as two distinct two-story levels with engaged columns that support entablatures. The entablature against the sky features a distinctive profile with dentils that casts its shadow against the façade. The Ateneo Fuente (“Chato” Cortina and Ing. Zeferino Domínguez, 1932) has educated numerous luminaries who went on to achievements in the humanities, science,

Plan, elevation, and section, Escuela Preparatoria de Campo Redondo, Saltillo, Coah. (anon., ca. 1900; adaptive reuse study, Antonio Méndez-Vigatá, 2002); drawing courtesy of architect

named for. In addition, there are temporary exhibits featuring sculpture, painting, and photography. The Serape Museum (anon., n.d.) is a former mansion with a courtyard with an original handcrafted fountain. Inside, there are exhibits of the design and production of the Saltillo serape.

Hotel de Coahuila, Saltillo, Coah. (Alfred Giles, ca. 1923; now destroyed); ERB Col.

124  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Ateneo Fuente, Saltillo, Coah. (“Chato” Cortina and Ing. Zeferino Domínguez, 1932); photo ERB

Plan, Ateneo Fuente, Saltillo, Coah. (“Chato” Cortina and Ing. Zeferino Domínguez, 1932); drawing by José A. López and Ricardo García-Báez

and public life since its founding as the Instituto de Educación Superior (1867). The name of the institution was later changed to honor the distinguished coahuilense Juan Antonio de la Fuente. The ateneo (“athenaeum,” derived from the Greek “Athēnaion,” which was a temple in Athens dedicated to Athena, goddess of wisdom and the arts, that was a place of learning where philosophy was taught) has specific Mexican connotations. It refers to literary and cultural groups that were modeled on the classical Greek athenaeum popular among intellectual circles in latenineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Mexico City. The most influential was the progressive Ateneo de la Juventud, formed by Mexico’s leading intellectuals José Vasconcelos and Antonio Caso, who opposed the positivist philosophy of Auguste Comte and the Porfirio Díaz regime. The building is a notable example of art deco architecture, and it houses one of Mexico’s most important secondary

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Edificio Castillo Salas, Saltillo, Coah. (anon., ca. 1948); photo ERB

schools and a museum with a collection of Mexican art, murals, and natural history. The stepped massing of the building recalls Mesoamerican pyramids and Middle Eastern ziggurats and creates a complex profile against the sky as it is axially approached through an entry garden that terminates in a circular drive. A central, stepped five-story vertical tower with tall, vertical engaged pilasters and windows dominates the composition. Entry is through three tall, recessed arched openings into this “cathedral of learning,” with murals by Salvador Tarazona and Miguel Santana that leave the distinct impression of great things being expected of those who enter. Behind the central tower, four- and three-story volumes with tall, vertically engaged pilasters and windows recess backward, creating a dramatic sense of diminishing perspective. These are flanked by two-story blocks on either side. The entire experience is heroic as well as simultaneously ancient and progressive. Early modern commercial architecture in the city includes the Edificio Castillo Salas (anon., ca. 1948), which is treated as urban infill and presents another vision for a progressive, optimistic vision of modernity.

Among the interesting recent architecture of the city is the Museo del Desierto (Francisco López Guerra, with Margen Rojo, exhibit designers, 1999), sited southeast of the downtown at the top of a hill that overlooks the city. The complex’s abstract picturesque massing recalls regional vernacular buildings as a series of interlocking wall-  dominant pavilions of deep red color that extend the vocabulary of the work of the noted Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta. Visitors arrive at the top of the hill and enter a central pavilion, then descend down into the museum by means of ramps and stairs through a series of interactive desert ecology exhibits that utilize electronic information technology. The exhibit is enriched by occasional choreographed views into laboratories of scientists working with artifacts and animals and by views into outdoor exhibits with live animals. The exhibit concludes in an indoor rain forest terrarium that leads to extensive outdoor desert gardens that cover the hillside with desert animal exhibits. Shaded eating facilities offer snacks or lunch before visitors ascend a flight of outdoor stairs back to the entry pavilion. The DIF Municipal Saltillo (Antonio Méndez-Vigatá, 2003) is an intelligent response to its context on a hilly, sloping site in a working-class neighborhood. This neighborhood center proposal creates an axis of stairs that culminate in an oval plaza. In contrast, the wall-dominant, abstracted, regionally inspired buildings in the complex with various public functions both form a gateway and frame this public axis as they either align with the surrounding curving streets or organically follow the contours of the site.

Museo del Desierto, Saltillo, Coah. (Francisco López Guerra, Margen Rojo, exhibit designers, 1999); photo ERB

126  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico Saltillo’s most well-known traditional handicraft exports include locally woven serapes and Saltillo tile, the durable reddish earth-colored clay floor and patio tile that has been used for centuries that provides a good heat sink in hot climates. Contemporary industries and products include automobiles, motors and parts, machine tools, metal products, silver, zinc, copper, cement, brick, telecommunications equipment, agricultural chemicals, pharmaceuticals, textiles, appliances, furniture, ceramic tile, and food processing. In 1995, the Wall Street Journal characterized the area as a “mini-Detroit.” The automotive industry includes the  huge Daimler-Chrysler and General Motors Assembly Plant (anon., ca. 1975) with two engine facilities and a car transmission plant. The General Motors assembly plant alone employs 3,800 people in manual labor jobs. Saltillo is also home to the Grupo Industrial Saltillo, an important manufacturing conglomerate that makes home appliances, silverware, and auto parts. The Distribuidor Vial (anon., 1980–2008) acts as the city’s perimeter freeway system and is built at grade, while overpasses are built as small hills that bypass major arterials at grade and bear a mimetic relationship to the mountains that surround the city. Today, the metropolitan area of Saltillo has a population of 725,259. Despite recent industrialization, the city still honors its ranching traditions with state fairs, which serve regional dishes such as cabrito (baby goat) and, of course, carne asada (grilled steak). Like many cities in Northern Mexico, the extraordinarily rich architecture, landscape architecture, and urbanism of Saltillo deserve greater attention. Although the city has managed to preserve much of its colonial, nineteenth-century-, and early-  twentieth-century urban core, local criticism has been directed to a lack of planning and adaptive reuse regarding recent suburban sprawl at the perimeter of the city.

(left) Parroquia del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús, Ciudad Victoria, Tamps. (anon., ca. 1883); photo ERB (below) Palacio Municipal, Ciudad Victoria, Tamps. (Ing. Manuel Bosh y Miraflores and Ing. Alejandro Prieto, 1898–1903); photo ERB

(top left) Valdés House, Monterrey, NL (Luis Barragán with Raúl Ferrera, 1981–1983); photo, Diego Rodríguez Lozano (top right) Vasconcelos Dos, Monterrey, NL (Landa, García, Landa Arquitectos, 2009); courtesy of architect (bottom) EVO Housing, Monterrey, NL (Alexandre Lenoir, 2008); courtesy of architect

(above) Monterrey House, Monterrey, NL (Bernardo GómezPimienta/bgp arquitectura, 2010); photo by José Navarro, courtesy of architect (left) Casa Panarey, Monterrey, NL (Gilberto Rodríguez, 2001); photo GLR Arquitectos

(opposite) Recinto Juárez, Saltillo, Coah. (anon., 17th–19th c.) with bell tower (1893–1897), Catedral Santiago Apóstal beyond; photo ERB (top left) Coahuila-Texas Museum, Monclova, Coah. (anon., ca. 1780; adaptive reuse, 1977); photo ERB (top right) Panorama, Torreón, Coah.; postcard, photographer unknown, published by Sonora News Company, ca. 1910, ERBPC (bottom) Escuela Normal Superior, Saltillo, Coah. (Ing. Zeferino Domínguez, 1909); photo ERB

(opposite) Edificio de la Aduana Fronteriza (Border Customs Building), Ciudad Juárez, Chih. (George E. King; Ing. Manuel Garfio, builder, 1885–1889; restoration, 1990); photo ERB (above left) Old Bullring, Ciudad Juárez, Chih. (anon., ca. 1900); postcard, photographer unknown, ERBPC (above right) Casa en Chihuahua, Chihuahua, Chih. (PRODUCTORA, 2008); courtesy of architect (right) Juárez Monument, Ciudad Juárez, Chih. (Julio Corredor Latorre, 1910); photo ERB

(opposite, top) Entry, Edificio Aguacate, Durango, Dgo. (Ing. Estanislao V. Slonecki, 1896); photo ERB (opposite, bottom) Arcade and Courtyard, Military Hospital, Durango, Dgo. (anon., 1899); photo ERB (above) Teatro Ricardo Castro, Durango, Dgo. (George A. King, 1900); photo ERB

(right, top) Catedral de la Asunción, Hermosillo, Son. (anon., 1861–1908); photo ERB (right, bottom) Panorama of bay, looking northwest, Guaymas, Son. (ca. 1903); photographer unknown, ERBPC (opposite, top) Palacio de Gobierno, Hermosillo, Son. (Ing. Felipe Salido, 1882–1891; tower completed, 1906); Wikimedia Commons, Alvaro Dioni (opposite, bottom) Hotel Playa Cortés, Guaymas, Son. (Ignacio Díaz Morales, 1934); photo ERB

(opposite, top) Biotechnology Park Research Facility, Culiacán, Sin. (Tatiana Bilbao, 2009); courtesy of architect (opposite, lower left) Aduana Marítima, Mazatlán, Sin. (Francisco Bonet, 1828; additions, ca. 1863, 1882); photo ERB (opposite, lower right) Courtyard, Palacio Municipal, El Fuerte, Sin. (Luis F. Molina, 1903–1907); photo ERB (above) Courtyard, Hotel Melville, Mazatlán, Sin. (anon., late 19th c.); photo ERB

(opposite, top) Hotel Bahía, Ensenada, BC (anon., ca. 1945); postcard, Western Lithograph Co., Los Angeles, CA; ERBPC (opposite, bottom) Centro para los Artes, Los Cabos, BCS (Alberto Kalach/TAX, 2009); courtesy of architect (above) Hotel Endémico, outskirts of Ensenada, BC (Jorge Gracia, 2012); courtesy of architect

Misión de las Palmas de San José del Cabo, San José del Cabo, BCS (anon., late 19th c.; remodeled 1940); photo ERB

Chihuahua  127

Chihuahua Ay . . . Chihuahua! —A traditional expression of amazement

Geography The state of Chihuahua (from the Tarahumara xicuaga, meaning “sandy and dry place”) features a number of contrasting landscapes. The hot, arid Chihuahuan Desert, the largest in North America, includes basins, plains, and mountains with numerous species of cactus and desert scrub. To the west, the towering Sierra Madre Occidental, with rugged mountains, canyons and ravines, and cool fertile valleys, features oak and deciduous trees at lower elevations, lush pine forests with winter snow at the highest elevations, but areas of tropical humidity in the deepest ravines of Copper Canyon. The few rivers in this largely arid state and the substantial mineral wealth have largely determined its urbanization. The Río Casas Grandes in the north, the Río Conchos in the center, and Ríos Sacramento and Chuvíscar near Ciudad Chihuahua all flow to the Rio Grande that defines the border with the United States.

History During the pre-Columbian era, Chihuahua was inhabited by a number of indigenous groups. The largest and most well-known pre-Hispanic site is the northern desert site of Paquimé (Casas Grandes; AD 1130–AD 1450), which is culturally related to the pre-Columbian sites in the American Southwest. This site features an extensive watercollection system, along with plazas, ball courts, and multistory housing built of adobe. Other pre-Columbian sites include Cerro Juanaqueña (1150 BC) in northern Chihuahua, noted for its terrace construction, and Galeana in the Casas Grandes region. In the southern Sierra Madre Occidental, the Tepehuán were the largest and most important tribe when the Spaniards arrived. Today, the best-known

Map of Chihuahua; portion of Mexico map, CAW

indigenous group is the Tarahumara (runners), who inhabit the mountainous Sierra Madre Occidental. The discovery of silver (1567) brought the earliest colonial settlers to the region, and the economy of the state revolved around cattle ranching and mining. Vast quantities of desert land were required to support cattle ranching, and huge ranching haciendas were formed that

128  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico concentrated wealth into a few families. Yet Chihuahua also had an atypical number of small, independent ranches and a high degree of autonomy due to successfully subduing the Apaches and Comanches. An 1852 decree called for land grants and autonomy to Mexican nationals who were to be a “warrior people” to resist the encroachment of “barbarous hordes” (an inclusive term for both hostile natives and gringos). Rubén Osorio points out the incredibly violent nature of the Apache Wars: Yepomera, for example, was totally destroyed in 1852 and all its inhabitants killed, leaving the town completely uninhabited for twenty years. The people of Chihuahua remember the Apache Wars as savage battles in which prisoners were never taken. Women were kidnapped, as were children, by both sides, and all the men, white or Indian, were scalped or burned alive. For two centuries the whites and the Apaches were equally ferocious in the conduct of these wars.1 Apache warriors led by Victorio were finally defeated by a group of Tarahumara soldiers under the command of Luis Terrazas west of Ojinaga (1880); Geronimo surrendered to U.S. General Nelson Miles (1886) at Skeleton Canyon, AZ. As governor of Chihuahua, Terrazas controlled the state militia. Hacienda owners who were too weak to defend themselves were forced to sell cheaply to him, and his own holdings multiplied dramatically. Terrazas, his son-in-law Enrique Creel, and the jefes políticos chosen by the Porfirian regime had no further need for the soldiersettlers of Chihuahua and seized their land and forced them onto haciendas.2 Early rebellions against the federal government at Tomochic (1891–1892) and Namiquipa (1892) were brutally crushed by the federales, whose reprisals further alienated the population and set the stage for the Mexican Revolution. Toribio Ortega and a small group of followers finally took up arms in November 1910 in the town of Cuchillo Parado, Chih., and the Mexican Revolution gained momentum when Pascual Orozco and Pancho Villa began attacking towns in the state. Chihuahua would go on to play a key role during the revolution (1910– 1917), as it was the scene of numerous battles and became a stronghold for the forces of Pancho Villa. Following the revolution, the state slowly rebuilt its infrastructure, and new buildings appeared in the major cities. By the 1940s, industrialization and the dominance of the automobile contributed to the rapid growth of the major cities. Since the 1960s, the state’s economy has diversified beyond ranching and mining to include large

assembly plants in the capital of Chihuahua and in Ciudad Juárez. Contrary to popular belief, the well-known small breed of dog popularly known as the “Chihuahua” did not originate here. Originally known as “Texas” or “Arizona” dogs, as these were the states that imported these dogs from Mexico, they became known as “Chihuahuas” because this was the state in Mexico where they entered the United States.

Ciudad Juárez When the first Spanish explorers approached the Rio Grande (1581), they encountered two mountain ranges rising out of the desert with a striking pass between and named this place El Paso del Norte (The Pass of the North). The area developed as a trade center on the Camino Real (Royal Highway), and agriculture flourished. This mountain pass became the strategic site of two future border cities. The initial settlement on the south bank was established by Juan de Oñate (1598) near presentday San Elizario, while Fray García de San Francisco founded Misión de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de los Mansos de El Paso del Norte (anon., 1662–1668; restoration, Felipe Lacouture and Alberto Rosas, 1971), which still stands proudly today in the downtown. By 1682, five small settlements were founded south of the river: El Paso del Norte, San Lorenzo, Senecú, Ysleta, and Socorro, which exist as neighborhoods today. Adjacent to the mission is the Catedral de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (Óscar Sánchez Cordero, Ing. Manuel O’Reilly, 1941–1957; remodeled by Felipe Lacouture, 1966–1967; rebuilt by Óscar Sánchez Cordero, 1975–1977; remodeled 1990), which was ravaged by fire in 1975, and though the original façade and 100 ft. towers were retained, the rest of the building was transformed (1977) in an austere, abstract mode of composition with parish offices and a library added later (1979). The façade is strongly vertical with a pair of symmetrical towers expressed as lighter arched frames that recede as they step upward and rest on a solid, rusticated base. The arched entrance with the unusual hexagonal window of the choir above is flanked by pairs of Corinthian capitals that support a pediment that pragmatically contains a clock. The church is dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe, and the south façade is expressed as a frame with an enormous stained-glass window, “The Grace of God in the Salvation of Mexico through the Virgin of Guadalupe” (Willis Griffin, n.d.), fabricated in El Paso, TX. The mission and cathedral face the Plaza de Armas (anon., 1668–1838), landscaped with trees (ca. 1885) that developed with the

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Plaza

Camino Real Hotel

EL PASO, TX

Aerial view looking north, Ciudad Juárez, Chih.; postcard, photo by Mac Chew, Chew Agency Inc.; ERBPC

Rio Grande

Plaza de Toros Presidencia Municipal Catedral Aduana Plaza de Armas Edif. Correos 250 m

0 500

1000 ft

Urban plan, Ciudad Juárez, Chih.; drawing by Bo Schenk, Sebastián Escobar, and Ricardo García-Báez

establishment of the mission. Another colonial mission in the city is Misión San José (anon., 1785–1786). After Mexico’s independence from Spain (1821), the municipal council of El Paso del Norte granted land north of the Rio Grande to Juan María Ponce de León, and it became a thriving agricultural and ranching enterprise. The U.S. flag flew over Ciudad Juárez (1846–1847) during the Mexican-American War, and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) fixed the boundary at the Rio Grande;

the future Ciudad Juárez thus became a border town. The flooding of the Rio Grande initially provided irrigation for orchards and farmland, but this source was supplanted by the construction of canals and acequias (irrigation ditches). The initial acequia madre led to the development of the Pueblo, Del Barro, La Colorada, Del Charro, La Horcasiteña, La Leyveña, Del Cuervo, La Aranda, and Doblado acequias. So critical was the system of acequias that President Benito Juárez ordered restoration of the acequias in 1866. With the California Gold Rush (1849), five settlements had been established by Anglo­ Americans north of the river. One of them became known as Franklin, and the pioneer Anson Mills named this settlement El Paso (1859). During the French intervention in Mexico, Benito Juárez made El Paso del Norte his headquarters for the Liberal movement. The town grew rapidly after the railroad arrived (1884), and El Paso del Norte was renamed Ciudad Juárez (1888); the traditional name El Paso was claimed by the bustling railroad town at the western tip of Texas on the north side of the river. The Presidencia Municipal (anon., 1690; rebuilt 1880, 1905, 1943–1947, 1983) was originally a presidio (fort) and barracks for troops who fought Apaches and protected travelers on the Camino Real, and later served as military quarters during the Porfiriato. Saw-cut lava rock covers thick adobe walls, and the façade is surmounted by the city’s coat of arms. The foyer features a mural depicting the history of the founding of Ciudad Juárez painted by José Guadalupe Díaz (1977). Peace treaties with the native peoples were signed on this site (18th and 19th c.), and it served as headquarters for Madero after the Battle of

130  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Presidencia Municipal, Ciudad Juárez, Chih. (anon., 1690; rebuilt 1880, 1905, 1943–1947, 1983); photo ERB

(top) Catedral de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, Ciudad Juárez, Chih. (Óscar Sánchez Cordero, Ing. Manuel O’Reilly, 1941–1957; remodeled by Felipe Lacouture, 1966–1967; rebuilt by Óscar Sánchez Cordero, 1975–1977; remodeled 1990); photo ERB (bottom) Plaza de Armas, Ciudad Juárez, Chih. (anon., 1668–1838; landscaped ca. 1885); postcard, DPCO (1902), NYPL

Ciudad Juárez (1911). Today it is the Centro Municipal de las Artes (2000). The dominant architectural symbol of the city was not the town hall, but instead the aduana that regulated and taxed commercial exchange across the border since the arrival of the railroads (1884). The Edificio de la Aduana Fronteriza (Border Customs Building; George E. King,

Ing. Manuel Garfio, builder, 1885–1889; restoration 1990) featured thirteen offices, two large storerooms, and a stable to house thirty animals for pulling wagons. This memorable building was composed as a tall one-story block with a sloping roof and dormers, with three prominent towers, one over the centralized entrance and two at the corners of the building. The towers were crowned with prominent mansard roofs that were punctuated with dormers and oculus windows, which acted as figural elements against the sky and acknowledged the French Beaux-Arts culture advocated by the Porfiriato. The building was constructed of brick masonry and stone and had the technical innovation of piped water and gas; it functioned as the customs offices for almost ninety years.3 After a new customs annex was constructed (1976), the original building was restored and adaptively reused (1983–1990) to house the Museo Histórico de Ciudad Juárez. Nearby is the Garita de Metales (anon., 1889; restored 1998) that utilizes the same vocabulary and materials. A number of significant public buildings are now demolished. The Cuartel Municipal (anon., 1892) was a fortress erected during the Porfiriato that was the site of the surrender of Federalist troops during the Battle of Juárez. The Cárcel Pública (anon., ca. 1892) featured a distinctive swooping pediment over the entry, flanked by two engaged semicircular towers. The brick Teatro Juárez (anon., ca. 1905) featured an oversized geometricized, abstracted neoclassical façade with a monumental entry arch. It functioned much like a wooden “stage-set façade” in Southwest frontier towns, where the monumental, formal façade at the street could hide the more modest, functional, and irregular volume of the building behind it. Ciudad Juárez operated a tramway (1882) that crossed the border and served both cities, but the electric streetcar

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Iglesia Sagrado Corazón de Jesús, Ciudad Juárez, Chih. (anon., ca. 1905); photo Ana Serrano, ERB Col.

Edificio de la Aduana Fronteriza (Border Customs Building), Ciudad Juárez, Chih. (George E. King; Ing. Manuel Garfio, builder, 1885– 1889; restoration, 1990); photo ERB

Cárcel Pública, Ciudad Juárez, Chih. (anon., ca. 1892); Tibbets photo (1910), ERB Col.

line to the racetrack closed (1945) as well as the remaining intra-city routes to El Paso (1947) when the international bridges facilitated control of the border. The system closed (1966), then opened only intermittently, and finally ended (1974) when the mayor of Ciudad Juárez had the rails removed (1977).4 The Iglesia Sagrado Corazón de Jesús (anon., ca. 1905) is a wall-dominant composition with precise linear moldings and a distinctive shaped parapet that defines a small gated atrio (atrium). The most striking aspect of the church is a delicate bell tower atop a heavy tower base. Inside, an ornate altar inspired by a baroque retablo still remains. Unfortunately, the ceiling has been lowered and lost with recent remodeling to introduce air conditioning.5 Near the former bullring in the Colonia San Lorenzo is the Church of San Lorenzo (anon., ca. 1831), which was remodeled many times, most recently (1993) by Javier Terrazas, former dean of the school of architecture at the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez (UACJ).6 It features a taut, precise façade that recalls an abstracted Roman triumphal arch. Another significant project of the era was the Escuela Superior de Agricultura Hermanos Escobar (anon., 1908) an austere, symmetrical neoclassical building organized around a central courtyard and arcade that served as a hospital during the Mexican Revolution. The Juárez Monument (Julio Corredor Latorre, 1910) is an elaborate symbol of allegorical nationalism to commemorate Benito Juárez, the namesake of the city of almost mythological status. The project was initially a competition for architects invited from the United States and Europe. The governor of Chihuahua, Enrique Creel, ultimately invited a Colombian architect who had

132  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Juárez Monument, Ciudad Juárez, Chih. (Julio Corredor Latorre, 1910); photo ERB

completed several elegant mansions in Ciudad Chihuahua to design the monument in connection with Mexico’s Centennial of Independence. The monument is composed of four allegorical statues placed above inscriptions relating to Juárez; these are placed around the base of a round crenellated tower that symbolizes Juárez’s role as the defender of the republic against foreign intervention. The cut stone was quarried near the city of Chihuahua; the dark marble for the inscriptions came from Durango, and the smaller sculptures and allegories were carved from white Italian marble. The impressive base supports a thick Doric column with a heraldic inscription of Juárez. This in turn supports a smaller base with memorial garlands and, finally, the 8-foot-high bronze statue of Juárez that was cast in Florence, Italy. One outstretched arm reaches out to the citizenry, while the other grasps the symbols of the defender of the nation. The monument reflected the

embracing of modernity and national symbols of the Díaz regime, with electric lighting expressed as torches that proudly illuminated the monument at night, as well as utilizing imported materials from Europe, an architect from Colombia, and the Italian sculptors Augusto Volpi and Fransisci Rigalt. The first stone was laid by Porfirio Díaz in 1909 during the visit of U.S. president William H. Taft, and the monument was completed for the Centennial celebrations on the eve of the Mexican Revolution. During the revolution, the monument was the site of several victory speeches by Maderistas. The city was also the site of several bloody battles and was occupied by the troops of Carranza in 1913 and again in 1915, and many of the city’s buildings were badly damaged, including the post office building that was destroyed. During Prohibition in the United States, Ciudad Juárez became a magnet for U.S. tourists to indulge in drinking, gambling, and soliciting prostitutes; and the bars, liquor stores, nightclubs, and the Hipódromo (Racetrack; anon., 1909) near the border were powerful lures for border visitors. The Centro Escolar Revolución (Ing. César Biossi, 1936–1939) in the barrio La Chaveña was built as an art deco–Spanish colonial revival school with thirty classrooms for 1,500 students. It featured a striking centralized two-story mass with a shaded entry below and a shaded loggia above, and was composed with vertical pilasters and infilled with articulated shaped openings. The entry was flanked by two-story classroom blocks on either side with repetitive vertical openings. The ironwork was fabricated by Herrería Gabelich, and the stained-glass windows were crafted by the Casa Montaña-Vidriarte in Torreón, Coah.

Centro Escolar Revolución, Ciudad Juárez, Chih. (Ing. César Biossi, 1936–1939); photo Ricardo García-Báez

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Casa Antonio J. Bermúdez, Ciudad Juárez, Chih. (anon., 1943); postcard, photographer Roberto López Díaz, Roberto Studio, ERBPC

Edificio de Correos (Gilberto López Oreano; Luis García; and Herón Rodríguez, builders, 1947) and Commercial Block (anon., ca. 1964), Ciudad Juárez, Chih.; postcard, photographer unknown

The most prominent residential area in the downtown was nearby on Avenida 16 de Septiembre with a number of notable residences. The best Spanish colonial revival residence in the city is the home of the former powerful mayor, the Casa Antonio J. Bermúdez (anon., 1943; later the Quinta Anita restaurant), which reflects the vocabulary popularized in Southern California and later Mexico City. It features informal, wall-dominant massing with a circular stair tower attached at the side, an arched arcade on the second floor, elaborate Churrigueresque ornament that marks the centralized entrance, and a clay tile roof. The Centro Educativo (Ing. Francisco Gómez Domínguez, 1944–1945) is organized as a two-story courtyard scheme with concrete floors and taut, streamlined walls of brick that reflect the nationalistic vocabulary of the 1940s of Mexico City. Other streamlined buildings include the Mercado Juárez (Ing. Arturo Chávez Amparán, 1944– 1947), which was a popular tourist destination, as well as the Cine Plaza (anon., 1947). The Centro de Salud (anon., 1946) utilizes a neocolonial vocabulary of Mexico City with walls of deep red volcanic tezontle with chiluca (gray stone) trim. Other buildings from the era include the Misión de San Antonio en Senecú (anon.; rebuilt 1945–1950) with an unusual abstracted neo-Gothic vocabulary and truncated tower; the Palacio Municipal (anon., 1947); the Banco Nacional de México (anon., 1945); the colonial revival Edificio Victoria (Antonio J. Bermúdez, builder, 1940s) with a distinctive articulated corner; the four-story Hotel San Antonio (anon., 1947) that was the most elegant hotel of the era; and the colonial revival Cine Victoria (anon., 1945) with an elaborate shaped parapet at the entry and merlons at the parapet.7 The Edificio de Correos (Gilberto López Oreano, Luis García, and Herón Rodríguez, builders,

1947) is a two-story neocolonial building organized around a courtyard with a distinctive scalloped parapet, merlons, and articulated entries. The walls are finished with plaster over brick with stone ornament surrounds; the floors and roof are of concrete. Across the street, the best early modernist building in the downtown is a seven-story Commercial Block (anon., ca. 1964) expressed as a five-story transparent lightweight curtain wall with solid end walls that floats atop two levels expressed as a base, with a continuous glazed commercial storefront at street level and a solid horizontal band for signage above. The Anthropology and History Museum (Pedro Ramírez Vázquez and Rafael Mijares, 1962–1964) is one of the best modernist buildings in Northern Mexico. The building is conceived as a sculptural landmark and gateway for visitors to Mexico and is initially experienced from a motor vehicle along a curving roadway. After parking, the visitor passes through a radial block of administrative support spaces and across a small bridge that spans a narrow, shallow radial sheet of water that surrounds the museum and acts as a transition from the everyday world. The visitor enters the exhibition space through a glazed void in the sloping cone-shaped walls. The thin, crisp radial sloping walls seemingly float above a base of horizontally laid local stone and the pool of water below. Tectonically, the sculptural cone-shaped exhibition space is supported by ten concrete columns at the interior with thin, crisp sloping radial enclosure walls constructed of metal framing with an exterior finish of cement plaster with a color application of synthetic rubber elastomeric and an interior finish of smooth plaster.8 The floor is polished terrazzo with large aggregate with a system of radial and concentric aluminum joints that align with the structural system. The

134  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Anthropology and History Museum, Ciudad Juárez, Chih. (Pedro Ramírez Vázquez and Rafael Mijares, 1962–1964); photo Ricardo GarcíaBáez, ERB Col.

Anthropology and History Museum, Ciudad Juárez, Chih. (Pedro Ramírez Vázquez and Rafael Mijares, 1962–1964), and Centro Artesanal, Ciudad Juárez, Chih. (anon., 1964); postcard, photo by Dick Kent, Petley Studios, ERBPC

air-conditioned open exhibition space of 65 ft. in diameter receives diffuse natural light from above through a cast polyester resin and fiberglass dome that spans between the sloping radial walls. The exhibition space is further

subdivided into four exhibit areas with freestanding partitions, and finally subdivided conceptually with a thicker zone of space at the perimeter defined by a series of partitions. The radial walls frame pre-Columbian sculptures and colonial objects. This memorable, sculptural totemic object is simultaneously modern and ancient and recalls an abstracted mountain, the truncated cones of traditional rural grain silos, and pre-Columbian effigies of divinities. Across the street, the poured-in-place concrete Centro Artesanal (anon., 1964) acts as a datum for the sculptural museum. This memorable three-story building with mezzanines is largely internalized, receives light from above, and has massive abstract sloping walls that recall traditional nineteenth-century adobe architecture. Formerly it was a government-run FONART (Fondo Nacional para el Fomento de las Artesanías) store that sold folkloric crafts from across Mexico to encourage the local cultural traditions of craftspeople in rural areas in the midst of globalization and homogenization; today it has been carelessly remodeled as a nightclub. Nearby is the Centro de Convenciones PRONAF (Mario Pani and Enrique Molinar, 1964), with a complex folded

Chihuahua  135

(top) Centro de Convenciones PRONAF, Ciudad Juárez, Chih. (Mario Pani and Enrique Molinar, 1964); photo Ricardo García-Báez, ERB Col. (bottom) Hospital General, Ciudad Juárez, Chih. (Enrique Yáñez, 1964); photo Archivo de Arquitectos Mexicanos de la Facultad de Arquitectura de la UNAM

thin-shell concrete roof inspired by the work of Félix Candela that covers a lobby and sloped seating area below grade. The roof peaks at the middle and then folds up at the corners, which are infilled with glazing. It is surrounded by attached pavilions with thin-shell barrel vaults.9 The adjacent facilities included the wall-dominant Camino Real Hotel (Jaime Warner B., 1965) with distinctive oval arches at the entry. The Hospital General (Enrique Yáñez, 1964) is a remarkable, one-story modernist pinwheeling courtyard scheme with a distinctive V-shaped column system and undulating precast brise-soleil. The bullfight remains both spectacle and performance for tourists and locals. The new Alberto Balderas

Bullring (anon., 1960s) presents a weblike structural supporting frame, in which the seating is inserted, that forms a backdrop for a dramatic norteño sculpture of charros (horsemen), horses, bulls, and bullfighters. This can be contrasted with two now destroyed facilities located in the downtown, the Old Bullring (anon., ca. 1900), an abstracted, restrained building for the bloody sacrifice of animals that recalled a Greek or Roman theater; and the Plaza de Toros (anon., ca. 1940), a functionalist composition that featured a prominent bullfighting mural. The Parque Público Federal El Chamizal (Pedro Moctezuma with Martín Ruiz Camino and Vicente Cotera, 1976) at the edge of the U.S.-Mexico border commemorates the transfer of this land back to Mexico after the Rio Grande had changed course after 1848. This was a symbolic return of lands lost to the United States after the Mexican-American War and was an important treaty for Mexican dignity; a postage stamp was issued by Mexico to commemorate the event. The park features gridded groves of trees, commemorative sculptures, and an archaeology museum that houses a collection of fossils found in the region, and is popular with families on Sundays. One of the most innovative recent projects in the region is the unbuilt El Punto Religious Community Center (Herzog and de Meuron, 2013), by the Pritzker Prize–winning architectural firm. Today, the bustling border city of Ciudad Juárez is the state’s largest city and Mexico’s eighth largest with a population of 1.5 million. The NAFTA trade agreement of the mid-1990s spawned rapid growth, and today the city has thirteen industrial parks and 360 maquiladoras, primarily assembling automotive and electronic parts, with half of the workers being women. This explosive growth of the

Plaza de Toros, Ciudad Juárez, Chih. (anon., ca. 1940); photo ERB

136  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Old Bullring, Ciudad Juárez, Chih. (anon., ca. 1900); postcard, photographer unknown, ERBPC

city occurred with little planning, green space, or utility infrastructure, and the city struggles to provide these services to all its citizens. Among the newest and poorest of these informal settlements for maquiladora workers is at the far western perimeter of the city. The colonia of Anapra is separated from the rest of Ciudad Juárez by a hill on its eastern edge, bounded by mesas to the south and west and the border fence to the north. This informal development was settled in 1987 and now consists of more than 30,000 people on 700 acres opposite Sunland, New Mexico. Newcomers initially built dwellings from scavenged materials that are eventually transformed into cmu (concrete masonry unit) block walls with corrugated metal roofs as money becomes available. The colonia received electricity and water in 1999, although no sewage has yet been installed. One of the most interesting new informal communities is the hybrid colonia of Tierra Nueva for 25,000 families, which has subsidies and loans, streets, and infrastructure provided by the city but contains self-built housing.

Ojinaga Ojinaga, at the confluence of the Rio Grande and Río Conchos, was originally settled by Pueblo Indians, probably relatives of the Anasazi (AD 1200), and has been continuously inhabited since that time. The earliest tribes in the region were later assimilated into Ute-Aztec tribes. The first Spanish explorer was Cabeza de Vaca, who wandered across Texas for seven years before arriving at the Rio Grande and crossing at La Junta de los Ríos, the former name of Ojinaga. At his request, an expedition of Franciscans arrived in Ojinaga to convert the natives. The first attempt at establishing a permanent settlement was undertaken by Antonio Trasviña y Retes (1715), who came here to rebuild a mission that had been burned by hostile natives. Early works include the Templo de Jesús Nazareno (anon., 1760–1823), the Plaza (anon., 1760–1823), the Templo de San Francisco de Asís (anon., 1683–19th c.), and the Fort (anon., 1760–1823), which was built to extend a line of fortifications along the Rio Grande. The town’s

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Plaza Ojinaga Plaza T. Jesús Nazareno

Palacio de Gobierno

Urban plan, Ojinaga, Chih.; drawing by Melissa Speck and Ricardo García-Báez

Museo de las Culturas del Norte, Paquimé, Casas Grandes, Chih. (Mario Schjetnan/GDU, 1995); photo courtesy of Grupo de Diseño Urbano (GDU)

point of supply to revolutionary forces from the United States, and the scene of four separate battles for the town, with the losing side seeking refuge across the Rio Grande in Presidio, TX. Finally, the Kansas City, Mexico, and Orient Railway reached Presidio, TX (1930), across the Rio Grande, and the Capilla de Nuestra Señora de Fátima (anon., 1937) was built to provide for the religious needs of the then growing town.

Casas Grandes

Templo de Jesús Nazareno, Ojinaga, Chih. (anon., 1760–1823), with the plaza (anon., 1760–1823); photo ERB

name was changed from La Junta de los Ríos to Presidio del Norte when Ben Leaton and Milton Faver, former scalp hunters for the Mexican government, built private forts in the area. Meanwhile, the handful of Anglo settlers who came to the region were assimilated into Mexican families. Ojinaga grew in importance (1840s–1850s) as a trading post along the Chihuahua Trail, but a Comanche raid in 1849 almost destroyed Presidio, TX, and Ojinaga, Chih., and drove off most of the cattle in the towns (1850). Ojinaga was bypassed by the construction of the railroad from Mexico City, which ran through El Paso, TX, and was largely ignored by the government in Mexico City.10 During the Mexican Revolution, Ojinaga was a source for many of the most loyal troops of Pancho Villa, a major

Casas Grandes, also known as Paquimé, was a thriving preColumbian metropolis (10th to early 13th c.) that was pillaged and burned in AD 1340; it was characterized by massive civil engineering projects, multistory adobe houses, and ball courts. Today, an interpretive museum, the Museo de las Culturas del Norte (Mario Schjetnan/GDU, 1996), is sited as a low hill-like earthwork in its massing, and in an empathetic relationship in terms of form and color to the ruins, site, and landscape beyond. Entrance is via a passage, and inside the experience is largely internalized, with occasional natural light from an interior court and with framed views to the ruins beyond from the interior and from the rooftop.11

Ciudad Camargo Ciudad Camargo is an agricultural center 93 miles southeast of Chihuahua, named for Ignacio Camargo (1782– 1811), a hero of the independence movement, and was the birthplace of Mexico’s renowned muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896–1974). The town features nineteenthcentury wall-dominant residential fabric with flat roofs.

138  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Plaza with Monument to Juárez, Ciudad Camargo, Chih. (anon., ca. 1910); postcard, photo Moca, ERBPC

The most prominent works of architecture are the Plaza with Monument to Juárez (anon., ca. 1910), Parroquia de Santa Rosalía (anon., 1852), Estación del Ferrocarril (anon., ca. 1882), and the Municipal Palace (anon., ca. 1935), composed as a collage of discrete elements, including a tower sited diagonally on the corner with a three-story moderne block with vertically dominant windows behind. The town is noted for the curative powers of its three nearby thermal springs, Ojo de Jabalí, Ojo Caliente, and Ojo Salado. Nearby are the Hacienda La Enramada (anon., 18th c.), Hacienda El Porvenir (anon., ca. 1890), Hacienda Río del Parral (anon., 19th c.), Hacienda de la Viuda (anon., 19th c.), and the Presa de la Boquilla (anon., ca. 1918).

north. Originally surrounded by lush foothills with natural springs in the midst of the arid, high Chihuahuan Desert, the landscape of the surrounding mountains and hills has been deforested since the mid-nineteenth century and today is desert scrub. In marked contrast to the arid hills and mountains that today surround the city are the public parks, lush private gardens, and courtyards that provide shade and coolness. The city was founded and designed by Antonio de Deza y Ulloa, whose statue is featured in the main plaza, as a loosely gridded plan parallel to the Río Chuvíscar. Elongated north-south rectangular blocks created the communal Plaza de Armas, as well as urban building sites for government offices, churches, and private residences with commercial activities at the ground floor. Although numerous colonial buildings were lost in the 1970s to widen the main streets in the downtown, a number of memorable works of architecture remain within walking distance of the plaza that still acts as an outdoor living room. The wrought-iron bandstand at the middle of the plaza was imported from Paris (1893); and boleros (shoeshine boys) and vendors selling ice cream, balloons, and sotol (a regional alcoholic drink made from the agave cactus) still work in the plaza. The extraordinary Catedral Metropolitana (anon., 1725–1757) is the best example of colonial baroque architecture in Northern Mexico. The façade, with statues of the twelve apostles, is one of the most beautifully proportioned in North America and makes a memorable edge to the Plaza de Armas. The adjacent Museo de Arte Sacro (Sacred Art Museum) has a rich collection of colonial paintings and religious objects from several of the city’s churches. Other colonial churches in the city include Iglesia Santa Rita (1731) and Iglesia San Francisco (1721–1741).

Ciudad Chihuahua Chihuahua, Chih., is a garden oasis nestled between the Chuvíscar and Sacramento Rivers at 4,774 feet, with rugged mountains on three sides and an open desert to the

Panorama looking east, Chihuahua, Chih. (ca. 1890); LOC

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Pal. Federal

Plaza Mayor

Pal. Gobierno Museo Lealtad Republicana

Mausoleum de Pancho Villa

Pal. Municipal Congreso del Estado

Igl. Trinidad

Plaza de la Catedral

Creel Res.

Casa Gnl. Terrazas

Quinta Gameros

Poder Judicial del Estado Igl. Sagrado Corazón

Rio

Con c

hos

Carcel be

lo

w

c

ur

re nt 250 m 0

Urban plan, Chihuahua, Chih.; drawing by Andy Castillo, Dan Cancilla, Chris Callier, and Ricardo García-Báez

500

1000 ft

140  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Panorama of urban fabric looking west toward cathedral (ca. 1880–1897), Chihuahua, Chih.; LOC

Aqueduct, Chihuahua, Chih. (anon., 1751–1854); Wikimedia Commons, Lyricmac

The elongated north-south blocks also minimized the heat gain on the western exposure of each block, and each individual block had its longest street frontage on the south side, which faced the mountains and was the preferred orientation of many of the major buildings in town,

Iglesia Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, Chihuahua, Chih. (Ing. Juan Pagaza Urtundua; completed by Pablo and Simón Ochoa, 1793–1825); postcard, American Photo and Stationery Co., Chihuahua; ERBPC

Chihuahua  141 while the north side of the block was shaded and faced the open desert. Pasture and agricultural lands were located at the perimeter of the city. Deza y Ulloa named the town San Francisco de Cuéllar, in honor of the Franciscan order that was the first religious order to arrive in the area and the Spanish viceroy Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar; it later became San Felipe el Real de Chihuahua (1718) and in 1823 became capital of the state. The city received its water until the early twentieth century by an arched Aqueduct (anon., 1751–1854), constructed from the springs in the hills on the northwestern side of the town some 3.5 miles from the city. With a tectonic order of cut stone for the arch portion with rubblestone infill, it was a considerable engineering achievement for the time. Avenida Independencia, at the northeast edge of the Plaza de Armas, runs northwest–southwest and divides the downtown as a baseline street, with parallel streets ascending by odd numbers and with even numbers on the southwest side. Avenida Libertad, adjacent to the Plaza de Armas, has limited vehicles and became an outdoor pedestrian mall with many types of stores, frequented by teenagers, students, professionals, vaqueros (cowboys), Tarahumara Indians, and Mennonites, who all gather here for strolling, shopping, and entertainment. The Iglesia Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (Ing. Juan Pagaza Urtundua; completed by Pablo and Simón Ochoa, 1793–1825) was largely built by a military engineer who also built several other important buildings in Chihuahua. The statues from the façade of the former Jesuit Iglesia de Loreto and ten canvases that depict the life of “La Guadalupana” were brought to this sanctuary upon completion (1825), including the portrait at the main altar by the noted Mexican colonial artist Miguel Cabrera. General Luis Terrazas was buried in the atrium in a white marble tomb (1923). Chihuahua was a major garrison during the Apache Wars and grew as a mining and trade center and the capital of the state. During the Mexican-American War, Chihuahua was occupied by U.S. forces, who made Chihuahua their headquarters before moving south on Mexico City. The Museo de la Lealtad Republicana (Museum of the Republican Loyalty; anon., ca. 1823) responded to local climate and materials with narrow vertical window openings at the street, a flat roof, and canales (waterspouts). After entering through the transitional zaguán, visitors moved from room to room under a covered outdoor arcade surrounding a lush courtyard with a well. When Benito Juárez occupied the house (1864–1866) to escape royalist forces, it was the official seat of the exiled federal government.

(top) Museo de la Lealtad Republicana (Museum of the Republican Loyalty), Chihuahua, Chih. (anon., ca. 1823); photo ERB (bottom) Courtyard, Museo de la Lealtad Republicana (Museum of the Republican Loyalty), Chihuahua, Chih. (anon., ca. 1823); photo ERB

142  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico Today the house is restored as a museum that exhibits historic objects, documents, and a replica of his famous carriage, and it is a good example of the typical walldominant urban courtyard house of Chihuahua of the mid-nineteenth century. During the Porfiriato, the arrival of the railroad in 1882 contributed enormously to the economy of the city, and large ranch holdings were also consolidated. Emblematic of the Porfiriato, just across the Plaza de Armas is the Palacio Municipal (Alfred Giles and John White, 1868, 1904– 1909), one of the great norteño hybrid buildings of the region. The unusual massing of the building is a result of the complex politics of wealthy commercial elites of Chihuahua at the end of the nineteenth century. At Governor Creel’s direction, both two-story wings were sold to banking institutions under the false pretense of obtaining funds for a new building for the municipal government. A new third story was added with a distinctive mansard roof and a new façade with engaged neoclassical orders. A dominant scaled central bay with balcony marks the sala capitular, with its elaborate plasterwork inside. Surprisingly taut wings that wrap around their urban corners are surmounted by French mansard roofs that assert the dominant French aesthetics and culture of the Porfiriato. Fortunately, the city bought both wings back (1988), and the building was reunited for its former civic function of serving the citizens of Chihuahua. On the northwest corner of the Plaza de Armas are two elegant former residences of prominent families of Chihuahua that are now commercial buildings. At the corner is the former Creel Residence (anon., 1893–1894), an

Palacio Municipal, Chihuahua, Chih. (Alfred Giles and John White, 1868, 1904–1909); MCI

Creel Residence, Chihuahua, Chih. (anon., 1893–1894); postcard, photographer unknown

Palacio de Gobierno, Chihuahua, Chih. (Ing. Pedro de Irigoyen with Carlos Romero, Mariano de Pérez, and Enrique Esperón, builders, 1882–1891); MCI

elegant two-story urban block organized around a courtyard. The prominent corner entrance with wrought-iron balcony faces the Plaza de Armas. The ground floor was the Banco Minero, S.A., founded by Luis Terrazas, while the upper floor was the residence of Governor Enrique C. Creel, where Porfirio Díaz stayed during his trip to Ciudad Juárez for his historic meeting with President Taft. The stone window surrounds are unusual and inventive and appear thin, delicate, and crisply carved, like cake frosting, and are set in the dominant masonry wall finished in plaster. A prominent cornice with balustrade casts distinctive shadows on the urban façade. During this time, an ambitious street tree program provided shade for pedestrians and softened the city, which was largely built of flat-roof adobe buildings that rigorously defined the edge of the street and the public and

Chihuahua  143 private domains. Later, at the end of the nineteenth century, roads and trolley lines that led to the large estates for the elite would be lined with deciduous shade trees that became spiky profiles in the winter and give Chihuahua a distinct urban streetscape in Northern Mexico. A few blocks east, the Palacio de Gobierno (Ing. Pedro de Irigoyen with Carlos Romero, Mariano de Pérez, and Enrique Esperón, builders, 1882–1891) is one of the most notable buildings constructed in Chihuahua in the late nineteenth century. Portions were originally the Jesuit Loreto School (1717). The crisp stone detailing of the façade, crafted in ocher-colored quarry stone, is punctuated by the closely spaced rhythm of the articulated, heavily ornamented window openings. The building is organized around a central courtyard that is both hardscape and garden. In contrast to the articulated street façades, the courtyard is surrounded by restrained arched openings that define a zone of open-air circulation around the perimeter of the courtyard. In the ground floor courtyard next to the staircase is the Altar a la Patria (Altar to the Nation; 1956), the spot where Father Miguel Hidalgo was executed by a firing squad (1811), with a memorial flame that burns continuously. Surrounding the courtyard on the ground floor are murals by Aarón Piña Mora (1961) that depict the state’s history from the sixteenth century to the Mexican Revolution. During the Porfiriato, the main public rooms of the Palacio de Gobierno featured heavily ornate interiors. The audience hall was described by John Reed (Pancho Villa’s biographer) during the revolution at a ceremony to honor Villa (1914) after he had captured the city from Federalist forces.

Matías Babinsky, and William A. Bird, builders, 1910), an austere, powerful neoclassical building. It features a monumental heroic entrance portico with colossal-scaled Doric columns that creates coolness and a transition from the harsh desert light, and a heavily articulated cornice that casts deep shadows on the façade. The building wings on either side are clad in stone with dominant horizontal coursing that suggests movement and the scale of the landscape of the vast Chihuahuan Desert. The building is organized around a glazed interior court finished in tile with glass blocks in the floor that let light into the basement level, with circulation around the court in open corridors. Vertical movement through the building occurs at a sweeping stair glazed on the north side of the interior court. Rooms on either side of the interior court feature shaped-tin ceiling inserts that modulate the rooms. The building is particularly fascinating for its embedded encrusted layers of construction, which are imbued with the national narrative of bloodshed and heroicized martyrdom required to create the nation. In the basement is the Calabozo de Hidalgo (Dungeon of Hidalgo) where Father Miguel Hidalgo was imprisoned (April–July 1811) and wrote verses with charcoal on the basement wall to express his gratitude to his jailers a few hours before his execution. The old building was demolished and the new building, with the basement dungeon enclosed inside, was inaugurated as a part of the Centennial of Independence. The monumental building was complete with the modern symbols of the time: electric lighting, plumbing, and metallic finished details. The building was expertly restored in 2006 as a museum with local labor except for the stone masons from Mexico City.

In the audience hall of the Governor’s palace of Chihuahua, a place of ceremonial, great luster chandeliers, heavy crimson portiéres and gaudy American wallpaper, there is a throne for the governor. It is a gilded chair with lion’s paws for arms, placed upon a dais under a canopy of crimson velvet, surmounted by a heavy, gilded wooden cap which tapers up to a crown.12 A fire in 1941 destroyed the woodwork and invaluable archives in the building. The building was restored and a new third floor was added in 1948 that unfortunately changed the more subtle, delicate scale of the original twostory building. Stained-glass windows featuring various heroes from Mexico’s history adorn stair landings. Nearby, on the corner of Avenida Juárez and Paseo Bolívar, is the Palacio Federal (Ing. Mariano M. del Campo,

Palacio Federal, Chihuahua, Chih. (Ing. Mariano M. del Campo, Matías Babinsky, and William A. Bird, builders, 1910; restored 2006); photo ERB

144  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Casa de General Luis Terrazas, Chihuahua, Chih. (Ing. Pedro de Irigoyen, 1888–1893); MCI

Teatro de los Héroes, Chihuahua, Chih. (George A. King, ca. 1900; burned 1955); postcard, photographer unknown

Nearby is the midblock Casino de Chihuahua (anon., ca. 1906), one of the best Beaux-Arts buildings in Northern Mexico. The stone craftsmanship of the façade and interior public spaces is crisp and impeccable. Entering from the street, the visitor passes through a large-scale opening and encounters a small vestibule with a grand monumental stair that leads to the main-floor vestibule, with ballrooms, meetings rooms, and offices at the upper floors. The façade features a strongly horizontally coursed base that contains support functions at the lower level, giganticscaled pilasters and columns that frame the upper floors, and a prominent entablature against the sky. The Casa de General Luis Terrazas (Ing. Pedro de Irigoyen, 1888–1893) is to the west of the Plaza de Armas and was one of General Terrazas’s private homes. The diagonal corner entrance leads to a courtyard covered by a glazed dome that is the main space of the residence. The corridors of both upper floors that open onto the glazed court feature a delicate filigree of ornate cast ironwork imported from New Orleans. Pancho Villa and the important novelist Mariano Azuela used the house during the revolution, as did the noted sculptor Ignacio Asúnsolo. The building was restored during the 1980s and became the Chihuahua Cultural Center, then was later repurposed as the restaurant “La Casona” (anon., 2007).13 Other notable works of public architecture of the era include the Teatro de los Héroes (George A. King, ca. 1900; burned 1955), a three-story building organized around a centralized hall with a prominent lobby at the second and third floors, while smaller rooms wrapped the side

perimeter. The centralized theater was marked on the street façade with a projecting bay and a series of arched openings crowned with lunettes at each of the two upper floors, an articulated cornice, and an abstracted pediment. Materially and visually, the prominent, heavy horizontal stone course base at the ground floor supported two brick stories above with articulated punched openings. By 1908 the city had public tram transport, and in hot weather the side panels of the trams were slid up into the roof. Unfortunately, the tramway closed during the recession of 1922 after only fourteen years of operation.14 The Casa Redonda (anon., ca. 1904) was the former Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México roundhouse. Its distinctive circular organization was due to its function to pivot and service locomotives. It was adaptively reused in 1998 as the Contemporary Art Museum. In the 1880s, several Romanesque revival residences were built in the city. Among the best of these is the Quinta Ahumada (anon., 1900), built for a prominent commercial family on the corner of Avenidas Juárez and Colón. After the revolution, the house was sold to another family, and it is still meticulously maintained today. The residence is a walled oasis that contrasts with the bustle and dryness of the city, with a lush green lawn, well-tended flower beds, and a garden with mature shade trees. The house is set well away from the busy corner behind a high wall, oriented north to south. The rough-cut stone walls of the residence create shadows in the bright light of the Chihuahuan Desert and support steeply pitched roofs. Two towers with pinnacleshaped roofs serve as miradors to the desert hills

Chihuahua  145 surrounding the city. A thin transparent wooden porch wraps around the front of the house and allows the occupants to experience the lush gardens that surround the residence. Up the hill from the Plaza de Armas is the Iglesia de la Trinidad (anon., 1890–1892) Methodist church. Ascending a few steps at the street, the parishioner arrives at a remarkable corner entrance framed by columns underneath a prominent octagonal tower. A massive door with large ornamental hinges leads to a vestibule and the main worship space beyond bathed with subdued light. This solid building is beautifully crafted of brick, with details of carved stone. This work of architecture deserves wider attention and is among the best Richardsonian Romanesque revival works in Northern Mexico. Farther up the hill at the busy corner of Independencia and Bolívar is one of the unexpected surprises in the city, the Quinta Touché (anon., ca. 1900). With its prominent turret, gabled roof, and two-story transparent porch with slender columns, it extended the tradition

Quinta Ahumada, Chihuahua, Chih. (anon., 1900); photo ERB

of Richardsonian brick residential architecture in Texas, especially in San Antonio, TX, at the end of the nineteenth century, to Northern Mexico. Diagonally across the street, on a busy, prominent corner uphill from the Plaza de Armas, is the Iglesia Sagrado Corazón de Jesús (anon., ca. 1903). The composition is highly inventive and eclectic, utilizing Byzantine, Romanesque, and Gothic elements that are organized as a Latin cross plan with a central nave and side aisles. The angular façade of carefully crafted cut stone creates deep shadows on the façade and a vertical counterpoint to the horizontal expanse of the surrounding Chihuahuan Desert. The interior nave and transept are filled with light captured through high clerestory windows and at a tall vertical dome at the crossing of the church. Unusual for Mexico, the vertically dominant tower occurs over the entry, similar to the position of the tower in the English architecture of Christopher Wren and colonial churches in the eastern United States. This tower also faces the street and Plaza de Armas at the center of the city. This tower over the entry

146  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico Development of the city during the administration of Governor Miguel Ahumada was made possible by the construction of the Presa Chuvíscar (Ing. Manuel Marroquín y Rivera, 1898–1908) that provided a water supply for the growing desert city. The massive, thick stone wall of the dam tapers upward, and is formed as a shallow V in plan to engage the existing rock outcrops on either side. Wealthy suburbs were established on what was then the southwestern outskirts of the city in the late nineteenth century by the Terrazas family and others along Avenida Nombre de Dios (now Paseo Bolívar). The Quinta Gameros (Julio Corredor Latorre, 1907–1910; restoration by Lacouture and Siqueiros, ca. 1980s) is one of the most prominent examples of the architecture of the French Second Empire Belle Époque in all of Mexico; it also utilizes some art nouveau elements in a hybrid composition. Today, it is difficult to imagine how impressive this residence must have been to the majority of citizens who were

Iglesia de la Trinidad, Chihuahua, Chih. (anon., 1890–1892); Wikimedia Commons, Battroid

strategy also occurs at the Templo de la Sagrada Familia in Col. Roma in Mexico City. West of the church is the Cárcel de Estado (State Prison; Alfred Giles, 1898–1908), which presents the image of an impregnable fortress to the street and was modeled on the idealized Panopticon prisons of the Enlightenment and the Lecumberri Prison in Mexico City. A steep base at the street creates a level datum on the sloping site. However, the main entry features engaged Doric columns with shaped window surrounds that one would expect to find at an institution such as a hospital or a school, suggesting the reformation of the criminal and an appeal to civic order. The circular turrets with crenellated towers at the corners feature narrow slit openings and are still used to observe and control the prison population. Although the prison has been remodeled through the years, it is still largely intact, and its location near the center of the city allows the prisoners to have contact with their families. Even today, together with the Templo de la Sagrada Familia, it presents the curious urban image of a medieval town set in the Chihuahuan Desert.

Templo de la Sagrada Familia, Chihuahua, Chih. (anon., ca. 1903); photo ERB

Chihuahua  147

Cárcel de Estado (State Prison), Chihuahua, Chih. (Alfred Giles, 1898–1908); photo ERB

Quinta Gameros, Chihuahua, Chih. (Julio Corredor Latorre, 1907– 1910; restoration, Lacouture and Siqueiros, ca. 1980s); MCI

poor, as well as to the wealthy elite of the city. Its lush gardens and distinctive architecture surely made it seem like an apparition set along an avenue of the wealthy, powerful elite—an oasis in the midst of the Chihuahuan Desert. Railroad connections to Chihuahua allowed craftsmen to be imported from around Mexico and materials to arrive from the United States and around the world. Manuel Gameros was a wealthy Chihuahua mining engineer who made the “Grand Tour” of Europe in 1904. In the south of France, he became infatuated with an art nouveau mansion, returned with the idea of building a similar one, and sent his Colombian architect, Julio Corredor Latorre, to France to study the design of this building.

The Quinta Gameros contains some 10,760 sq. ft. organized on four levels: a service semibasement, a ground floor with public rooms, a private second floor with bedrooms and bathrooms, and a flat roof for servants’ quarters and service functions behind the mansard roof. It is surrounded on three of its four sides by lush irrigated gardens, with a prominent front entry courtyard and a rear garden with an auto court, garages, and stable house. The edges of the site that faced the main and side streets are bounded and enclosed by an articulated iron fence, while the imposing front entry gate features the anagrams of Manuel Gameros. The front façade of the residence utilizes an eclectic Belle Époque vocabulary with an elaborate sculptural program, along with some art nouveau elements in the detailing of the windows and the undulating iron railings of the balconies. The ornamentation of the façade consists of a great number of floral, anthropomorphic, and zoomorphic details meticulously executed in cantera stone and elaborate stuccowork that consists of flowerlike bas-reliefs. Four sculptures of female figures alongside columns that support the balconies on the upper floor create a covered entry portal. In the upper part of the front façade are four male sculptures set in the gable. A wide marble staircase that frames a fountain with a sculpture of children fishing gives access to the entry portal. The façade is conceived as a rectangular mass with roses and feminine masks that appear in the decorative reliefs. Salamanders decorate the base of the thick stone volutes that support the upper balconies. At the rear, there is the round tower of the cupola, which in its lower part is the lateral entrance of the house. The prominent mansard roof completes the composition with a row of continuous iron pinnacles against the sky. The roof is finished with pinnacles of wood boards covered with zinc tiles and adorned with crestings. In contrast, the rear façade is more restrained and less ornamented, and is primarily surfaced in plaster. It consists of a dominant central bay with large arched windows at the main stair, including a stained-glass window at the stair landing. Upon entering the residence, the visitor experiences an internalized imaginary world of incredibly elaborate zoomorphic figures, with few external views to the city or landscape beyond. At the ground floor, the main twostory vestibule is illuminated by a large skylight. The interior decoration is superbly crafted and consists of plaster walls in pastel colors with squares, rectangles, and stylized volute and vegetable and floral forms. Elaborate woodwork frames each door and window. Human figures support the interior arches and lintels as well as the special decorations of the ceilings and the walls. From the main

148  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Quinta Gameros, Chihuahua, Chih. (Julio Corredor Latorre, 1907–1910; restoration, Lacouture and Siqueiros, ca. 1980s); Wikimedia Commons, Battroid

vestibule, four doorways lead to the four elegant salons on the ground floor. Today the furniture inside the house is the Requena Art Nouveau Furniture Collection from Mexico City crafted by José Luis Requena, including the dining room furniture set with glassware and cutlery. Underneath the main vestibule, a half level below grade, is the basement with two entrances leading to the boiler, bathrooms, and a large storage space. Ascending the monumental double staircase illuminated by a Tiffany stained-glass window, the visitor reaches the second floor, a landing with an elaborate carved wood handrail. On this floor are the bedrooms and the bathrooms, with elaborate beds and furniture also from the Requena collection. The flooring of both the ground and second levels is of parquet, while the wall finish in the rooms consists of plaster with elaborate carved details. The

round pinnacle tower offers panoramic views of the contrasting desert hills, and it is easy to imagine approaching vehicles being observed from the dust stirred up as they traversed the desert outside the city. Access to the roof is by means of one of two stairways, each one located on the rear side of the house, which terminate in a flat roof that acts as a service court. The steeply sloped roofs of the service rooms define the edges of the service court and form the distinct mansard of the residence, which is finished with four pinnacles located at each corner of the house. The cupola features a lightning rod. The mansion was nearly complete in 1910, but in that year the Mexican Revolution began, and Gameros was ironically never able to occupy his house, as he and his extended family had to flee the city. Legend has it that the mansion was to be a wedding gift to his fiancée, who

Chihuahua  149 instead left Gameros and married his own ungrateful architect, the Colombian Julio Corredor Latorre! The mansion was confiscated and used by various warring factions during the revolution. It became the office of the Constitutionalist forces of Venustiano Carranza, and when Villa took possession of Chihuahua, it served as headquarters of Villa’s División del Norte. When the revolution concluded, a number of functions were housed in the mansion until it was declared a National Artistic Monument in 2000.15 Down the street, a number of exemplary townhouses face the lush triangular Parque Lerdo along Paseo Bolívar. One of the best of these is now the Poder Judicial del Estado y Biblioteca y Archivos (anon., 1906). The attached townhouses are set on a raised stone base, which creates a sense of privacy from the street and an entry garden; they are mirrored symmetrically around the central entry porch, which also supports a second-floor outdoor terrace. The wall-dominant façades have rusticated bay windows facing the street, and wood-paneled stairs give access to the second floor. The restoration architects have replaced the original glazing at the entry with an abstracted horizontal storefront glazing that expresses its new repurposed institutional function. La Quinta Carolina (anon., 1896) was an elaborate country estate that was a gift from General Luis Terrazas to his wife, Carolina Cuilty. Its inauguration was a major event, as it was the impetus for the development of an elite rural suburban district in the mode of an Anglo-American rural suburban estate, and the tram network was extended out to it, and a zoo was also built at the end of the tramline. The elite bought land along the Nombre de Dios Avenue that led out from the city to “La Quinta,” and several

Poder Judicial del Estado y Biblioteca y Archivos, Chihuahua, Chih. (anon., 1906); photo ERB

elaborate residences were built, including those of many foreigners and the city’s prominent commercial families, such as Federico Moye and Julio Miller. Access to La Quinta Carolina was by a long tree-lined promenade that led axially to the entrance of the house. The spatial and sensory experience of approaching the residence was described as follows: In spring, the trees lining the wide avenue leading up to the house cast soft, warm shadows and the treetops thus protect you from the burning sun. In winter you can see the adjacent rough fields through the bare trees; these become verdant green outposts of the property in May.16 The residence had four symmetrical entrances, and the main house was sited in an entry plaza adorned with lush gardens with three kiosks, bounded by a white wroughtiron fence subdivided by stone columns crowned by spheres. The formal residence was a wall-dominant horizontal mass with a rhythm of engaged-stone pilasters, crowned by a stone balustrade. The exterior walls on the street side were punctuated by a centralized arched entry portico, with narrow vertical window openings in the mass of the wall. These were bracketed at each end by thick, massive bases of towers that became successively lighter at each level, crowned by light, circular domed cupolas eroded with vertical arched openings. A centralized glazed dome crowned by a smaller, lighter cupola marked the primary interior space of the house, the reception room. The salmon pink entry portico was accessed by a stone staircase paved with tiles. A large, elaborate front door gave access to an interior entry that led to the impressive formal reception room guarded by two elaborate statues. The large, dramatic formal reception room was square in proportion and was filled with natural light entering from above through the glazed dome. The walls were covered in white and gold wallpaper, whose hues became muddled at night with the incandescent light cast by the light bulbs located in the room’s entablature. A large mirror on one of the walls reflected a grand piano, paintings with marine themes on the other walls, the curtains, and the slim gold-and-white wicker furniture. The grand reception room had ten separate doors that led to the other rooms in the house. The large dining room featured china and place settings guarded behind glass cabinets. The general’s office was on the right-hand side of the entry, and the main bedroom and its adjoining bathroom were on the left. Farther on are the other bathrooms used by the rest of the family, followed by their large, well-ventilated

150  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

La Quinta Carolina, Chihuahua, Chih. (anon., 1896); postcard, photographer unknown

Panorama, La Quinta Carolina, Chihuahua, Chih. (anon., 1896); Wikimedia Commons, Lyricmac

bedrooms. At the back there was a cellar and a winter conservatory that protected the plants during the winter. In the garden, groups of white geese wandered around near the entrance and waddled down to bathe themselves in the waters of an artificial lake that reflected the trees at the end of the main avenue.

The Terrazas were able to enjoy their property for only ten years before the revolution began (1910), when Terrazas, his wife, and some of their children fled to Mexico City. After the signing of the Treaty of Ciudad Juárez, the Terrazas family returned to Chihuahua (1911) and were not persecuted by Madero’s regime, as the Terrazas and

Chihuahua  151 Madero families had many business interests in common. Even when Pascual Orozco rose up against Madero, the Orozco supporters established a working relationship with the wealthy Chihuahua families. However, when Pancho Villa took over Chihuahua (1913), he launched reprisals against the important Chihuahua businessmen who had supported Orozco. The Quinta Carolina was one of the first properties occupied by Villa’s government and was briefly the home and command center of General Manuel Chao. Numerous residences of the economic elite were confiscated, and the haciendas and quintas ceased production. Chihuahua became the headquarters of Pancho Villa’s powerful División del Norte, and the city exchanged hands many times and was fiercely fought over by various revolutionary factions. Chihuahua was occupied by the Federalist forces of Huerta (May 1913), then by the armies of Carranza (Dec. 1913), then by the forces of Villa (Aug. 1914), and finally by the forces of Carranza again (Dec. 1915). When Villa was defeated, Carranza returned the Quinta Carolina property to the Terrazas. But wells were dug to

Hospital de San Vicente (Hospital Verde), Chihuahua, Chih. (George E. King, ca. 1903); postcard, Terrazas Foto, Chihuahua, ERBPC

provide the city with water, which caused the orchards to die, and much of the land was turned into ejidos. La Quinta became a ruin, a refuge for the homeless, and fires were set in 1989–1990, destroying the dome and some of the bedrooms. The house was donated to the state government by the Muñoz Terrazas family, but unfortunately the local government has remained largely unconcerned regarding its destruction.17 Opposite the estate, a large, opulent country residence for Luis Terrazas became the Hospital de San Vicente (Hospital Verde; George E. King, ca. 1903). It utilized the French Second Empire vocabulary and featured a distinctive tower that served as a mirador for the owner to observe his estates and approaching visitors. Unfortunately, the building was completely in ruins by 1986, with only some of the walls and the entry gates remaining. Other haciendas nearby include the Hacienda Tabalaopa (Ing. Enrique Muller, 1881) and the massive former hacienda of Luis Terrazas, Hacienda de Torreón (anon., ca. 1890–1905), with plastered walls over adobe and stone. Today it is an ejido, and a portion is utilized as a residence while the rest is abandoned. The Museo Histórico de la Revolución Mexicana (Santos Vega, builder, ca. 1919) is typical of upper-middle-class residences from the era, and was the home of one of the favorite wives of Pancho Villa, Luz Corral de Villa. The residence is organized around several courtyards, with circulation from room to room or across outdoor covered arcades and outdoor patios. The courtyard near the street is lush with orange trees, while the other courts are hardscapes and utilized more as service areas. Luz Corral lived here until her death (1981) and donated the house to the Department of Defense; with the objects she had collected, it was inaugurated as a museum in 1983. Since then it has grown to include an extensive collection of weapons, photographs, personal objects, and documents. Ironically, although Villa was a staunch nationalist and invaded Columbus, NM, many of the household objects and furniture in the residence were manufactured in the United States, as was the black 1922 Dodge sedan touring car he was driving when he was assassinated in Parral, Chih. Ironically, Villa’s crypt, the Mausoleum of Pancho Villa (Romualdo González, builder, 1913–1914) is an extremely eclectic, delicate, ornate vertical Victorian composition—in contrast to his earthy, rugged, violent life as a revolutionary. The Instituto Científico y Literario (Ing. Salvador Arroyo, 1928) is a two-story block with an elaborate projecting entrance bay, flanked by pairs of engaged Ionic columns at each floor that support an entablature surmounted by a

152  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Museo Histórico de la Revolución Mexicana, Chihuahua, Chih. (Santos Vega, builder, ca. 1919); photo ERB

Mausoleum of Pancho Villa, Chihuahua, Chih. (Romualdo González, builder, 1913– 1914); photo Alejandra GarcíaBáez

clock. The stone window surrounds on the exterior brick walls are thin and delicate. The interiors feature murals of Mexico’s history painted by Leandro Carreón. The building became the rectory of the Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua (1958). Several notable parks contribute green space in the city. The Parque Central El Palomar is a lush area that has a wonderful view of the city and is named for its location next to the giant bronze sculptures of three doves that were crafted by the Chihuahuan artist Fermín Gutiérrez. The Parque Revolución is a verdant area located in the western area of the downtown. The art deco and Spanish colonial revival work in the city of the late 1930s and 1940s is best exemplified by the Teatro Colonial (anon., ca. 1938–1943), one of the great movie palaces of the era, which has been thoughtfully remodeled as a theater for live performances as the Teatro de la Ciudad. The façade at the narrow street is organized as a dominant octagonal-shaped, articulated central entry with a stained-glass window that reveals the two-story lobby inside, flanked by two side wings. After entering the sumptuous lobby, the theater-goer moves to the right through a series of soft, delicate Islamic arches into another ante lobby for the theater, which is expressed as a subdued, carefully crafted modernist intervention in contrast to the original theater. Entering the theater at either the main level or up a stair to the rear balconies, one encounters another imaginary world with a picturesque colonial village constructed at either side of the theater. This imaginary city within a city gives the audience a sense of witnessing a performance outdoors under the night sky of a colonial town. This also recalls theaters in Los Angeles, CA, home of the movie industry and a city also fascinated by its own Spanish colonial roots. Another eclectic theater is the Cine Azteca (anon., ca. 1932), which reflects Mexico’s policy of racial affirmation after the revolution.18 The façade is organized in three bays with a dominant central bay, and decorated with an inventive system of hybrid ornament derived from the Teotihuacan, Toltec, and Aztec cultures, while the cornice forms a distinctive zigzag pattern against the sky. Although the glazing has unfortunately been replaced, today the theater has been converted to a bank. The La Nacional Life Insurance Building (Manuel Ortiz Monasterio and G. Calderón L., 1949) was designed by noted Mexico City architects. The façade of the fivestory office building is experienced as a large-scale ground floor of cut stone at the street, a middle level framed by abstracted colossal engaged columns at the corners, and a top floor as a loggia crowned by a subtle carved-stone

Chihuahua  153

La Nacional Life Insurance Building, Chihuahua, Chih. (Manuel Ortiz Monasterio and G. Calderón L., 1949); photo ERB (top) Teatro Colonial, Chihuahua, Chih. (anon., ca. 1938–1943); photo ERB (bottom) Cine Azteca, Chihuahua, Chih. (anon., ca. 1932); photo ERB

cornice against the sky. This composition organizes the surprisingly asymmetrical program at the interior. The façade presents a taut, abstracted neoclassical face to the city that simultaneously pays homage to the classical architecture of the city yet is subtly progressive. In contrast to the subtle colors of the cut stone and infill stucco panels of the front façade, the lobby is clad in dark Mexican marble. Today the building houses an architecture and design school, the Instituto Superior de Arquitectura y Diseño de Chihuahua. The Hotel Victoria (anon., ca. 1939–1945; now demolished) was located at the corner of Avenidas Juárez and Colón at what was then the eastern edge of the city. It was one of the best hotels in the city in the 1940s through the

late 1970s, and its demolition was a loss for the architectural culture of the city. As a piece of infill urban fabric, the hotel turned the corner in the city and was organized around a series of two- and one-story courtyards, one with a garden and the other with a pool. The façade at the street presented an eclectic composition to the city, simultaneously modern and local. The taut, streamlined façade suggested speed, movement, and a progressive future, with strip windows at the cantilevered third floor and a streamlined figural penthouse at the roof. Like eclectic work of the period, such as the Universidad de Sonora in Hermosillo, the project utilized a traditional neocolonial vocabulary to localize the building within the culture of Mexico. The entry was treated as a special figural element in contrast to the modernist composition of the rest of the façade. The hotel’s well-known restaurant was noted for its fine regional steak and beef dishes. One of the best moderne projects in the city is the Train Station (Armando Esparza, 1950), which presents a taut vision of modernity.

154  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

(top) Hotel Victoria, Chihuahua, Chih. (anon., ca. 1939–1945; now demolished); postcard, Terrazas Foto, ERBPC (bottom) Train Station, Chihuahua, Chih. (Armando Esparza, 1950); postcard, photographer unknown, ERBPC

The Social Security Clinic and Hospital (Agustín Landa Verdugo and Enrique Landa Verdugo, 1970s) is a good example of the rational, functionalist modernist work of the era. A fence with vertical metal slats defines the perimeter of the site, with a gatehouse to welcome, direct, and control entry to the clinic and hospital. The building is organized as a narrow five-story block, to allow light from both sides, which sits atop a two-story base with more public functions. Of course, the scheme extends many of Le Corbusier’s principles, including the free plan and free façade and, in particular, his Swiss Pavilion of 1930, but reinterpreted in the context of the climate, materials, and local labor of Mexico. The front curtain-wall façade features a brise-soleil to control sunlight, with a series of repetitive clinic rooms behind the upper five-story block. At the roof, the abstracted words “Seguro Social” unpretentiously explains the building’s purpose to the citizenry during the day, is illuminated at night, and presents a

memorable image against the vast, clear skies of the Chihuahuan Desert. From the 1980s forward, Chihuahua has produced a remarkable series of abstract figural urban sculptures that operate at the scale of the city and highway. Many of these are by Mexico’s most well-known modernist sculptor, Sebastián, a native of Chihuahua, who works in enamelcoated steel plate. Nearby are La Puerta de Chihuahua (The Door of Chihuahua; Sebastián, 1997), a 150 ft. bright red abstracted pre-Columbian staircase and colonial arch; La Guirnalda (The Garland; Sebastián, 1998), a 16 ft. bright red circular clasp, dedicated to the rights of workers to strike; El Árbol de Vida (The Tree of Life; Sebastián, 1998), an abstracted 115-foot-high turquoise tree in the north of the city, while the modernist Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua features La Puerta del Sol (The Door of the Sun; Sebastián, 1998), a 115 ft. white abstracted doorway sited beside a line of palms. Other public sculptures include Batalla de Hacienda de Talamantes (Ing. Henry Esperón, Joseph R. Argüelles, and Julio Corredor Latorre, 1910), which is similar to Corredor Latorre’s statue in Ciudad Juárez and commemorates an 1860 battle between liberal and conservative factions; Monumento a la División del Norte (Ignacio Asúnsolo, 1956); Estatua de Anthony Quinn (anon., n.d.), which honors Antonio Rodolfo Quinn (1915–2001), better known as Anthony Quinn, who was born in the city of Chihuahua to an Irish father and a Mexican mother and who played a wide range of ethnic cinematic roles; the Monumento a Felipe Ángeles (an important artilleryman for Pancho Villa during the Mexican Revolution; Carlos Espino, 1989); and the Diana Cazadora (Andrés Estrada, n.d.), a replica of the famous statue on Avenida Reforma in Mexico City.19

Social Security Clinic and Hospital, Chihuahua, Chih. (Agustín Landa Verdugo and Enrique Landa Verdugo, 1970s); postcard, photographer Roberto López Díaz, published by Roberto Studio, ERBPC

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Congreso del Estado, Chihuahua, Chih. (Mario Pani, 1961; Arturo Morales, remodel, 2004); photo ERB

and the Complejo de Seguridad Pública (Escala del Norte, ca. 2001). The Casa en Chihuahua (PRODUCTORA, 2008) is located in a golf-club community with strict rules that required at least 80 percent of the roof to be sloped. The architects conceived of the residence as a continuous roof with different chamfered surfaces to create a new topography and a mimetic relationship to the site. To mitigate the extremes in temperatures, the residence is built partially into the ground to take advantage of thermal mass. From the street side, the building is perceived as a single-height volume. But at the entry, the circulation cascades down the sloping site, and the spaces become more complex, organized around a series of rectangular and irregular patios, terraces, and roof openings that provide light and ventilation and allow spectacular views toward the surrounding landscape.21 Today Chihuahua is the nineteenth-largest city in Mexico, with a population of 809,232, and has a rich but undervalued architectural culture, enjoys a varied economy, and is also the terminus of the Copper Canyon train from the Pacific Coast.

The Rural Mennonite Communities of Chihuahua

Casa en Chihuahua, Chihuahua, Chih. (PRODUCTORA, 2008); courtesy of architect

The Congreso del Estado (Mario Pani, 1961; remodeled by Arturo Morales, 2004), in the centro histórico, deserves wider attention for its strategy of infilling in an established historic context. The project, sited on the north side of the Plaza de Armas, skillfully relates to its urban context by aligning with the tops of cornices of the adjacent nineteenth-century buildings on the plaza, yet clearly utilizes contemporary spatial devices of transparency, long spans, interlocking volumes, and contemporary materials. Even the dominant horizontal gridding of the façade subtly relates to its dignified neighboring buildings that have defined the public plaza for centuries. The tower steps back from the street, rises above its neighbors, and is terminated against the sky with a shimmering circular element clad in metal panels, becoming a new modernist landmark in the city of Chihuahua. Among the best works at the perimeter of the city are the Motorola Mexico Plant (Heery International, 1994)20

Following the Mexican Revolution, Mennonite settlers arrived in Chihuahua by way of Canada (1922–1923). They bought land in the municipalities of Cuauhtémoc (an important cattle and farming town), Namiquipa, and Rivapalacio, and divided into two large colonies: Manitoba with forty camps and Swift Current with seventeen camps. Today many can be seen dressed in their traditional Northern European seventeenth- and eighteenth-century clothing and traveling in horse-drawn buggies—although some use modern vehicles; they have some similarities to the Amish of Pennsylvania. The Mennonites adopted crops of beans and corn, adobe houses, and other Mexican traditions, while introducing machinery for agriculture and oats, which have become part of the regional diet. The Mennonites are renowned for their productive farms; conservative social structure; and excellent cream, butter, and cheeses, including the white “queso Chihuahua.”22 To the shame of her family, a young Mennonite woman left the group during the 1940s and established herself as a nightclub singer and became known as “La menonita” (an endearing term for “the Mennonite girl”).

Delicias Since 1884, the Ferrocarril Central Mexicano train station has shipped products from the former Hacienda Delicias.

156  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico The city of Delicias was founded in 1933 after the creation of the Fifth Irrigation District (1932). The first stage of this massive constructed landscape consisted of an irrigation project that utilized the waters of the Conchos River and Ojo Caliente Creek. The second stage (1940s) built the Francisco I. Madero Dam (also known as Las Vírgenes Dam), which controlled the San Pedro River and the prolongation of San Pedro’s main channel up to Bachimba Creek. Industrial development began (1939) when cotton and oil companies were established. Prosperous vineyards were initially planted, followed by cotton production (1943). Strategically located on Chihuahua’s commercial corridor on the Pan-American Highway, Delicias became the third-largest city in the state (1960) and third-largest economy in the state in manufacturing, agribusiness, furniture fabrication, construction, and services. The maquiladora industry arrived in the 1980s, bringing with it seven important maquiladoras, assembling clothing, electronics, and automotive electronics (1990s). Large global businesses have established their manufacturing facilities in the city, including Bristol Myers, Wrangler, and Goodyear. While the architecture of the city is largely unremarkable, the noteworthy Urban Plan (Carlos G. Blake, 1960) was designed as a gridded city overlaid with broad diagonal avenues and interspersed with lush green parks with commemorative statues.

Among the best modernist work in the city is the IMSS Hospital (Agustín Landa Verdugo and Enrique Landa Verdugo, 1952–1956). This two-story slender modernist block sits lightly on the site and has delicate sunscreens on the top floor. Access is by means of a stair that floats above a garden. The end façade features the structural frame with asymmetrical windows and the words “Seguro Social “ silhouetted against the sky. The city is also home to the Instituto Tecnológico de Chihuahua, part of the state university system, with important archaeological collections in the Museo de Paleontología. Today, this thriving desert commercial city is home to 105,000. Nearby, the Cueva de los Cristales (Cave of Crystals) contains some of the world’s largest natural crystal formations, and recalls the architecture of the crystalline Arctic fortress portrayed in the film Superman. The translucent shards of crystalline cantilever up to 36 feet and weigh up to 55 tons. Buried a thousand feet below Naica Mountain, the cave was discovered by two miners excavating a new tunnel for the Industrias Peñoles company (2000).

Jiménez The former presidio of Guajoquilla, founded (1753) by Captain Bernardo de Bustamante y Tagle, is today Ciudad Jiménez. Located 133 miles from the capital of Chihuahua, it is surrounded by a semidesert landscape that serves as pastureland for cattle. The most prominent works of architecture are the Presidencia Municipal (anon., 19th c.) with a continuous arcade, the cast-iron-framed Mercado (anon., ca. 1880), the Templo Santo Cristo de Burgos (anon., 1804–1893), the Capilla San Isidro (anon., 1885), and the Estación del Ferrocarril (anon., 1920). Nearby are the haciendas Dolores (anon., 1800), El Molino (anon., 19th c.), San Pedro (anon., 19th c.), Santa Bárbara (anon., 19th c.), Tierra Blanca (anon., 19th c.), and Remedios (anon., 1906). Salaices, 18 miles west of Jiménez, is noted for La Cueva del Diablo (The Devil’s Cave) that features stalactite and stalagmite formations.

Hidalgo del Parral

Urban plan, Delicias, Chih. (Carlos G. Blake, 1960); from http:// laboratoriodeurbanismodelsur.blogspot.com

With the discovery of silver (1631), San José del Parral was established as a mining town by Juan Rangel de Viesma, whose statue in the main plaza portrays him clad in a helmet with an ore nugget in one hand and a mining hammer in the other. Originally inhabited by the Conchos people, it was one of the first colonial cities in Chihuahua and

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Iglesia San Jose Casa Stallforth Catedral

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Urban plan, Hidalgo del Parral, Chih.; drawing by Rick Melde and Ricardo García-Báez

was the former capital of the Audiencia of Nueva Vizcaya, which encompassed much of Northern Mexico. Parral thus became an isolated urban refuge in the vastness of the surrounding Chihuahuan Desert. As a result of the labor of the enslaved indigenous minHidalgo del Parral, Chih. ers, King Philip IV of Spain proclaimed Parral “the capital of the silver world” (1640). After independence, the name of the town was changed to honor Father Miguel Hidalgo, and Parral became the capital of the mining districts of Parral, Cusihuiriachic, and Chihuahua. Unlike most colonial gridded cities, Parral grew organically among the hills, following the undulating topography and the meandering Río Parral that runs through the town.23 The Plaza Principal forms a communal outdoor room that overlooks the important La Prieta mine. The colonial parish church of the town, Parroquia de San José (Simón de los Santos, builder, 1673–1710; damaged by fire, 1861; and remodeled ca. 1863), is sited on a narrow lot and has a single tower, unusual proportions, and a distinctive diamond-shaped stone masonry pattern on the exterior walls. Another colonial church is El Rayo (18th c.). The main plaza is linked to the Plaza Guillermo Baca via the winding Avenida Herrera, also known as the Avenida Mercaderes, a picturesque, narrow street lined with mansions featuring richly carved stone façades. Nearby, the Presidencia Municipal (anon., 1862) is a one-story walldominant building organized around a courtyard with a fountain. On the Cerro de la Cruz are the ruins of the fort constructed during the French occupation of the town (1862–1867). The Teatro Hidalgo (Federico Amérigo Rouvier, 1906) is a compact two-story stone building on a sloping site that utilized the walls from the colonial San Antonio convent

(ca. 1690). The building is organized around the centralized volume of the theater with support functions at the edges. The central bay of the theater and the theater lobby is slightly recessed from the street façade of three bays with vertical glazed openings and large arched glazed openings at the second floor, which become transparent and filled with light during nighttime performances. The central volume is surmounted by a rounded shaped pediment, like a medallion. Support functions occur at both sides of the centralized volume and are expressed as solid corners at the street. After a fire (1928), the building was restored and is now a library. Nearby is the Beaux-Arts Hotel Hidalgo (Federico Amérigo Rouvier, 1906), with its prominent corner entrance, that Pedro Alvarado at one time gave as a gift to Pancho Villa, and the Hotel Fuentes (anon., 1904), a narrow building organized around two courtyards. Up the hill to the north, the Temple of Fátima (anon., 1953) is sited near the entrance to the Prieto mine and was designed and built by local miners from chunks of gold, silver, lead, zinc, copper, and manganese ore that sparkle in the walls, columns, and pilasters. Instead of pews, the congregation sits on short square stone stools. Continuing west along the main street, now called Avenida Hidalgo, are a number of mansions for the city’s elite, in particular the two-story Casa Stallforth (Federico Amérigo Rouvier, 1908), constructed of stone with elaborate ornament featuring figures from Nordic mythology. Farther along Hidalgo, just before the bridge over the Río Parral, the two-story Casa Griensen (Federico Amérigo Rouvier, 1905) was the residence of a prominent German mercantile family that supported civic projects. It features crisp stone ornament on plaster walls, and the

Panorama of Hidalgo del Parral, Chih., with Parroquia de San José beyond; postcard, published by Sonora News Company, ERBPC

158  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico Pedro Alvarado, the founder of La Palmilla mine. In a gesture to Porfirio Díaz, he offered to pay Mexico’s foreign debt at the beginning of the twentieth century! This residence has a three-part façade with a parapet balustrade that utilizes an eclectic nineteenth-century neoclassical mode of composition. Italian Gothic revival elements with tall vertical ornamented windows recall a smaller-scaled vocabulary in the work of Adamo Boari at the Post Office in Mexico City (1902–1908). The central projecting bay of the house contains an elaborate arched entrance flanked by engaged columns with three tall vertical doors, a balcony above at the second story, and the family’s coat of arms at the parapet. The end bays of the façade are expressed as projecting masses and feature articulated window openings. A face over the main entrance is claimed to represent an indigenous miner at work, while a medallion with a sitting female figure near the parapet refers to the tale that the residence was built as a gift to a woman he loved. The plan is organized around a central court, and the interiors of the major rooms feature decorative murals by Antonio Decanini. The state government recently repurposed the residence as a museum. European immigrants who settled here when the railroad arrived (1898), when mining was at its peak, made Parral a cosmopolitan city of 12,000 (1900), with silent movies, radio, and literary gatherings at the Teatro Hidalgo. They built the city’s first electric power plant (1901), and a group of local businessmen inaugurated the Ferrocarril Urbano de Hidalgo del Parral (1908) that expanded the city from its historic center. However, the trolley wire was melted to make coins during the Mexican Revolution.24

(top) Casa Stallforth, Hidalgo del Parral, Chih. (Federico Amérigo Rouvier, 1908); postcard, photographer unknown (bottom) Casa Griensen, Hidalgo del Parral, Chih. (Federico Amérigo Rouvier, 1905); photo © mexicoenfotos.com/Casa Griensen, Hidalgo del Parral

extraordinary courtyard is surrounded by a delicate, light art nouveau cast-iron arcade. Nearby, set in a dense, meandering urban context, is the two-story Palacio Alvarado (Federico Amérigo Rouvier, 1903), built as the residence of the fabulously wealthy

Palacio Alvarado, Hidalgo del Parral, Chih. (Federico Amérigo Rouvier, 1903); from Wikimedia Commons, Lyricmac

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Hospital Parral, Hidalgo del Parral, Chih. (Alberto Kalach/Taller de Arquitectura X, 2005); courtesy of architect

Across the bridge is the Museo Francisco Villa (anon., 19th c.) with photos and artifacts depicting the life of the revolutionary icon. From this building the shots were fired that assassinated him in his car (1923). A star on the sidewalk outside marks the spot where his bullet-marked Dodge came to rest. On the Avenida Maclovio Herrera is the entrance to the municipal cemetery with Pancho Villa’s tomb. Doubt surrounds the location of his remains,25 but each year the assassination of Villa is reenacted during the “Gran Cabalgata Villista,” when three hundred horsemen arrive in town after a six-day ride from the north to commemorate Villa’s legendary long rides. South of Parral, just over the border in Durango, is the Ex Hacienda Canutillo, given to Villa (1920) by the federal government to persuade him to lay down his arms and disband the remnants of his División del Norte at the end of the revolution. Prominent postrevolutionary works include the Teatro Alcázar (Ing. Raúl de la Peña, 1929). After the silver mining boom ended, Parral was almost abandoned (1932). Today the town has rebounded with a population of about 100,000 as a service center and place for more limited mining operations. The best recent project in the city is the Hospital Parral (Alberto Kalach/Taller de Arquitectura X, 2005), a wall-dominant brick composition organized around a dramatic circular court with a contrasting lightweight crucifix-shaped tower clad in metal.

Barrancas del Cobre (Copper Canyon) The steepest part of the western range of the Sierra Madre contains some of the largest groups of canyons and ravines in the world. Initially formed during the Tertiary Period by volcanic activity and shifting tectonic plates, the series of

deep canyons known as Las Barrancas del Cobre were further carved out by the action of surface fissures, rain, snow runoff, and underground rivers. The hard igneous strata resisted erosion and has created the canyons’ distinctive craggy rock outcrops. The region is about 370 miles long and 150 miles wide, with peaks up to 12,000 feet with an average height of 7,463 feet above sea level. The Copper Canyon is actually seven major canyons varying in depth from 4,986 feet at Barranca Oteros to 6,315 feet at Barranca Urique, and four that are deeper than the Grand Canyon, with many different microclimates. The elevations of the canyons also vary, with Barranca Sinforosa the highest at 8,293 feet, while Barranca Chinipas is the lowest at 6,555 ft. Before the arrival of the Spaniards, the Copper Canyon region was inhabited by fifty indigenous groups of which only ten remain, including the Tepehuán, Pima, Guarijío, and Tarahumara, the primary remaining group and probably the most isolated and primitive Native American tribe in North America. They are scattered in small tribal groups and ranchitos over 10,000 sq. miles of mountains and canyons on the few flat pieces of land in this rugged landscape. Traditionally, they lived in the warmer bottoms of the canyon in the winter and at the cooler tops of canyons during the summer in caves and in indigenous architecture of laid rough-stone walls with wood roofs. Some are among the world’s strongest long-distance runners, capable of running up to 125 miles nonstop. While tourists provide welcome sources of income, they also threaten the survival of their culture with the homogenization of global tourism.26

Copper Canyon: Railroad, Bridges, and Towns The Chihuahua-Pacifico Railway runs through Copper Canyon from Los Mochis, Sin., on the Sea of Cortés, to Chihuahua, Chih., and makes several stops at small towns. The railway was initiated in the nineteenth century by American mining companies prior to the opening of the Panama Canal as a strategic transcontinental route. It passes through eighty-six tunnels and crosses thirty-nine bridges through the canyons of the Tarahumara indigenous people, and was finally completed in 1961. The remarkable engineering through this remote region is characterized by a pragmatic, unaestheticized attitude toward bridge construction, with huge, unarticulated poured-in-place concrete columns, some approximately 25 feet in diameter. These are spanned by massive beams built up out of steel sections, which are curved where needed. On the sides of excavated mountain faces,

160  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Chihuahua-Pacifico Railway near Creel, Chih.; photo © mexicoenfotos.com/Vías del tren, Creel

driven steel columns are spanned by pieces of steel sheeting that act as retaining walls. The tunnels are either simply the exposed rock of the mountain through which they pass or covered in gunite. Cerocahui, Posada Barrancas, Divisadero, and Creel are points of departure into the canyon. The number of tourists increases during ritual festivals at Christmas and Easter, especially during Holy Week. Tehueco (Blue Sky) was founded in 1648, and the original mission church that is a ruin today was built in 1650. The Tehueco Mission (anon., 1811) is the center for Mayo religious fiestas and is built next to the ruin of the original church. Nearby is the Mayo village of Capomos. The Hacienda de Bustillos (anon., 1904) with nearby Laguna was a cattle-ranching operation in the mountains run by powerful Chihuahua families. The main house is a spectacular eclectic composition surmounted by a centralized dome and exterior stair with a rooftop mirador.

Creel, Batopilas, and Other Towns The town of Creel at 7,750 feet serves as a gateway to the more remote parts of the region. It was established in 1907 and named for Enrique Creel, an engineer and entrepreneur of the powerful Creel family of Chihuahua. Arriving by train, the visitor to the small logging and tourist destination experiences the smell of fresh pine mountain air mingled with wood smoke. The town has churches on the plaza and main street. The silver and gold mines of the

canyon became part of the world’s cinematic imagination when the lure of limitless wealth drove Humphrey Bogart insane in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). Leaving the cool pine forests at Creel on the rim of the canyon, and after a six-hour descent to the bottom of the 1.5-mile-deep canyon on one of the most remarkable drives in North America along a single-lane dirt road with blind curves and spectacular views into deep chasms and mountains beyond, one finally arrives at Batopilas. The road descends through several climates and plant communities, with pine, scrub, and maguey giving way to a more tropical and humid climate at the bottom of the canyon. Batopilas is sited between the river of the same name and canyon cliffs; the town’s subtropical climate supports lemon, orange, and papaya trees, bougainvillea, butterflies, and hummingbirds. The Spanish found silver here (1632), and the town was the site of one of the richest silver mines in Mexico in the nineteenth century, with a population of 10,000, until all the mines were closed shortly after the Mexican Revolution. The town is just one street wide for most of its length and features a fairly intact nineteenthcentury town fabric with two small plazas; the Templo de la Virgen del Carmen (anon., 17th–20th c.); nineteenthcentury residences such as the Casa Bigleer (anon., 19th c.), with a distinctive rounded corner with Gothic arched openings; and the Palacio de Gobierno (anon., 1890). The mines substantially increased their production when Alexander Sheppard (the last governor of Washington, DC) moved with his family to the town (1880). He created the Batopilas Mining Company (1890s) and built an aqueduct, a bridge (1893–1895), and a hydroelectric plant that made Batopilas the second city in Mexico to have electricity. He also built his home, the Hacienda San Miguel (Alexander Sheppard, ca. 1894), now a ruin overgrown with wild fig and bougainvillea. Nearby, the Hacienda Batopilas (anon., ca. 1900) is a picturesque composition of blue tile domes, arches, and white walls. Today the town has a population of 800, and cultural tourism now sustains the town economically. The Copper Canyon Riverside Lodge is a restored hacienda for well-heeled tourists, with antique furnishings, a courtyard, and mirador lookout tower. The remote colonial town of Savetó is about two hours away along the Río Batopilas and features the Templo del Santo Ángel (anon., 17th–20th c.) with bulbous round side chapels, a dome, and an unusual, almost centralized plan. The interior includes a black Madonna (18th c.) from Spain. Another mining town accessible by a three-day hike from Batopilas is Urique. Other remote mining towns include San Francisco del Oro, Santa Bárbara, and Valle de Allende.

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Ruins of Hacienda San Miguel, Batopilas, Chih. (Alexander Sheppard, ca. 1894); photo Dave Nelson

Guadalupe y Calvo The town of Guadalupe y Calvo is set in a mountainous valley at 7,643 feet surrounded by pine forests in a remote, rich mining area in the southernmost part of the state. The area is home to the Tepehua, who are the northern descendants of a native group whose territory ranged from north of the Río Verde in Chihuahua southward through Durango and into the states of Nayarit and Jalisco. The Jesuits ministered to the Tepehua in central and southern Durango and entered this area in 1610 and began congregating the Tepehuan into mission towns. They established missions at Baborigame, Nabogame, and Guadalupe y Calvo (ca. 1708) where natives acquired European agriculture and ranching. Like the Tarahumara, the Northern Tepehua defended themselves against Apache raiders and have remained relatively isolated. Their religion is a combination of Catholic and indigenous practices. The town of Guadalupe y Calvo was named for the Virgin of Guadalupe and the governor of Chihuahua,

José Joaquín Calvo. The town developed as the result of new gold and silver mines (1830s), and President Antonio López de Santa Anna authorized a ten-year lease to the British firm that operated as Compañía Minera Mexicana de Guadalupe y Calvo (1842). Significant buildings include the Templo de Guadalupe (anon., 19th c.) and the Capilla del Santo Niño (anon., 19th c.). The wealth of its mines and its remoteness led to the establishment of the Guadalupe y Calvo Mint (anon., 1844), the most prominent building in the town. This walldominant building was constructed of stone rubble with cut-stone quoins in the corners and a crenellated circular defensive tower. Only eight years after the establishment of the mint, the ore began to give out and the mint was closed (1852) but now is restored as a museum. Today, logging in this densely forested area has become an important economic activity.

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Durango As the road goes northward it will traverse a rich agricultural region, principally in the state of Durango, where, on a great scale, are cultivated cotton, sugar-cane, and the cereals. The railroad will carry life and colonization to that section, which sadly lacks labor and means of communication. —Fredrick A. Ober, Travels in Mexico and Life among the Mexicans, 1884

Geography

History

The state of Durango (named for the native city in Spain of Captain Francisco de Ibarra who founded the capital city) is nestled against the Sierra Madre Occidental to the west, and its varied landscape includes plains, valleys, orchards, vineyards, forests, canyons, rivers, lagoons, and deserts. Temperature ranges are extreme, from -24°F in winter at altitudes of over 10,200 ft. to over 105°F in the desert in summer, with August rains in the valleys and mountain ranges. The state is watered by the Ríos Sextín and Ramos that merge to become the Río Nazas, the Río Presidio, and the Río San Lorenzo in the Sierra Madre Occidental, and the Río Mezquital in the south. The state has abundant fauna, with over 250 species of migratory and native birds, and has preserved some of its most isolated fragile areas with two biosphere reserves.

Several indigenous groups created cave paintings and nonmonumental architecture during the pre-Columbian era that exists today as archaeological sites. During the colonial era, Durango was part of the colonial province of Nueva Vizcaya that was the largest of Nueva España and included what are now the states of Durango, Sinaloa, Sonora, and Chihuahua.

Bermejillo Bermejillo is a small desert town in the municipality of Mapimí, just north of Gómez Palacio, Dgo., that was established (1885) when the railroad arrived and the cotton trade expanded. It got its name from a Spanish merchant named Bermejo who was in charge of the station and was nicknamed Bermejillo. The Railroad Station (anon., ca. 1885) is tectonically precise. It consists of a light system of columns with ornate brackets and contrasting heavy masonry walls with narrow vertical Victorian openings that support a generous gable sloping metal roof that provides welcome shade. During the revolution, the town was the scene of an important battle (1914) won by the forces of Pancho Villa, and bullet holes can still be seen in the masonry walls of the nearby warehouses. Today the town has dwindled to about 8,600 residents and is in economic decline. It marks the junction with the road into the mountains to the town of Mapimí.

Mapimí

Map of Durango; portion of Mexico map, CAW

Mapimí was founded by Jesuits (1598) as a mountain mining town northwest of Gómez Palacio that has largely remained intact, as it is isolated from the main highway. This beautiful linear town on the ridge of a mountain

Durango  163 is organized along the main road. The center of town is built around a plaza that maintains its nineteenthcentury urban fabric and contains the major commercial and institutional buildings, such as the Templo Santiago Apóstol (anon., 17th c.), with a baroque façade, and other civic institutions. Benito Juárez passed through the town to evade French forces, and one of the buildings on the plaza has a neo-Gothic Niche (anon., ca. 1880) that commemorates his stay in the city. Next door is the town’s Museum (anon., 19th c.) with heavy walls and a contrasting wooden arcade around a two-story courtyard. In the nineteenth century, the city was so wealthy that it contained foreign consulates, an opera house that featured performers from Europe, and a thriving commercial center. The Ojuela Mine was initiated in 1598 by Spanish prospectors above the town of Mapimí. Ojuela, located between two large hills, was the site of the mining operation and the living quarters for the mineworkers. The Puente de Ojuela (William Hildenbrand, Santiago Minguín, and Henry G. Tyrell, 1892) was built to move mineral ore trains and workers between the two mountain ridges. The suspension bridge spanned 1,034 ft. over the 340 ft. gorge with steel wire cables, rails, wooden towers, and planks, and had a 10-foot-wide roadway that has been reduced to 6 feet wide today. It was the longest suspension bridge in Mexico and the third longest in Latin America, and was designed by a noted team of bridge builders and constructed by local craftsmen. Minguín also built the abandoned mining site that remains as a ruin today with just a few walls still standing. At the end of the nineteenth century, over 3,000 miners were employed, but now the mine is essentially closed.1 Outside of town is the Jesuit Mission of Mapimí (anon., 16th c.) and a former Hacienda (anon., 19th c.), while adjacent mountain valleys include other large mines.2

Gómez Palacio

(top) Museum, Mapimí, Dgo. (anon., 19th c.); photo ERB (center) Commemorative Benito Juárez neo-Gothic Niche, Mapimí, Dgo. (anon., ca. 1880); photo ERB (bottom) Panorama, Puente de Ojuela, Mapimí, Dgo. (William Hildenbrand, Santiago Minguín, Henry G. Tyrell, 1892); photographer unknown

Gómez Palacio (named for the former governor of Durango, Francisco Gómez Palacio y Bravo) is sited at the edge of the hot and arid Chihuahuan Desert along the Río Nazas that flows intermittently. Irrigation has precipitated the development of the agricultural economy of the city and the surrounding La Laguna region. Santiago Lavín (1883) surveyed part of his land, subdivided it, and sold it to workers and peasants at low cost on the condition that they build houses as soon as possible. The town was established with the construction of the Train Station (anon., 1884) and a residence. Due to cotton and wheat production, the city grew rapidly, and with its strategic location on

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Puente de Ojuela, Mapimí, Dgo. (William Hildenbrand, Santiago Minguín, Henry G. Tyrell, 1892); Wikimedia Commons, Richard Burger

the new railroad line, it became an industrial center in the nineteenth century, and today is contiguous with Torreón, Coah., and Lerdo, Dgo. The city became separate from Lerdo (1905) and formed a municipal government (1907). The urban core of the city was organized as a rigorously square grid with a central plaza parallel to the Río Nazas. On one side of the plaza is the Catedral de Guadalupe (anon., 1900–1930), designed in an eclectic neo-Gothic and Romanesque vocabulary. The entry façade is one of the most unique in all of Northern Mexico, with a domed tower over the entry, unusually shaped eclectic windows, and a transept flanked by two domed towers. The thick pink walls of local brick feature pointed Gothic arched windows. The city was devastated during the Mexican Revolution in the ferocious battles for the vital railroad hub in Torreón, Coah., across the Río Nazas; the city was initially

held by the forces of Carranza in July 1913, then again in October 1913, and finally in March 1914.3 The ruins of the Jabonera (Soap Factory; anon., ca. 1900) near the railroad tracks, which was the largest building in the city at the time, still remain today. The commanding ground of the Cerro de la Pila northwest of the downtown was the site of several bloody offensives to capture this strategic hill, and these assaults are commemorated today by a colossal statue, General Francisco Villa (Francisco Montoya de la Cruz, 1980), that overlooks the city. Nearby, the former Hacienda de Santa Rosa de Lima (anon., 1863), through which the Río Nazas passed, periodically flooding it, was sited below a mountain of the same name. It was an important stop for stagecoaches and freight wagons between Nazas, Dgo., and Saltillo, Coah. The plastered adobe ruins of the hacienda stood amid the mesquite until the 1920s. They later became part of

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El Campestre, Gómez Palacio, Dgo. (anon., 1934); postcard, photographer unknown, ERBPC

Catedral de Guadalupe, Gómez Palacio, Dgo. (anon., 1900–1930); photo Antonio Méndez-Vigatá

Rebels entering city during Mexican Revolution, Gómez Palacio, Dgo.; photo courtesy of Wheeler Collection, Cushing Memorial Library and Archives, Texas A&M University

the Spanish colonial revival country club and colonia El Campestre (anon., 1934). The club consists of a rusticated base of local stone with plaster walls above, surmounted by a sloping tile roof with a picturesque octagonal tower.

Suburban neighborhoods developed outside the downtown (1945–), and the city sponsored a number of other public civic monuments (1960–) that act as urban design landmarks. These monuments include the Hemiciclo a los Niños Héroes at the intersection of Boulevard Miguel Alemán and Avenida Victoria and El Monumento a la Madre in front of the Parque Morelos. Other prominent buildings are the Casa de Cultura (anon., 1970s) and the Public Library (anon., n.d.). In a cross-national adaptiveuse project, the Houston Colt Stadium (anon., ca. 1940) was dismantled in the 1970s and moved to Torreón, where it became the Estadio Superior (anon., 1970s), home to the local Mexican League baseball team, the Torreón Algodoneros. The Renault Factory (Ricardo Legorreta, 1985) is the most well-known building in the city and was widely published around the world. The 800,000 sq. ft. wall-dominant composition of rough, vividly colored, plastered masonry walls is organized around a series of courtyards and outdoor rooms. It features indigenous landscape and a ground cover of loose stone and river cobble that reinterprets the arid landscapes of the region and captures the silent, static quality of the desert. The Villas Alejandra Housing (Antonio Méndez-Vigatá, 2001) is notable for its irregular massing that recalls the informal vernacular architecture of a rural village, provides light and a view to each unit, and recalls traditional materiality with soft native stone cladding. Among the new buildings of the city are the CRIT (Javier Sordo Madaleno, 2009), which provides services to handicapped children and their families in a series of brightly colored building wings that dynamically pinwheel around a central entry volume and extend the architectural vocabulary of Ricardo Legorreta.

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Renault Factory, Gómez Palacio, Dgo. (Ricardo Legorreta, 1985); photo Len van der Graaff

Plaza Principal, Lerdo, Dgo. (General Donato Guerra Fierro, 1864– 1885); photo ERB

CRIT, Gómez Palacio, Dgo. (Sordo Madaleno Arquitectos, 2009); Wikimedia Commons, alx 91

Today the city is a contiguous part of the Torreón metropolitan region with a population of about 300,000 people.

Ciudad Lerdo Just west of Gómez Palacio, the desert city of Lerdo was established in the nineteenth century as an important agricultural center on the Río Nazas. It developed a cottonbased industry and became part of a commercial corridor that was established between Lerdo, Peñón Blanco in the center of the state, and the capital of Durango in the south. When nearby Torreón became an important railroad junction (1882), Lerdo became more isolated economically, and thus much of its nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century architecture has survived. The Plaza Principal (General Donato Guerra Fierro,

1864–1885) features a green shade canopy that was formed when 175 fresno (ash) trees from the Cañón de Fernández were transplanted (1885). The Kiosk (anon., 1893) was erected under the direction of the jefe político (political chief ) Catarino Navarro. Today the plaza is still an important outdoor room and a welcome cool, lush place to sit. On Sundays, families stroll beneath the trees eating cups of ice cream made from local dairy products and purchased from the small stalls of vendors that line the plaza. The most distinguished buildings in the city are those in the contiguous, eclectic public and religious complex that faces the Plaza Principal. The Palacio Municipal (anon., 1866–1905) is a narrow, horizontal neoclassical two-story block with a simple entablature, vertical slots for windows, and protruding balconies at the end bays. The central bay contains the entry with a second-story balcony and a shaped parapet and flagpole above. Constructed of adobe and pink cantera, the first floor was completed in 1866, while the second floor was completed later (1905). On the upper floor is the Salón Azul, named for the social elite “sangre azul” (blue bloods) that attended dances, balls, receptions, and social events after 1905. The room

Durango  167 has French doors that face the Plaza Principal with its lush shade trees that also provide cross ventilation. The ceiling is characterized by ornate plaster decorations, heavy bracketed beams, and hanging crystal chandeliers. The

Palacio Municipal, Lerdo, Dgo. (anon., 1866–1905); photo Antonio Méndez-Vigatá

Parroquia del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús, Lerdo, Dgo. (anon., 1891– 1897); photo Antonio Méndez-Vigatá

Clock Tower, Lerdo, Dgo. (Miguel Trad Jacob, 1889); photo Antonio Méndez-Vigatá

building also formerly served as a residence of Coronel Rafael González del Castillo. Adjacent and connected to the Palacio Municipal is a Clock Tower (Miguel Trad Jacob, 1889), designed by an architect who emigrated from Palestine. It forms an unusual, Moorish-inspired entry gate that is unique in Northern Mexico. The tower steps upward in four parts, with a segmented Islamic arch at the ground level, heavily ornamented elaborate Islamic entablatures at each of the first three levels, and a clock tower with cupola inscribed with an Islamic half arch on each side. The tower was fabricated in Jaifa, Palestine (1877), and features Arabic lettering that proclaims, “LA ELAH ELA ALLAH” (Nothing higher than Allah). The clock was brought from Bern, Switzerland, and is the work of Enrique H. Sterling.4 The Moorish vocabulary was utilized in other buildings in the

168  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico During the revolution and the fierce battle for Torreón, Lerdo was occupied by the forces of Carranza twice (July 1913 and Oct. 1913). Nearby are the Hacienda de San Fernando (anon., 18th c.) that predates the city, the Hacienda y Iglesia de la Goma (anon., 18th–19th c.) that features a colonnaded portal facing a large courtyard, and the Hacienda de la Loma (anon., 19th c.) that produced cotton.5 Lerdo is also the hometown of the “Conquistador del Cielo” (Conquerer of the Skies), the renowned Mexican aviator Col. Francisco Sarrabia. His streamlined “Bee Gee” airplane (1934) is now housed in a geodesic Glass Dome (anon., 1972). Today Lerdo is subsumed into the greater Torreón–Gómez Palacio metropolitan area.

Chalet Tarín, Lerdo, Dgo (anon., ca. 1900); photo Antonio MéndezVigatá

subregion, especially in nearby Torreón, as an appropriate expression of the hot, arid desert region that surrounds the city. At the right end of the complex that fronts the street and faces the Plaza Principal is the Parroquia del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús (anon., 1891–1897), a strongly vertical proportioned, eclectic neo-Gothic composition with pointed Gothic arches and tall vertical spires. The interior features the venerated figure “Santo Niño del Tongo.” Five blocks north, the Parque Victoria (anon., 19th c.) is filled with tall, thick trees that provide shade and is surrounded by restaurants. Many of the restaurants serve local meat specialties as well as the regional delicacy of crunchy fried insects that have served as an important source of protein since the pre-Columbian era. The treefilled alameda also features a small Monument to the Mexican Mother (anon., ca. 1930) composed of a stepped base surrounded by four pylons that encircle a pedestal supporting a Madonna and child statue. One of the most prominent residences from the turn of the century is the brick Chalet Tarín (anon., ca. 1930) with picturesque Victorian massing and corner bracketing that features an octagonal corner tower with vertical spire. Nearby is the Chalet Gorosave (anon., 1900). At the outskirts of the city is the Panteón Municipal (City Cemetery; anon., 19th c.), a necropolis set against the arid hills of the surrounding desert with numerous nineteenthcentury eclectic neo-Gothic and neoclassical funerary monuments. This haunting place has a memorable presence and is best visited at sunset when it takes on the appearance of the closing cemetery scene from the noted Clint Eastwood film The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Velardeña Velardeña is approximately 52 miles southwest of Gómez Palacio. Mines were established there in the sixteenth century and Mining Facilities (anon., 1890–1920) became more fully developed to produce lead, zinc, and copper. The Guggenheim Exploration Co. bought the mines at Velardeña, and they were turned over to ASARCO (American Smelting and Refining Company). During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, new buildings were built around the plaza, including the Palacio Municipal (anon., 19th c.). During the Mexican Revolution, the mines kept operating in support of Pancho Villa, who controlled this territory during much of the conflict. The mines, including two underground ones that produce lead and zinc concentrates, reopened in 1980 and are controlled by Grupo México.

Mining facilities, Velardeña, Dgo. (1890–1920); LOC

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Cuencamé Cuencamé (Nahuatl for “the cultivated ground”) was inhabited by the Zacatec, Tepehuán, and Lagunero peoples during the pre-Columbian era. Sited in a valley surrounded by mountains, the colonial town was founded (1594) by Padre Jerónimo Ramírez, a Jesuit missionary, and originally called Concuemí. The Convento de San Antonio de Cuencamé was founded by Fray Francisco Santos in 1622, and the name was changed to the Convent of the Immaculate Conception in 1693. A production facility was built for the Mina de Terneras silver mine owned by ASARCO, but later the mine ran out. The indiscriminate slaughter of a crowd at a religious festival (1909) served as a catalyst for the Mexican Revolution in the region. Notable works of architecture in the town include the Iglesia de San Antonio de Padua (anon., 16th c.), which contains both baroque and nineteenth-century retablos and the image of the Señor de Mapimí; La Purísima (anon., n.d.); Iglesia de la Pedriceña (anon., n.d); Iglesia La Soledad (anon., n.d); Ex Hacienda de Emiliano Zapata (anon., n.d.); La Hacienda de Santiago y Pedriceña (anon., n.d), and the Presidencia Municipal (anon., 1909). Today, the town has a population of 30,000 people, who are primarily involved in agriculture, ranching, and mining. Nearby towns include San Pedro de Ocuila, Pasaje, Cerro Gordo, and Pedriceña.

Peñón Blanco Midway between Lerdo and the capital of Durango to the south is Peñón Blanco, whose name comes from a tall, massive granite rock of 7,480 ft. nearby. Originally inhabited by the Zacatec and Tepehuán peoples, the town was established in 1599 by Franciscan missionaries, and a number of haciendas were built during the colonial era. In the nineteenth century, the industrialist Juan Nepomuceno Flores created an important textile center in the town. Notable works of architecture include the Municipal Palace (anon., 1836) and the Hacienda de Guadalupe (anon., 1850), which features a magnificent arched arcade that supports a second story with narrow vertical windows above, and a church with a tall shaped campanile dedicated to the Virgen del Refugio.

Santiago Papasquiaro Santiago Papasquiaro (from the Tarascan “priests at the door of eagles,” signifying the entrance to the Valley of Papasquiaro), lies in a valley of west-central Durango on

the eastern slopes of the Sierra Madre Occidental at over 5,000 ft. The town is organized around the Plaza de Armas with portales on three sides. Nearby are the Iglesia Principal Antigua, Capilla Antigua, Edificio de la Casa Colorada, Calzada José Ramón Valdez, and Jardín Juárez. The former Bodega del FFCC (Railroad Warehouse; anon., ca. 1890) has been adaptively reused as the Museo de Antropología e Historia, which presents photographic, painting, and popular craft expositions. The town has a rich musical legacy and the Casa Colorado (anon., ca. 1900) serves as a museum to native son Silvestre Revueltas, a noted Mexican composer, violinist, and conductor. Many popular duranguense bands also hail from the town, including K-Paz de la Sierra, as well as one of the most famous grupero bands, Los Bondadosos. Today agriculture is the main activity of the town’s population of 20,000 people. During the 1990s, the town’s economy improved due to an influx of money sent back to the families of a number of immigrants to Chicago, IL.6

Durango At 6,209 feet, the capital city of Durango is noted for its dry, temperate climate due to its location in the Valle del Guadiana adjacent to the foothills of the Sierra Madre Occidental. This subregion from the southeast of the Valle del Guadiana to Nombre de Dios was inhabited by several indigenous groups, including the Nahua, Zacatec, Acaxee, and Tepehuán peoples. The colonial town was founded in 1563 by Captain Francisco de Ibarra near the confluence of the Ríos Tunal, La Sauceda, and Santiago Bayacora as a mining settlement for the Cerro del Mercado. The town was initially named Guadiana (a river that flows from Spain’s central plateau to its Atlantic coast), but later that year Ibarra changed the name to Durango in honor of his native village in the Spanish province of Vizcaya, and it became an important town of Nueva Vizcaya in New Spain. Numerous battles between the settlers and the indigenous Tepehuán and Acaxee peoples plagued the settlement; a bloody battle on the plains of Cacaria (1616) resulted in the deaths of 15,000 natives. Hostilities with local tribes were so violent (1679–1738) that the tenures of each governor of Durango were served 255 miles to the north in Parral, Chih.! However, due to the substantial gold and silver deposits in the nearby Sierra Madre Occidental, the settlement grew and the emerging town was declared a city by papal order (1620). When the indigenous peoples were finally subdued

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Santa Ana

Plaza de Santa Ana

Edif. Aguacate

Catedral

S. AgustÍn Teatro S. Castro

Plaza de Armas

Casa de Conde Suchil

Plaza Centenario

Paseo de Alameda

Plazuela de Baca Ortiz

Jardin Analco

50 0

S. Juan Bautista

Urban plan, Durango, Dgo.; drawing by José Gallegos and Ricardo García-Báez

200

100 400

150m 600 ft

Durango  171

Bandstand and Plaza de Armas, Durango, Dgo. (anon., ca. 1900); photo ERB

by the mid-eighteenth century, the colonial-era building program of Durango gained momentum, and the city received its official name of Victoria de Durango (1826). Most of Durango’s significant colonial and nineteenthcentury architecture is located only a few blocks from the two main plazas, the Plaza del Centenario and the Plaza de Armas, which still comes alive each Sunday when the bands play. The notable architecture from the colonial era includes the Cathedral (anon., 1695–1777); the Casa de Conde Suchil (anon., 1774); and the Palacio de Gobierno (anon., ca. 1775–1800), which was the former residence of the mining entrepreneur Juan José Zambrano and is composed in a combined baroque and neoclassical vocabulary. The Cerro del Mercado (named for its sixteenth-century discoverer Ginés Vázquez del Mercado) is a 650-foot-high hill north of the downtown that consists almost entirely of iron ore. The site began to be mined in 1828 and continues to be mined today, with enough ore for another one hundred years. Hacienda de la Ferrería de las Flores (anon., ca. 1840) is the memorable courtyard residence for Juan

Nepomuceno Flores, the owner of the iron-mining hacienda, and the vestiges of the foundry, chimney, and company store remain on the site. The hacienda is composed as a taut, austere two-story mass organized around a large open-air internalized courtyard, and it sits on an elevated base so that entrance from the street is up a flight of steps into a long shaded colonnaded portico. The colonnade features a series of arches supported on stone columns that are spatially carved out of the mass of the building. The transitional zaguán gives access from the outside to the rooms on the ground floor that are experienced by directly moving from room to room. Access to the courtyard is through another deep, shaded portico that is also spatially carved from the abstracted mass of the building and provides an inviting place to sit. The courtyard today is a largely paved stone hardscape with a fountain at its center. The façades are differentiated in a direct, simple way. The exterior façade is built of exposed stone-rubble masonry, while the contrasting façades of the courtyard have been plastered smooth. The vertical slots for windows in the

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Ferrería del Cerro del Mercado, Durango, Dgo. (anon., ca. 1840–1910); postcard, published by Librería Religiosa, Durango, Dgo.; ERBPC

Hacienda de la Ferrería de las Flores, Durango, Dgo. (anon., ca. 1840); photo Agustín Salinas

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Templo San Juan Bautista de Analco, Durango, Dgo. (Benigno Montoya, tower and altar, ca. 1890); photo Agustín Salinas

Parroquia de Santa Ana, Durango, Dgo. (anon., 18th c.; remodeled 19th and early 20th c.); photo ERB

wall-dominant façades have simple cut-stone surrounds. The hacienda was converted into the Museo de Arte Guillermo Ceniceros (1999), a museum for the noted painter and muralist. The Templo San Juan Bautista de Analco (Benigno Montoya, tower and altar, ca. 1890) was originally founded as a mission by the Franciscans who first evangelized the native Tepehuán of the region. It is organized as a Latin cross plan with an eclectic mixture of architectural vocabularies reflecting the succeeding eras of construction. The atrium of the church has been restored by removing a small one-story garage that for some unknown reason had been built into this sacred space in the 1950s. The Parroquia de Santa Ana (anon., 18th c.; remodeled 19th and early 20th c.) was dedicated to the Capuchin nuns. The church has two lateral entries and a large atrio that today is divided by a small street. The Templo de San Agustín (anon., 1631–?; façade and

main altar, Benigno Montoya, ca. 1890) was founded by the first bishop of Durango, Fray Gonzalo de Hermosillo. Originally only a small chapel, it was extensively remodeled in the late nineteenth century by adding a neo-Gothic façade, a prominent tower, and a main altar. The Palacio del Arzobispado (chapel and façades, Benigno Montoya, 1885) is composed in a neoclassical vocabulary with neo-baroque elements and served as the residence of the archbishop of the city. The Iglesia de San José (anon., 1903) is an abstracted angular neoclassical church of cut stone. The centralized tower is pulled forward of the front façade to make an outdoor covered portico at the ground-floor entry that is unique in Northern Mexico. The unusual angular applied ornament on the tower creates a foreboding impression that the façade is not to be touched. A substantial boost in Durango’s economy occurred (ca. 1900) when English timber entrepreneurs founded the

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Edificio Aguacate, Durango, Dgo. (Ing. Estanislao V. Slonecki, 1896); photo ERB

Templo de San Agustín, Durango, Dgo. (anon., 1631–?); façade, Benigno Montoya, builder, ca. 1890); photo Agustín Salinas Palacio del Arzobispado, Durango, Dgo. (anon., late 19th c.); photo Agustín Salinas

Entry, Edificio Aguacate, Durango, Dgo. (Ing. Estanislao V. Slonecki, 1896); photo ERB

lumber and mining camp of El Salto on the nearby slopes of the Sierra Madre Occidental. The English built a railway between El Salto and Mexico City, and by the early 1900s, Durango had become an important distribution center for lumber and minerals.

The Teatro Victoria (anon., 1800; extensively remodeled 1910) next to the Government Palace was originally Juan José Zambrano’s private theater. It was remodeled at the beginning of the twentieth century for the Centennial of Independence celebrations of 1910 with a new neoclassical

Durango  175

Teatro Ricardo Castro, Durango, Dgo. (George A. King, 1900); photo ERB

façade. It was named Teatro Victoria to honor the first president of Mexico, Guadalupe Victoria, a native of Durango, and has now been adaptively reused as a cultural center.7 The Edificio Aguacate (Ing. Estanislao V. Slonecki, 1896) is one of the most elegant French-inspired neoclassical buildings in the centro histórico that was built as a residence for the former governor, Francisco Gómez Palacio. The building reflects an Anglo-American sensibility in its siting away from the street on its corner urban site and creates a raised front garden with an avocado tree behind a wrought-iron fence. Ascending a flight of stairs from the street, the visitor enters through a monumental wood door created by the craftsmen of the city and set in an engaged portico on the façade. Proceeding into a large two-story entry hall with glass chandeliers, one encounters public rooms on the ground floor, with access to the front garden through a set a French doors set in the concave corner of the façade that is expressed as a three-story corner tower with an elliptical window. An ornate wooden stair leads to the bedrooms of the upper floor. Today the former

residence houses the Museo Regional that serves as the state’s history museum. The Teatro Ricardo Castro (George A. King, 1900) is a superb Beaux-Arts work. In the late 1880s, the governor of Durango offered the site to any individual who could build a theater, and construction began in 1900. Unfortunately, funds to complete the project ran out, and the government managed the construction with the financial support of the city’s citizens. The name of the theater commemorates the composer Ricardo Castro, a native of Durango and one of the most notable musicians of Mexico; and a statue in his honor was erected in front of the theater. The crisply carved façade of quarry stone is composed in a monumental neoclassical Beaux-Arts vocabulary modeled on the National Theater in Cracow, Poland. Portions of the façade were crafted by Benigno Montoya Muñoz. The theater seats one thousand with nine additional private boxes. The interior features profusely decorated balconies, large allegorical mural paintings of the founding of the city and the mining of Cerro del Mercado,

176  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico finely crafted lighting fixtures, and, in the central window, a medallion of Frederic Chopin. Through the years, the theater also functioned as a cinema and a boxing ring. After a fire severely damaged the building (1951), only its outer walls remained. A complete restoration ensued, and the theater continues to serve as a cultural venue for the city and region. The Palacio de Gobierno (anon., ca. 1900) presents a wall-dominant exterior façade of horizontally coursed cut stone in a neoclassical mode of composition. The two-story building is entered from the corner and organized around a courtyard that offers a cool and refreshing place to sit, surrounded by a covered open-air arcade that provides access to the interior public rooms and private offices. The courtyard provides a welcome quiet respite from the urban life of the city.

Palacio de Gobierno, Durango, Dgo. (anon., ca. 1900); photo Agustín Salinas

La Rebocería, Durango, Dgo. (anon., ca. 1900); postcard, published by Librería Religiosa, Durango, Dgo.; ERBPC

Other major nineteenth-century urban buildings have not fared as well. The commercial building El Palomar (anon., 1890) was a notable example of the architecture of the Porfiriato with a neo-Gothic and neoclassical vocabulary and prominent French-inspired mansard roof. It was partially destroyed in a fire and then completely demolished and replaced by an anonymous building in the 1950s. La Rebocería (anon., ca. 1900) was a Beaux-Arts department store with a prominent corner entrance. The neoclassical Banco de Durango (anon., ca. 1900) unfortunately met a similar fate and was also demolished in the 1950s. In the later part of the nineteenth century, the regime of Porfirio Díaz (1876–1911) envisioned the construction of a massive hospital complex west of the city on a site of about 15 acres. The Military Hospital (anon., 1899) was originally designed as a civilian hospital of 94,400 sq. ft. The hospital was organized around sixteen abstracted neoclassical buildings axially arranged around a series of austere courtyards linked by covered outdoor arcades. This superb and undervalued complex of courtyard buildings recalls a small Versailles. The courtyard organization has proved to be extremely flexible over time. During the Mexican Revolution, the unfinished building was converted to an infantry and cavalry headquarters (1911–1916), then converted to a boarding school (1936), before the state transformed it into an institution for foster children from impoverished families (1938). The complex was declared a historical monument by the Instituto de Antropología e Historia (INAH) in 1982, and three other buildings were added. Since 1999, the complex has served as the Instituto de Cultura del Estado de Durango, the state’s cultural center and cinema and a repository for the state archives and museums of the Mexican Revolution. The expanding city ultimately reached the entrance of the facility located in Colonia Silvestre Dorador (ca. 1950). Durango played an important role during the revolution, and the revolutionary forces in the state led by the Arrieta brothers were active in Durango from 1911 onward. Revolutionary forces from Durango (1913) defeated the Federalist forces of Huerta, and under the orders of General Tomás Urbina, they sacked and burned the city. General Domingo Arrieta led the triumphant Constitutionalist forces of Carranza (1917), was elected governor, and expedited the creation of a local political constitution. After the major fighting of the revolution ended, commercial and institutional buildings were repaired and new infrastructure projects were initiated. With the railroad connection to the city already having been established in 1882, the Estación del Ferrocarril (Manuel Ortiz Monasterio, 1918–1922) was a solidly proportioned, symmetrical

Durango  177

Military Hospital, Durango, Dgo. (anon., 1899); photo ERB

Arcade, Military Hospital, Durango, Dgo. (anon., 1899); photo ERB

View of main street after a battle during the Mexican Revolution, Durango, Dgo.; photographer unknown, LOC

railroad station expressed as five bays in a neoclassical mode of composition. The central, dominant entrance bay protrudes forward and features a monumental arched entry framed by engaged columns; these are flanked by the waiting rooms on either side that receive light from three tall, arched windows. The end bays bookend the

composition, protrude forward, and have arched secondary entrances. The entire façade was built of crisply cut stone and crowned by an articulated cornice and balustrade. Other nineteenth-century infrastructure projects include the municipal water supply that was secured by the town’s reservoir, the Ojo de Agua (Spring; anon., 19th c.)

178  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico sited outside the city behind a walled enclosure. During the postrevolutionary era, Durango also became a major center for charreada (Mexican rodeo), with five charro rings in town, and rodeos are held year-round. The most elegant hotel in the city is an adaptive reuse of a former prison that today is the Hotel Gobernador (anon., ca. 1885; remodeled ca. 1980). The two- and threestory scheme is organized around a series of courtyards. The two-story entry lobby, which has other public dining functions, features oversized circular upper openings that evoke the colonial architecture of the city and the work of Louis Kahn. Casa Saravia, Durango, Dgo. (Carlos Mijares Bracho, 1976); courtesy of architect

Estación del Ferrocarril, Durango, Dgo. (Manuel Ortiz Monasterio, 1918–1922); photo Agustín Salinas

The Casa Saravia (Carlos Mijares Bracho, 1976) is sited on the semi-desert outskirts of the city. It reinterprets local courtyard typologies and materials with modernist spacial devices, in, for example, its pinwheeling plan composition and its approach to indoors/outdoors. Vertically laid local marble both absorbs light and creates a varying vertical pattern of shadows on the façade. Today the city of 526,659 serves as an important transportation junction at the crossroads of Highway 40 that connects the Pacific port of Mazatlán, Sin., with Torreón, Coah.; Saltillo, Coah.; and Monterrey, NL; and Highway 45 that links Durango to Mexico City. Agriculture, ranching, timber harvesting, and paper production are among the leading economic activities of the city. The Durango region has also been an integral part of the way the American West has been constructed in the popular imagination. The surrounding landscape and its craggy rock formations have served as the setting for many cinematic Westerns from the 1950s onward, including portions of such classics as The Magnificent Seven (1960), with 116 movies filmed in small towns and stage sets around the city and region. Ironically, the simulated Western movie sets that were built have been preserved as tourist attractions. Nearby is the town of Tunal, whose most notable work of architecture is the Fábrica de Mantas (anon., 1840–1910), a former manufacturing hacienda.

Nuevo Ideal (Los Patos)

Entry courtyard, Hotel Gobernador, Durango, Dgo. (anon., ca. 1885; remodeled ca. 1980); photo Agustín Salinas

Native Tepehuán were converted to Catholicism during the Spanish mining exploration of the Guatimapé Valley by Francisco de Ibarra. Evolving from a mining economy to a ranching economy, the area was linked to the rest of

Durango  179

Puente Baluarte during construction, between Concordia, Sin., and Pueblo Nuevo, Dgo. (Tradeco Infraestructura, IDINSA, Aceros Corey, VSL México, builders, 2012); Wikimedia Commons, Fotografo Especial

the state by the railroad (ca. 1905). A Mennonite colony was established by President Alvaro Obregón (1923) from lands belonging to the former Hacienda Magdalena. The town’s name of Los Patos was changed to Nuevo Ideal (1930) and became part of the jurisdiction of Canatlán. Nearby are the hacienda churches at Esfuerzos Unidos, Asilos, Guatimapé, and San Rafael de Tejamén.

Puente Baluarte High in the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains between the municipalities of Concordia, Sin., and Pueblo Nuevo, Dgo., the Puente Baluarte (Tradeco Infraestructura, IDINSA, Aceros Corey, VSL México, builders, 2012) is a cable-stayed bridge spanning a dramatic gorge. It is part of the new Durango–Mazatlán highway that includes sixty-three tunnels and thirty-two bridges, eight of which are over 980 ft. high. The new highway will reduce travel time between Durango and Mazatlán from eight hours to

two and a half and will form part of an eventual road link between the Pacific coast and the Gulf of Mexico. The bridge has a total length of 3,688 ft., with a central cable-stayed span of 1,710 ft. With the road deck at 1,322 ft. above the gorge below, the Baluarte Bridge is the highest cable-stayed bridge in the world, and the second-highest bridge overall. The bridge’s four-lane roadway is supported high above the Baluarte River by twelve piers, two of which are also pylon towers. Each of the two pylons measures 59 x 28 ft. at its base and widens in the center to carry the roadway before tapering upward to 26 x 13.45 ft. wide at its top. Seventy-six steel cables pass over saddles in the pylons to form 152 suspenders in a two-plane semifan layout. The cable-stayed design enabled the construction to proceed outward from each of the two main pylons, thus making it unnecessary to build an expensive and time-consuming falsework.

180  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Sonora Sonora querida, tierra consentida, de dicha y placer. . . . Extraño tu suelo, y cifro mi anhelo, por volverte a ver. (Dearest Sonora, my favorite land, of happiness and joy. . . . I miss your soil, and my wish is to return to you again.) —From the traditional corrido “Sonora querida” Sonora, where culture ends and carne asada begins. —Attributed to José Vasconcelos, a leading twentieth-century intellectual, philosopher, and postrevolutionary minister of education in Mexico City

Geography Sonora, from the Ópata xunuta (in the place of the corn), can generally be characterized as two distinct regions. “Old” Sonora lies to the east as a series of mountainous valleys of the Sierra Madre Occidental and their rivers that supported indigenous and older colonial settlements and towns. In contrast, the west can be described as “new Sonora,” a series of desert plains surrounded by rugged peaks and the center of economic activity for the state that developed around agriculture when irrigation was introduced in the twentieth century.1 Six major rivers drain this region and flow from the valleys and mountains of the Sierra Occidental in the east through the western deserts to the Sea of Cortés. The Ríos Magdalena, Sonora, Mátape,

Map of Sonora; portion of Mexico map, CAW

Mayo, and Yaqui have supported a wide variety of flora and fauna, agriculture, indigenous settlements, and colonial and modern cities for centuries.

History The earliest indigenous groups in the region built thatched huts and stone buildings with flat roofs. The Ópata possibly had contact with the Casas Grandes people of Chihuahua, who in turn had contact with the tribes of Central Mexico; they had advanced irrigation techniques and produced adobe and masonry villages primarily along the banks of rivers, including multistoried buildings (1350– 1550); and they produced a material culture of rock art, cave paintings, pottery, baskets, and weaving. Today, the Yaqui, Mayo, Pima, Papago, Ópata, Seri, and Guarijío struggle to maintain their customs and traditions in the midst of the forces of modernization and globalization. Jesuit missionaries from Sinaloa entered Sonora (1614– 1617) to convert the Mayo and Yaqui peoples. Sonora’s history was changed forever by the Jesuit missionary, settler, and cartographer Eusebio Francisco Kino, SJ (1645–1711), who not only brought Christianity but also wheat, cattle, and horses that indelibly changed the culture of Northern Mexico. Jesuit missions were founded around existing indigenous settlements, and new agricultural and ranching techniques were adopted, while new towns also sprang up around mines. By 1680, the cattle ranches established at Jesuit missions in Sonora were so successful that cattle drives were organized to Mexico City. Tragically, Spanish contact also brought smallpox and measles epidemics that ravaged the native populations. The Yaqui, Mayo, and other indigenous peoples of Sonora fought a series of ongoing wars with the government to preserve their traditional lands from the seventeenth century to the early twentieth century. The Pima

Sonora  181

Panoramic view of Nogales, Son. (ca. 1910); photographer unknown, LOC

Revolt (1751) precipitated a strong military presence in presidios of Sonora. After the Jesuits were expelled from Spain and Mexico (1767), the Franciscan order took over the Jesuit missions of Sonora, and revolts of other indigenous peoples followed, including the Yaqui and Mayo (1825). The end of the Mexican-American War (1846–1848) ceded much of Sonora and Chihuahua to the United States, while the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo created the border towns of Nogales and Naco as places for commercial exchange. The notorious U.S. filibusterer William Walker at­tempt­ed to set up a military colony in Guaymas under the pretext of protecting the region from Apache attacks (1853). Eventually his empire-building schemes in Sonora and Baja California failed, and he set his sights farther south with interventions in Nicaragua and later Honduras, where Walker was ultimately executed by firing squad. In 1857, Henry A. Crabb led a group of 104 U.S. filibusterers that invaded Sonora. Nine hundred citizens of Caborca opposed them, and after a six-day siege, 59 filibusterers surrendered and were shot the next day. During the Mayo and Yaqui Wars (1875–1886), Mexican troops confiscated the most fertile lands of the Yaqui, sold the land to large Mexican and U.S. landowners, and attempted to eradicate the native people along the Yaqui River Valley. The Yaqui leader Cajemé, for whom a town in Sonora is now named, led the resistance to this genocide. Rebellious Yaqui were captured and deported to the Yucatán, where they succumbed to disease or were worked to death. The survivors returned from the Yucatán (1927) to lead their last uprising, and a final peace treaty was not signed until 1939. Sonora was governed during the Porfiriato (1876–1911) by General Luis Torres, Ramón Corral, and Rafael Izábal and was significantly transformed by the construction of railroads (1882), with Nogales, Son., becoming a port of entry. During the Mexican Revolution (1910–1919), Sonora was the site of numerous battles, and many leaders were

natives of Sonora who would become presidents of Mexico, including Álvaro Obregón, Adolfo de la Huerta, Plutarco Elías Calles, and Abelardo Rodríguez. The completion of paved highways linking Sonora with Arizona occurred ca. 1940, increasing economic activity, trade, and tourism with the United States. The assassination of Sonora native Luis Colosio (1989), who was the leading PRI candidate for president, led to the election of Ernesto Zedillo, who in 2014 heads Yale’s Center for the Study of Globalization.

Nogales Nogales (Walnut Trees) is named for a prominent ranch established in 1841 southeast of the present city. The border town of Nogales was established where the Ferrocarril de Sonora, which linked the state and the port of Guaymas, Son., with the U.S. transcontinental railroads of the Southern Pacific and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe. These train lines were joined in 1882, and Nogales, AZ, developed on the U.S. side of the border. Unlike the traditional Mexican gridded city with a central plaza, Nogales grew linearly in a north-south direction in a steep arroyo parallel to the railroad line, and the commercial strip was determined by its steep topography, which is reflected in the Urban Plan (Bonillas and Herbert, 1884). The primary commercial strip through town is Avenida Obregón, with many tourist-oriented shops, restaurants, bars, and pharmacies only a few blocks from the border. The majority of the town’s distinguished public buildings were built in the downtown. The Municipio (City Hall; anon., 1896–1897; now destroyed) was an austere, crisp urban neoclassical building with a diagonal corner entrance, and was probably organized as offices around an open-air courtyard. The arched corner entrance was framed by a pair of Doric columns on raised bases that supported an abstracted pediment in which appeared the medallion of the Mexican eagle, the whole surmounted by a flagpole. The façade was heavily

182  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico reproduced near the railroad tracks as a bizarre miniature in a small linear park as a memorial to the Battle of Nogales during the Mexican Revolution. The Municipal Building and Jail (Ing. Ignacio Bonillas, 1910–1921) features a rugged façade of Cycladic rough stone surmounted by a thick entablature, dentils, and a cornice with a balustrade against the sky, while a thick base

Municipio (City Hall), Nogales, Son. (anon., 1896–1897), now demolished; from Lost Buildings/Edificios Perdidos 2000 calendar, Pima Alta Historical Society, Rochlin Collection, 2000

Municipal Building and Jail, Nogales, Son. (Ing. Ignacio Bonillas, 1910–1921); from Lost Buildings/Edificios Perdidos 2000 calendar, Pima Alta Historical Society, Rochlin Collection, 2000

Aduana, Nogales, Son. (anon., ca. 1894), now demolished; postcard, photographer unknown

bracketed by a heavy base faux-painted as marble, Doric pilasters, an articulated cornice that cast a strong shadow on the façade, and pilasters and crisp pediments around the windows. Unfortunately, the building was replaced by a largely anonymous post office. The Aduana (anon., ca. 1894) was a relatively small onestory building that was grand beyond its scale, and representative of the Porfiriato’s aspirations of asserting federal power and laying claim to progressive French culture. A centralized three-story entry tower reflected the vocabulary of the Belle Époque and featured a rusticated arched entry, a middle floor with an arched opening framed by pilasters, and above that a clock with a steep mansard roof with dormers surmounted by a flagpole. This was flanked by two taut, austere neoclassical pavilions with a raised loggia. This building was also demolished, and today it is poorly

La Purísima Concepción, Nogales, Son. (E. B. Hogan, builder, 1886; remodeled 1896); photo ERB

Sonora  183

Juan Enrique Pestalozzi Primary School, Nogales, Son. (anon., ca. 1910); photo ERB

provides a place to sit and observe the life of the city. Light enters the building through pairs of arched openings and end bays with single arched openings on the street façade. Entry occurs through a centralized bay framed by pairs of Ionic columns, supporting a raised crisp entablature. One of the best buildings in the city is the church of La Purísima Concepción (E. B. Hogan, builder, 1886; remodeled 1896), an austere Romanesque revival composition. The entry façade of large rough-hewn Cycladic quarry stone is composed as a centralized bay with an unadorned pediment flanked by symmetrical towers. In contrast, the side walls and apse walls are brick with narrow arched openings at the side aisles with clerestory windows above. During the struggles of the Cristero movement, the church was closed (1928–1949) and was used as a stable. It was later restored and remains a parish church today. During the restoration, much of the interior was lost, although the original tin ceiling remains. Another memorable building in the city is the carefully crafted brick Juan Enrique Pestalozzi Primary School (anon., ca. 1910), sited parallel to the surrounding hills and rail line like a railroad station. It features a multipurpose lobby with stage at the ground floor, with classrooms on the second floor. The brick walls are crisply detailed with white stone corner trim, while the rational structural bays are articulated with abstracted trim at the pilasters that are infilled with gently arched window openings with keystones. During the revolution, Nogales was occupied by the forces of Carranza (March 1913), by Pancho Villa (Aug. 1914), and finally by Carranza again (Nov. 1915). The Train Station S.  P. de M. (Ignacio Díaz Morales, 1936) utilized both the “national” colonial architecture of

Train Station and Aduana, Nogales, Son. (Ignacio Díaz Morales, 1936); MF, from Lost Buildings/Edificios Perdidos 2000 calendar, Pima Alta Historical Society, Robinson Collection, 2000

Former cigar factory, Nogales, Son. (anon., ca. 1904); photo ERB

Central Mexico and the Spanish colonial revival style in Southern California of the 1920s and 1930s. It was composed as a pair of wall-dominant two-story masses at either end with crisp vertical openings, joined by a lower one-story mass. The entry framed an unusual scalloped espadaña, shallow entry court, and covered arcade that provided a memorable place of transition and a shady place to wait for or arrive on the train. Unfortunately, the train tracks remain today, but the station was demolished (1962). Some of the best urban fabric in the city in desperate need of restoration is near the border, on the parallel side

184  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico street of Calle Elías against one of the eastern hills of the city and with ad hoc wiring strewn across the street. Here is the former Cosmopolitan Hotel (anon., ca. 1899) with rough-hewn Cycladic stone as window trim at the second floor and the ground-floor façade. Today there are bars on the ground floor while the Hotel Andrés occupies the second floor, and paint has been applied to differentiate tenants over the years at the ground floor. Down the street is a commercial block of rough-hewn Cycladic stone that was a former Cigar Factory (anon., 1904). The building today is a remarkable ad hoc collage of a lightweight balcony on slender pipe columns over the street, satellite dish at the roof, with tiger and zebra elements at the ground floor that has become the “exotic” bar La Tabernita (The Little Tavern). A small articulated lintel over the central window opening at the second floor remains and dates the building. Following the U.S. economic boom after World War II, tourism to Nogales increased dramatically. Just down Calle Elías is the former site of “The Cavern” (anon., ca. 1920), which was a popular tourist dinner-dance club nightspot immortalized on postcards of the era. An adaptive reuse of a former jail, it utilized the steep topography of the town as an asset to create an architecture of carving, subtraction, and excavation to craft a linear cave to house the facility. Entry was from a commercial block at the street that led the patron upstairs to a narrow, rugged, cool restaurant and dance floor that culminated in a stage with a bandstand. The walls were the rough exposed stone of the hillside with hanging incandescent electric lights, and patrons recalled the welcome coolness against the skin.2 Today the site has unfortunately been excavated and destroyed, and only memories and the sign on the hill remain. No border fence existed between the two towns until the 1930s, when a 3-to-4-foot barbed-wire fence was erect-

“The Cavern,” Nogales, Son. (anon., ca. 1920); postcard, photo by Stan Davis, Petley Studios, ERBPC

Border Crossing and Aduana, Nogales, Son. (Mario Pani, 1962); postcard, photo by Dick Parrish, Petley Studios, ERBPC

ed, primarily to prevent cattle from straying. Later a 6-foot cyclone fence with barbed wire at the top was built (1958– 1978). The Border Crossing and Aduana (Mario Pani, 1962) provided shelter for vehicle inspection and was an optimistic, future-oriented sculptural gateway that utilized thin-shell concrete construction, recalling the hyperbolic paraboloid work of Félix Candela as well as the architecture of the popular television program Los Supersónicos (The Jetsons). From 1989 onward, the current fence was constructed with recycled steel sheets used as temporary airplane landing strips during Operation Desert Storm (1990–1991). A highly politically charged work, El mural de Taniperla, or Vida y sueños de la Cañada Perla (Alberto Morackis, artist), was completed on the Nogales, Son., side of the border fence with the support of local community art groups as an act of solidarity with indigenous people of Chiapas. The mural is a replica of one by Tzeltal Maya rebels in 1998 that celebrated the establishment of the independent Zapatista municipality of “Ricardo Flores Magón” in the town of Taniperla, Chis., that was destroyed by the Mexican army when they reoccupied the town. Nearby, crosses mounted on the fence also commemorate the tragic loss of life of immigrants who have perished along the U.S.-Mexico border.3 Today this bustling border city has experienced a 50 percent population increase since 1990, with a population of 193,514, although many claim the actual population is closer to 250,000, and some even think closer to 300,000– 500,000. (Typically, population is underreported, as the city needs to pay the federal government for each reported citizen.)4 The population growth is in large part due to the opening of the maquiladora industry, with eighty-five different facilities for electronics, auto parts, data entry, and manufacturing.5

Sonora  185 Although many of the best buildings in the city have unfortunately been destroyed, an appreciation for the advantages of the repurposing of historic buildings is beginning to emerge. The pedestrian scale of the old downtown has been replaced by a linear automobile-scaled commercial strip and suburban sprawl to the south. Newer elite gated neighborhoods such as Colonia Kennedy and big-box stores occur at the perimeter of the city, accomplished with massive cut-and-fill operations, unfortunately largely unrelated to the unique topography of this place. One of the most interesting binational proposals for the city was for a U.S. correctional facility run as a private for-profit jail for Mexican nationals who had committed crimes in the state of Arizona. The advantages were numerous: Mexican nationals were crowding Arizona prisons and were expensive to incarcerate, but prisoners could be incarcerated for a fraction of the cost in Nogales; new jobs would be created, benefiting the local economy; prisoners would be closer to their families; and prisoners could learn a trade (auto repair, construction, or machine shop skills) in their own language and culture to avoid recidivism and potentially contribute valuable pro-bono services to the local economy. Land, local materials, labor, power, water, and utilities could be secured, but the project was ultimately derailed due to U.S. legal issues regarding access to U.S. legal services and courts of appeal.6

town of Cananea, Son., to the U.S. border and its railroad system was completed. The adjoining city of Naco, AZ, developed on the other side of the border. The town featured one of the most interesting hybrid buildings in Northern Mexico, a City Hall (anon., ca. 1904) with a corner entrance and multiple vocabularies, materials, and systems of construction. Naco was held by various warring factions during the Mexican Revolution, including the forces of Carranza (March and April 1913) and the army of Villa (Dec. 1913), and declared itself neutral in December 1914. During Prohibition, the town continued to grow and was noted for the smuggling of rum, whiskey, gin, and mescal. The city had a population of 5,370 in 2000, engaged in agriculture, ranching, and industrial production, but has serious water, air, and soil pollution challenges that also affect the adjacent city of Naco, AZ. A recent much-needed water delivery and sewage treatment project for the city includes connecting 35 percent of the population currently not served by the sewer system; installing meters for all users (except low-income households); expanding the wastewater treatment ponds; and selling treated wastewater to nearby farmers to irrigate crops.7 Recently the U.S Army built a steel border fence between the two cities that runs one mile out of town to the port of entry.

Agua Prieta Naco Naco (from the Ópata word for nopal; or an abbreviation for the nearby Nacozari, Son., mines; or the last two letters in Arizona and the last two letters in Mexico) came into being in 1901, when a railroad connecting the mining

Agua Prieta lies on the border opposite Douglas, AZ. The one-story brick Aduana (anon., 1918) featured a prominent entrance through a brick portico with clock tower and looks as if it was transported from the Midwest. The International Club (anon., ca. 1900) was organized as a typology typical to the American Southwest that occurred as far north as Monterey, CA. Thick, heavy masonry walls are surrounded by a light wood-frame arcade and balcony and surmounted by a sloped hip roof. This type provides shade and the opportunity for outdoor living. An example of tourist architecture of the 1940s was the Azteca Curios (anon., ca. 1940), with an elegant shaped entry element/ pragmatic sign to direct tourists to enter and a tile eave and parapet cap, to meet tourist expectations about folkloric Mexico.

Cananea

City Hall, with a corner entrance and hybrid vocabularies, materials, and systems of construction, Naco, Son. (anon., ca. 1904); postcard, MF

Set in the mountains in the northeast corner of Sonora, the region around Cananea was originally inhabited by the Pima indigenous people. The area became a site for mining during the Spanish colonial era (1760) but was

186  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

(top) Casa Green, Cananea, Son. (anon., ca. 1903); postcard, photographer unknown, ERBPC (bottom) Smelter, Cananea, Son. (anon., ca. 1900); Wikimedia Commons, Fernwer

(top) International Club, Agua Prieta, Son. (anon., ca. 1900); postcard, photographer unknown, ERBPC (bottom) Azteca Curios, Agua Prieta, Son. (anon., ca. 1940); postcard, photographer unknown, ERBPC

abandoned (1762). Gen. Ignacio Pesqueira, the political strongman of Sonora, acquired a controlling interest in the mines in 1860. However, Gen. Pesqueira lost control of the mines to President Porfirio Díaz, who sold controlling interest to the U.S. businessmen George Perkins and B. Benham (1883). William C. Greene took control of the mines in Cananea in 1896 and established the “4 C’s” (Cananea Consolidated Copper Company) and received the honorary title of “Coronel.” His home, Casa Green (anon., ca. 1903), is a wall-dominant masonry residence surrounded by a deep shaded veranda on all sides that utilized both local and imported materials from France and the United States. The Smelter (anon., ca. 1900) made the expansion of the mines possible, and temporary buildings became permanent; by 1906, there were 21,000 Mexican and 2,000 American workers in the town. The Cananea Mine Strike (1906) was one of the precursors to the Mexican Revolution.8 Inspired by the magazine Regeneración and Leftist union organizers, workers stood

Sonora  187 up for their rights. Organized marches turned violent, and 305 volunteers arrived from Arizona, as well as 75 rurales (rural police force under Porfirio Díaz) and 1,500 regular Mexican army troops. Six Americans and ninety-one Mexicans were killed, and seven of the strikers’ leaders were seized, hung, and put on public display. Two thousand miners were told that anyone not at work the next day would be inducted into the army to fight the insurgent Yaqui, prompting three hundred American miners who had sympathized with the strike to leave. The Museo de la Lucha Obrera y la Cárcel de Cananea (anon., 1902) formerly served as a jail and today is a museum with exhibits on the events surrounding the Cananea Mine Strike, labor unions, the mine, local indigenous peoples, and the geography of the area. During the revolution, the town was held by the forces of Carranza twice (Feb. and March 1913). Today Cananea is a town of 25,000 people and is the site of the largest copper mine in Mexico, the second-largest in Latin America, and one of the most important in the world. The mines of Cananea became nationalized as the Compañía Minera de Cananea and are currently owned by Grupo México, producing an impressive 300,000 tons of raw material a day. Nearby is Ojo de Agua Arvayo, the origin of Río Sonora, which supplies the majority of the water for Cananea and the mines. Ojo de Agua is the starting point of a pedestrian walk by a river channel with lush landscapes, eddies of water currents, and abundant vegetation.

The anonymous condo towers of negligible qualities are largely uninspired amid the pristine white, sandy beaches. In contrast to the manicured grounds of new condo resort development, the city’s existing downtown has many residential streets that are not paved, and many existing buildings are in need of repair and renovation. Furthermore, a sustainable, comprehensive plan that both improves the existing city and accommodates new development is desperately needed. Issues needing to be resolved include water supply, pollution, trash disposal, landscape and utility infrastructure, and intelligently planned new development that conserves the natural resources that draw tourists to the area in the first place. Future development currently being planned is potentially destructive to this delicate environment, as marinas are being proposed on natural estuaries, which are nursing grounds for fish and nesting sites for migratory birds. From a population of 20,000 (1994), the town has rapidly grown today to approximately 65,000, drawn by work in construction, hotels, restaurants, and real estate. As of 2014, the Mexican government is beginning to invest in new infrastructure. FONATUR is redeveloping Puerto Peñasco’s existing port as part of what is termed the Sea of Cortés’s “nautical ladder.” The plan calls for building floating docks along the coastline where boating enthusiasts can refuel, make repairs, and shop. A new international airport is planned east of the city, and construction has begun on a 375-mile coastal highway that will make travel easier from California to Puerto Peñasco.9

Puerto Peñasco

Hermosillo

Puerto Peñasco is located just 60 miles from the Arizona border at the farthest northern extension of the Sea of Cortés. The town was originally a small village for local shrimpers and fishermen that became a destination for U.S. visitors who camped in tents and RVs, drawn by the pristine beach, rich fishing grounds, and informal lifestyle. It was then “discovered” by college-student revelers in the 1960s, and has transformed since the year 2000 into a booming luxury tourist resort, imagined by some at the scale of Cancún. Today, there are more than twentyfive resort developments and at least another dozen in the planning stages. “Sandy Beach,” a 5-mile stretch of sand west of town, had no development until recently, but five thousand units of luxury Condo Towers (anon., ca. 2000) have been built, attracting massive private investment. Unfortunately, current development is based on ad hoc market short-term return and the whims of speculative developers.

Located in the hot, arid center of the western desert plains of the state of Sonora, Hermosillo is approached from the north across the vast expanse of the Sonoran Desert, 173 miles from the Arizona/U.S. border. Descending into a valley with orchards that surround the city, one first experiences this place as an oasis punctuated by rocky outcrops. Shade in the city is a precious commodity, and protection from the harsh climate was a critical consideration from the earliest design of the town. This area was inhabited by the Seri people, who provided fierce resistance to early Spanish settlement. The presidio town of Santísima Trinidad del Pitic (Villa de Pitic) was founded by Juan Bautista Escalante (1700) to defend Spanish settlers from attack. The town was sited at the confluence of the Sonora and San Miguel Horcasitas Rivers, and the acequias from the rivers provided water for ranching and agriculture. The loosely gridded urban plan was intelligently sited at the northern side of the Cerro de

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Igl. del Carmen

Paseo Hidalgo

Catedral

Pal. de Gobierno

Banco de México

Placita Juárez

Calle Gral. A. Obregón

Plaza Zaragoza Cerro de la Campana

Penitentiary

Rio Sonora

Urban plan, Hermosillo, Son.; drawing by Ricardo García-Báez

Overview of Hermosillo, Son.; postcard, published by W. Roberts, Hermosillo, Son.; ERBPC

la Campana, which provided cooling shade for the nascent settlement. The rocky outcrop also served as a mirador from where one could watch for attacks by indigenous tribes or enjoy a panoramic view of the city, which today is unfortunately no longer accessible to the public, as it houses transmission towers.

The city was renamed Hermosillo in 1828 in honor of General José María González Hermosillo, a native of Sonora who was a hero of the War of Independence, and it became the capital of the state in 1879. The dramatic temperature swings range from blazing summer days of 114°F to moderate winters with a minimum of near-freezing 35°F at night. Typically, the entire city comes alive at night when the desert heat subsides. Neighbors and extended families come out to visit, and children who have had to stay inside all day can finally go outside to play. The Plaza Zaragoza (anon., 1865) is framed by the Palacio de Gobierno, cathedral, and commercial buildings and provides a welcome communal outdoor room with shade trees and benches, serving as a place to “hang out” for chaperoned teenage courtship or to meet friends and gossip. In the nineteenth century, entertainment for the evening promenade was provided by bands in its Moorishinspired wrought-iron Kiosk (anon., late 19th c.) at the center of the plaza.

Sonora  189

Panorama of Hermosillo, Son. (ca. 1910); photographer unknown, from http.www.skyscrapercity.com

The city grew in the nineteenth century, and many important buildings from the era remain. The Catedral de la Asunción (anon., 1861–1908) features a richly modulated façade that casts distinctive shadows in the bright light of the Sonoran Desert. The façade is organized in five bays and is a strongly vertical composition. The twin end bays are bell towers that are expressed as solid bases that step back on each level above, with arched openings that are progressively lighter, and are crowned with a small cupola with crosses. The central bay features a pair of freestanding columns that create a monumental entry that supports an entablature with a pair of pointed arched windows flanked by single columns with an unusual arched balustrade against the sky. These are flanked by twin infill bays edged by thin columns with an elaborate ornamental sculpture program, topped with small pediments. The compressed Latin cross plan is muscular and strongly vertical in a forest of thick columns. At the crossing, a tall vertical dome occurs with an upper-story ambulatory with windows that light the interior space. Light also enters the interior through windows at exterior walls of the side aisles. The cream and white interior offers a cool respite from the heat of the Sonoran Desert. In the dense apse of pointed gothic arches with small stained-glass windows, the pure white altar with gold ornament reaches vertically toward the heavens. The Palacio de Gobierno (Ing. Felipe Salido, 1882– 1891; tower completed, 1906) is one of the landmarks of the city and has an extremely modulated, bracketed, and rusticated façade that creates distinctive shadows in the dazzling light of the Sonoran Desert. The work recalls

Catedral de la Asunción, Hermosillo, Son. (anon., 1861–1908); photo ERB

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Palacio de Gobierno, Hermosillo, Son. (Ing. Felipe Salido, 1882–1891; tower completed, 1906); Wikimedia Commons, Alvaro Dioni

the Belle Époque and the sophisticated, internationalized French culture to which the Porfirian age aspired. Towers with distinctive mansard roofs mark the corners and centralized entry and are framed with columns with spectacular superimposed elements. The façades are expressed as highly articulated framed openings between vertical columns. A distinctive curved pediment occurs above the colossal entry and is repeated at a smaller scale above each of the windows. The multicolored façade is currently light gray with white trim, although it was carmine with white trim up to the 1950s. Entrance from the plaza is through a Gothic arched opening that leads into a lush, cool shaded semipublic courtyard surrounded by covered open-air arcades for movement. The walls of the courtyard echo the sounds of visitors and have murals (1982–1984) depicting important episodes in Sonoran history by Teresa Morán, Héctor Martínez Arteche, and Enrique Estrada. One of the most memorable experiences of the city is walking from the Plaza Zaragoza to the Iglesia del Carmen. Here the pedestrian passes through narrow walllined streets, with framed views of the contrasting, rugged

Façade detail, Palacio de Gobierno, Hermosillo, Son. (Ing. Felipe Salido, 1882–1891; tower completed, 1906); photo ERB

Sonora  191 (left) Promenade to Iglesia del Carmen along Calle General A. Obregón, Hermosillo, Son. (19th c.); photo ERB (bottom) Placita Juárez and Banco de Sonora, Hermosillo, Son. (anon., 19th c.); photo ERB (right) Iglesia del Carmen, Hermosillo, Son. (anon., ca. 1840); photo ERB

Cerro de la Campana up the narrow side streets to the south. The Placita Juárez has long, narrow proportions and beautiful indigenous palo verde trees that require little watering, with benches underneath them that provide welcome shade. A series of nineteenth-century neoclassical buildings with lush, cool courtyards behind their façades line the north side of the placita, including the extraordinary former Banco de Sonora (anon., ca. 1880) that faces the placita. Continuing down the urban wall of small stores and courtyard houses, the pedestrian arrives at the urbanscaled Iglesia del Carmen (anon., ca. 1840), which terminates the spatial sequence of the street. The gigantic twostory façade of gray cut stone is composed with engaged columns, a series of vertical Gothic-inspired arches, and a centralized tower at the entrance. The entrance is a highly inventive scalloped Gothicized Islamic arch with a large window above in the form of a star, which allows the light from the setting sun into the choir loft. Inside is a surprisingly intimate church characterized by a circular barrel vault above the nave supported by massive piers and

sections of wall. Round clerestory windows let light in above the side aisles, while delicate cut-glass chandeliers provide artificial light in the interior. The Museo de Sonora is housed in the former State Penitentiary (Ing. Arthur F. Wrotnowski, 1897–1908). This imposing, austere building is sited on a steep slope at the eastern base of Cerro de la Campana. Built by incarcerated Yaqui natives and others as their own prison, it presents the image of an impenetrable fortress with guard towers at the corners for vigilance and control. The exterior walls are crafted from the rough stone material of the site, cut and excavated from the adjacent Cerro de la Campana. The building is organized around a series of open-air courtyards with two-story blocks of cells on each side. These are crafted of brick that creates a more intimate scale, with cantilevered attached wrought-iron open-air circulation walkways. The doors to the cells are massive, creaking, wrought-iron fabrications set on iron hinges embedded into the walls. At the basement level are isolation cells for strict punishment to discipline non-complying prisoners.

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State Penitentiary, Hermosillo, Son. (Ing. Arthur F. Wrotnowski, 1897–1908); photo ERB

Former Military Barracks, Hermosillo, Son. (anon., ca. 1900); photo ERB

The only light for these cells is through narrow vertical slits or ocular-shaped openings through the stone-rubble walls, some five feet thick, which provide only a faint glimmer of light! At the side of the stone prison complex is a brick administrative wing with offices, entrance, and a residence

for the warden and his family. The facility served as a penitentiary until 1979, and was then adaptively reused as the state museum, where eighteen of the largest of the former cells at the courtyard level form large exhibit halls.10 One of the finest museums in Sonora, it provides visitors with an overview of Sonoran history and the role the state has played in Mexico’s national history, with interpretive exhibits featuring artifacts from the pre-Columbian era to the present. During the revolution, the city was fiercely contested by the various warring revolutionary factions. The Barracks (anon., ca. 1900) housed federal troops and remains a memorable essay in expressive brick construction. The city was occupied by Carranza (March 1913), by Villa (May 1914), again by Villa (Aug. 1914), and ultimately by the forces of Carranza (Nov. 1915). The city grew dramatically in the 1940s under the governorship of General Abelardo L. Rodríguez (later president of Mexico), with new infrastructure, urban design, and architectural projects. Architects from Mexico City designed many of these projects with both a nationalist and modern agenda. The urban and agricultural development of the region was made possible with expanded water resources provided by La Presa Abelardo L. Rodríguez (anon., 1940s). The massive project of modernization included street widening (ca. 1940) that radically altered the nineteenthcentury urban fabric of the northern portion of the downtown. Entire nineteenth-century houses were cut in two. With the widening of streets such as the Paseo Hidalgo, public linear green spaces were developed in the medians, which still offer shady places to walk and sit today. This assertive, optimistic era of the 1940s also created a “golden age” of high-quality modern architecture in the city, sometimes referred to as “La era de Abelardo.” The Urban Plan (Salvador Ortega, 1945) for the sequence of university, university plaza and park, museum, and botanical garden was unusual during the 1940s for its comprehensive understanding of the relationship between buildings, public figural interior rooms, open-air rooms of parks, and urban landscape. Unfortunately, this kind of comprehensive thinking is little in evidence today on both sides of the border. The Universidad de Sonora (Leopoldo Palafox Muñoz, 1940–1942) is an intelligent colonial revival courtyard building that has provided a memorable setting for an important center of learning for the region and has also worn extremely well over time. The complex is axially sited, and the front façade with vertical window penetrations and covered open-air arcades defines and shapes the park in

Sonora  193

Universidad de Sonora, Hermosillo, Son. (Leopoldo Palafox Muñoz, 1940–1942); postcard, MF, ERBPC

Museo y Biblioteca de la Universidad de Sonora, Hermosillo, Son. (Salvador Ortega with Felipe N. Ortega and Leopoldo Palafox Muñoz, 1944–1947); photo ERB

front. The rear of the building changes scale to form more intimate courts and gardens that subtly layer space. The building features cost-effective exposed masonry, plaster over masonry walls, and shaded outdoor circulation with tile floors that have all worn extremely well over time. The centralized stair with decorative tile on the risers receives colored light from a stained-glass window crafted by the Casa Montaña of Torreón, Coah. The deep brownish-red cut stone of the neocolonial front façade refers to the tezontle volcanic stone found in colonial Mexico City as well as to its academic tradition as the site of the earliest university of the Americas. One of most remarkable public buildings in the city is the Museo y Biblioteca de la Universidad de Sonora (Salvador Ortega with Felipe N. Ortega and Leopoldo Palafox Muñoz, 1944–1947), with a program that includes a museum with several exhibition halls, a library, and an

auditorium. The building is sited on axis across the park and with the Universidad de Sonora, and recalls the monumentality and abstracted classicism of work in Fascist Italy of the 1930s and 1940s, as well as the surrealist, abstracted architecture in the paintings of Giorgio de Chirico. The façade utilizes an extremely abstracted classical order with monumental thin four-story vertical arches, which form a shaded outdoor entry lobby. One of the most memorable experiences of the building is the transparency of the multistory lobby with its filigree screen that controls light and also frames one of the distinctive rock outcrops that punctuate the urban fabric of Hermosillo. This framed view emphasizes the relationship of the city to its geography. The Clínica del Noroeste (Felipe N. Ortega, 1940–1945) provided much-needed public health services for the city and region, but it has tragically been altered by thoughtless remodeling over time. The project was organized as a four-story horizontal entry corner block with two-story wings with brise-soleil at the street on either side. Entering at the corner, the patients and their families came into the waiting room and were comforted and inspired by a series of low-relief sculptures by the noted artists Ignacio Asúnsolo and Francisco Castillo Blanco of healing across the ancient world that survive today. Another modernist medical facility of the era is the Hospital General (Mauricio M. Campos, 1945). One of the great modernist buildings of Hermosillo and all of Northern Mexico is the undervalued and littleknown Banco de México (Gonzalo Garita with Leopoldo Palafox Muñoz and Gustavo Aguilar, 1945–1950). The six-story block terminates the axis of the new widened

Clínica del Noroeste (after remodeling), Hermosillo, Son. (Felipe N. Ortega, 1940–1945); photo ERB

194  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico streets and central park median of the Paseo Hidalgo and is sited perpendicular to it. This project is characterized by its interlocking massing, hanging planting, and tectonic brick order of dominant horizontal coursing, and recalls the work of both Wright and the Italian rationalists of the 1940s. Garita’s project is organized as a basement with parking, vaults, and mechanical rooms; a grand banking hall at the ground floor up a flight of stairs from the street; offices at the upper three floors; and the glazed crystalline residence for the bank’s director and family at the roof that had a commanding view of the city. The brick masonry of the vertical blocks was expressed as horizontal striations with deep joints that created horizontal shadows in the strong light of the Sonoran Desert. In contrast, the filigree of the horizontal concrete brise-soleil protected the glass from the heat gain of the desert. This tectonic order of the horizontal coursing recalls the work of Frank Lloyd Wright in projects such as the Larkin Building, as well as the work of rational modernists in Italy such as Giovanni Michelucci (1891–1990). Today, the building has been adaptively reused as the Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público (2006). Other projects that reflected this optimistic period of the city include La Casa de Cultura (anon., ca. 1939) as well as a farm equipment Commercial Building (anon., ca. 1940). More recent public parks in the city include the Tres Pueblos Square (anon., 1960s) and the Madero Park (anon., 1970s). After World War II, new roads connected Hermosillo to its nearest beach 62 miles away at Kino Bay, with spectacular views of contrasting bay and desert landscapes but with generally undistinguished architecture primarily catering to tourists from Arizona. The Seri Museum (anon., ca.

Banco de México, Hermosillo, Son. (Gonzalo Garita with Leopoldo Palafox Muñoz and Gustavo Aguilar, 1945–1950); photo ERB

1970) and the Ecological Center (anon., ca. 1980) preserve and interpret the culture of the Seri and Pima peoples and the representative flora and fauna of the region. Today, Hermosillo is a city of 701,838 characterized by industrial commerce due to the proximity of the United States, while the proximity of the port of Guaymas opens a connection with the Pacific and Asian markets. Delicious food can be found in the city at every price level, from outdoor taco stands with their informal architecture, to small downtown fondas, to “yuppie” restaurants with international cuisine located in the hotel zone. The local cuisine is still dominated by products brought by the missionary Fr. Kino in the seventeenth century: wheat and cattle. This cuisine includes the local claim to the best carne asada (grilled beef ) in Mexico, chimichangas (deep-fried burritos), Costa Brava shrimp, cocido (beef stew), and coyotas (sugar cookies) for dessert. The main festival in Hermosillo is the Vendimia Fiesta, celebrated in June with a parade of floats and an industrial exhibition.

Guaymas The port city of Guaymas is sited around the sparkling waters of its natural deep-water bay on the Sea of Cortés, in dramatic contrast with the Sonoran Desert and the rugged mountains that surround the city. Small islands rise out of the water of the bay as rocky stone outcrops. A ridge separates Guaymas from the bathing beaches at Bacochibampo and San Carlos that are popular with tourists from Arizona. The first Spaniards explored the bay in 1535 and named it “Guaiama” for the tribe of Seri Indians who inhabited the area around the bay. Fr. Kino established San José de Guaymas (1700) near the harbor, although today little remains of this settlement. The port town of Guaymas de Zaragoza was established (1769) to transport precious metals from the interior of Northern Mexico. Guaymas became an important port and was the strategic objective of several foreign and national military interventions, and the town was occupied during the MexicanAmerican War (1847–1848). A French expedition under Comte Gaston de Raousset-Boulbon attempted to seize the port to found a private colony in Sonora (1852). However, the expedition was unsuccessful and the count was captured and executed. In the summer of 1853, the infamous U.S. filibusterer William Walker attempted to set up a military colony in Guaymas. During the imperial reign of Maximilian, the town was occupied by French forces (1865). The older urban fabric of downtown adjacent to the bay

Sonora  195

Igl. San Fernando

Plaza de Armas Plaza Centenario

Banco de Sonora

Pal. Municipal

of C alifo

rnia

Plaza de los Tres Presidentes

250 m

50

25 0

100

Gulf

Plaza Pescado

500

1000 ft

(top left) Panorama of bay, looking northwest, Guaymas, Son. (ca. 1903); postcard, photographer unknown, ERBPC (top right) Panorama over city toward bay, looking southwest, Guaymas, Son. (ca. 1903); postcard, photographer unknown, ERBPC (bottom) Urban plan, Guaymas, Son.; drawing by Baihui Li and Ricardo García-Báez

and the old docks is loosely organized as a grid around a central plaza. The plaza features pedestrian walks on the perimeter and inscribed on the diagonals, which define parterres with shrubs and flowers with large trees, with a bandstand at its center. Nineteenth-century cast-iron benches make this a cool, shaded inviting place to sit and converse. From 1888 to 1917 a mule-drawn urban tramway

ran from the railroad station to the La Aurora plantation, a distance of 2.5 miles.11 The Iglesia de San Fernando (anon., 19th c.) faces the plaza and is the most important building in the downtown. The front façade features two towers with tall vertical spires, and over the main entry is a rose window of honeycolored glass set in a carved Victorian frame. The church

196  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Iglesia de San Fernando, Guaymas, Son. (anon., 19th c.); photo ERB

Palacio Municipal, Guaymas, Son. (Ing. Arthur F. Wrotnowski, 1899); photo ERB

is organized as a Latin cross plan with groin vaults over the nave and side aisles, and is experienced as an immersion in a softly modeled Victorian forest of columns. The larger bay at the crossing supports an octagonal dome with light entering above through a series of small stained-glass windows and also has smaller side entrances. Natural light also comes from the south side of the church through a

series of tall vertical stained-glass windows, one with an unusual, prominent depiction of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The vertically proportioned main altar and its retablo face east, the traditional direction of the risen Christ, and is crowned by two angels holding torches. However, these two torches proudly hold electric incandescent lighting, and together with the two huge electric cooling fans with exposed mechanisms on the façade at the back of the church, exhibit an embracing of pragmatism, machines, and modernity. The church’s doors are opened during the Mass, which provides a gentle cooling sea breeze across the skin of the congregation. The hard stone surfaces of the church are highly reflective acoustically, and the strong deep voice of the priest booms across the plaza, like an intermediary from heaven. After Sunday Mass, the congregation of the church gathers in the small atrium garden at the side of the church, where ladies of the parish sell delicious homemade tamales. The church is currently being restored, and hopefully this bodes well for the rest of the centro histórico. The Palacio Municipal (Ing. Arthur F. Wrotnowski, 1899) is organized as a courtyard building with circulation under open-air covered arcades, and still serves as the offices for the city’s government. The front façade engages the edge of the street and features a covered arcade at the ground floor and a shaded veranda at the second floor, with a prominent centralized three-story tower with a shaped roof and a clock. The façades at the ground floor feature reddish-brown rough-hewn stone masonry from the mountains surrounding the city, while the second floor is white with tan thin Corinthian columns that support the flat roof with its blind balustrade. Today the complex faces the Plaza de los Tres Presidentes (anon., ca. 1975), which unfortunately eliminated some significant historic urban fabric and is very oddly raised by three steps above the city to the east. This plaza honors three presidents of Mexico who were either born or associated with Guaymas and, although intended for displays of patriotism, it is usually empty. The Mercado (anon., ca. 1892) is a great interior longspan market that has been thoughtlessly added onto over the years and is fortunately now being considered for future restoration. Nearby is the simultaneously fanciful and imposing former Cárcel (Jail; anon., 1900). This Victorian toylike composition of gray stone walls with white stone trim and eccentric crenellated towers paradoxically houses the serious business of a penitentiary. On the main street that runs through town is the Banco de Sonora (anon., ca. 1903), a great example of Beaux-Arts architecture from the era of Porfirio Díaz. The impressive

Sonora  197

Cárcel [Jail], Guaymas, Son. (anon., 1900); photo Guillermo Soberón Chávez

Banco de Sonora, Guaymas, Son. (anon., ca. 1903); photo ERB

scale of the façade is composed to seemingly conceal two stories of offices with tall vertical windows. Three bays of gigantic-scaled Ionic columns support an entablature, with two of these bays surmounted by shallow pediments, on each of the two street façades. The exterior walls are constructed of brick covered by a smooth plaster finish with molded plaster and carved-stone details. The dramatic circular, diagonal entry on the corner is distinctive and faces the plaza and center of town a few blocks away. It makes an urban entrance at the scale of the city with engaged Ionic columns next to a pair of freestanding Ionic columns. This is surmounted by a dome with ribs, an oval window, and an oculus lantern. The dramatic entrance leads into a twostory banking hall with a pressed-tin ceiling and wood-slat floors, with offices on the second-story mezzanine. This extraordinary building is unfortunately abandoned today, but it deserves the attention of public officials to assure its restoration. It would undoubtedly be one of the highlights of walking through the centro histórico of the town, and one of the great Porfirian buildings of Northern Mexico. During the Mexican Revolution, the port was held by the Federalist forces of Huerta, who surrounded the city from the hills above until it was occupied by the army of Pancho Villa (July 1914), then ultimately by the forces of Carranza (Oct. 1915). Guaymas continued to grow following its connection by railroad. Outside the city, sited on a curving bay with its own narrow private beach, the Hotel Playa Cortés (Ignacio Díaz Morales, 1935) was developed as a large, sprawling Spanish colonial revival resort hotel. The complex was designed around a series of courtyards that create a sensuous experience as a guest moves through them. The Plan for Guaymas and Empalme (Mario Pani, 1953)

was primarily concerned with functional zoning and the separation of automobile and pedestrian traffic that was typical of Pani’s modernist planning proposals of the era.12 The Sucursal de Banfoco (Carlos Mijares, 1974), now tragically altered by careless remodeling, was one of the great regional modern buildings of Sonora. The bank’s intelligent response to its desert climate featured a system of double roofs, with a long-span two-way concrete waffle slab roof over a smaller scale of brick masonry expressed as a nested series of articulated, discrete enclosure systems. The corner entrance continued the strategy utilized by earlier banks in the city. The building extended the vocabulary of Louis I. Kahn, whose tectonic vocabulary of brick and concrete made sense not only in Mexico but all over Latin America. Today, Guaymas is a city of 184,816 and, not surprisingly, the cuisine of the city revolves around seafood, with the famous Guaymas shrimp playing a prominent role

Aerial view, Hotel Playa Cortés, Guaymas, Son. (Ignacio Díaz Morales, 1935); postcard, photographer unknown

198  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Hotel Playa Cortés, Guaymas, Son. (Ignacio Díaz Morales, 1934); photo ERB

Entry court, Hotel Playa Cortés, Guaymas, Son. (Ignacio Díaz Morales, 1935); photo ERB

Analytical axonometric, Bank, Guaymas, Son. (Carlos Mijares, ca. 1974); courtesy of architect

as well as red snapper. The town’s economy now revolves around shrimping, fishing, canning, and a PEMEX oil refinery. Guaymas is well connected to the other large cities of Sonora by highway infrastructure and a twice-weekly ferry to Santa Rosalía, BCS, and the port offers connections to the world at large.

Current proposals for the port include an expanded yacht and boat harbor. However, with the port of Los Angeles, CA, overflowing with an onslaught of container ships from Southeast Asia, Guaymas could potentially provide an alternate port of entry to the American Southwest. The port infrastructure would need to be improved, including

Sonora  199 larger berths, improved security, the installation of heavy cranes, and improved railroad infrastructure to the border. This is a real possibility for the future, and if this should happen, careful planning would be required to relate to the scale and rich historical fabric of the town, as well as to preserve manufacturing jobs in Mexico with the potential flood of inexpensive imports.

Ures Ures, one of the oldest cities of the state of Sonora, was established (1644) by the Jesuit missionary Francisco París. The town is nestled in the hills that form the edge of the Western Sierra Madre on the Sonora River at 1,425 ft. above sea level and features a subtropical landscape with a predominance of mesquite. Ures was the capital of Sonora from 1838 to 1842 and 1847 to 1879, although today only about 8,000 residents remain. The history of the town is intertwined with the Apache and Yaqui wars. Geronimo took refuge in the mountains nearby when U.S. Generals Crook and Miles pursued him in Arizona. There were Apache raids (1870, 1882) and Yaqui uprisings and insurrections of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The town was allied with the liberals against imperialists during the French Intervention. The town’s memorable urban fabric defines the street edge and consists of one-story, wall-dominant buildings that are now brightly painted, organized around courtyards with articulated vertical window openings. The treeshaded Plaza de Armas (Plaza de Zaragoza; anon., 18th– 20th c.) features four bronze sculptures of Greek mythology from Italy, while the colonial Iglesia San Miguel Arcángel

(anon., 17th–19th c.) has a notable mesquite stairway. The Palacio Municipal (anon., 19th c.), the Centennial Arch (anon., 1910), the Casa General Pesqueira (anon., 19th c.), the Folkloric Museum (anon., 19th c.), and the Flour Mill (anon., 19th c.) are the other important works of architecture in the town. Nearby is the Hacienda Quinta Nápoles (anon., 1675), as well as the Hacienda Azucarera (Sugar Hacienda; anon., n.d.) that produced piloncillo, a key ingredient in mancuernas con cacahuate, a local delicacy.

Other Towns in Eastern Sonora There are a number of smaller towns in eastern “old Sonora” that are architecturally distinguished. In the eastern valleys lies Arizpe, one of the culturally richest towns along the Río Sonora. It served as the administrative headquarters for the colonial western provinces during the eighteenth century, which included California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. The tomb of Captain Juan Bautista de Anza, who led an expedition (1776) from the presidio at Tubac, AZ, to Monterrey, CA, and established the mission that became the city of San Francisco, CA, and also served as governor of New Mexico for ten years, is in the church of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción (anon., 1646). The San Francisco Church and the Clock Tower (anon., 1909) are the other most important works of architecture in the town. South on the Río Sonora is Baviácora, which has retained its eighteenth- and nineteenth-century character. On the plaza is the church of Nuestra Señora de la Concepción (anon., 19th c.), with an austere Moorish quality. Nearby, the town of Mazocahui was built toward the second half of the seventeenth century and retains much of its colonial character. Farther south of the Río Sonora is Aconchi, established in 1639, which has a Church (anon., n.d.) with the coat of arms of the founding order on the façade. Within the church is a “Black Christ” of unexplained origins. Nearby are thermal springs.

Ciudad Obregón

Arco Centenario (Centennial Arch), Ures, Son. (anon., 1910); photo Sergio M. Dojaque

Ciudad Obregón (Cajeme) is a newer city in southern Sonora that began in 1912 when the Sud-Pacífico Railway opened a warehouse to supply construction materials for the railroad system that joined the Valley of the Yaqui and the Valley of the Mayo. This brought financial investment, and settlers from the neighboring towns of Cocorit and Esperanza, as well as immigrants from Europe and

200  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico The city is rigorously organized as an agricultural grid that is bisected by the main highway. Constructed after the Cristeros rebellion, the Antigua Catedral (anon., ca. 1932, demolished 1977) was an eclectic Romanesque and Gothic composition inspired by religious architecture of the era in the midwestern United States, and was organized on a compact Latin cross plan with an unusual barnlike roof over the nave. This cathedral was demolished, except for a solitary tower that remains on the plaza today, to make way for the current Catedral del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús (Ceferino González, 1979), a faceted, sculptural composition that recalls Enrique de la Mora y Palomar’s San José Obrero in Monterrey, NL, with an elaborate altar of marble and bronze. Its distinctive profile is like a sacred mountain in the city. Among the distinguished early modernist buildings in the city are the Tomás Oroz Residence (Felipe Ortega, 1951) and the IMSS Clínica Hospital (Enrique del Moral, 1966–1968), one of the few works in Northern Mexico

(top) Antigua Catedral, Ciudad Obregón, Son. (anon., ca. 1932, demolished 1977), postcard, MF, photo © mexicoenfotos.com/ Antigua Catedral, Ciudad Obregón (bottom) Tomás Oroz Residence, Ciudad Obregón, Son. (Felipe Ortega, 1951); from Eloy Méndez Sáinz, Una modernidad edificada: La arquitectura de Felipe Ortega en Sonora, courtesy of Eloy Méndez Sáinz

the United States, engaged in agricultural production. The opening of an automobile dealership by General Álvaro Obregón after he had finished his presidential term spurred the rapid growth of the town; and in 1928 it became the second-largest city in Sonora and was named Ciudad Obregón.13 The Yaqui people living in the surrounding area consist of eight tribes: the Cocorit, Bacum, Vicam, Potam, Torim, Huiviris, Rahum, and Belem, each with its own ruler. During the Porfiriato, the Yaqui were forcibly taken to the Yucatán to work on sisal plantations, and although many died, a number managed to return to their homeland. Thus, the Yaquis have become a tight-knit community with a strong cultural identity rooted in their traditions.

(top) IMSS Clínica Hospital, Ciudad Obregón, Son. (Enrique del Moral, 1966–1968); photo from the blog “Miradas: Un recorrido visual por la Arquitectura Moderna en México,” by Fabián Coutiño & Alicia Ponce (http://coutinoponce.tumblr.com) (bottom) Catedral del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús, Ciudad Obregón, Son. (Ceferino González, 1979); giovanniromeo.com

Sonora  201 by the noted Mexico City architect. The Dr. Óscar Russo Vogel Theater (Hirom Marcor and Heberto Martínez, 1967) recalls the work of Mario Pani and features a large regionally inspired wall mural across the entire front façade of the building above the glass curtain-wall entrance at the ground floor, The Mystical Evolution Deer Man (Héctor Martínez Arteche, 1967). Other notable modern work includes the Biblioteca Municipal y Museo de los Yaquis (anon., ca. 1972), an earthbound two-story block. Today, the city is home to a number of maquiladoras and has a population of 375,800. In nearby Cajeme is a similar church, Sagrado Corazón de Jesús (Ceferino Martínez, 1982).

Navojoa Navojoa is another new town in the south of the state and the birthplace of the revolutionary leader and president Álvaro Obregón and today has a population of 100,000. It features several notable works of architecture, including the Iglesia del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús (anon., 1768– 1898, 1920–1934, 1940) and the Palacio Municipal (anon., ca. 1900). The Monumento Álvaro Obregón (anon., ca. 1923) is a small monument, sited in a highway median adjacent to a park, that is powerfully proportioned and crisply executed in whitewashed stone. It has a presence larger than its modest size by capturing a void that is framed by a rusticated base with arches on each side and crowned with a pylon. It projects Obregón’s presence in the city and around the republic, and suggests memorial offerings and solemn rituals. Executed in a neoclassical vocabulary, it

Iglesia del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús, Navojoa, Son. (anon., 1768–1898, 1920–1934, 1940; Pedro Torres, 1952–1957); photo © mexicoenfotos.com/La Iglesia, Navajoa, Son.

Monumento Álvaro Obregón, Navojoa, Son. (anon., ca. 1923); Wikipedia Commons, Ponchitos

is a thoroughly modern building that recalls the utopian monuments of the French Enlightenment architecture of Claude Nicolas Ledoux and Étienne-Louis Boullée. Also in town is the former Estación del Ferrocarril (anon., ca. 1886) that is now the Museo Regional del Mayo, a brick neoclassical building organized in three bays with an unusual cornice and a shaped pediment with a large round opening.

Álamos In the mountainous southeast corner of the state, in the foothills of the Sierra Madre Occidental, Álamos (Poplar Trees) is a colonial town founded in 1683 when rich silver mines were discovered in the area. The town is organically planned and set between surrounding hills and a winding stream, and is a fairly seamless blend of colonial and nineteenthcentury architecture. The major colonial buildings include the Parroquia (anon., 1783–1804) and the portales that surround the plaza (17th–19th c.) at the town’s center. The plaza is unique in Northern Mexico for its nineteenthcentury plantings and a series of distinctive tall palms that surround its centralized wrought-iron Gazebo (anon., ca. 1890). The colonial and nineteenth-century buildings and Portales (anon., 17th–19th c.) are set several feet above the street due to periodic flooding, with steep steps at the corners to descend to the plaza and street. The Palacio Municipal (Ing. Felipe Salido, 1899) is organized around an open-air courtyard. The exterior façades are exposed brick and reveal the intricacies of their tectonic order, with shaped bricks for entablatures, cornices,

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(top) Urban plan, Álamos, Son.; drawing by Farbod Sabet Kassaei and Ricardo García-Báez (left) Portales and plaza, Álamos, Son. (anon., 17th–19th c.); photo ERB (above right) Gazebo, Álamos, Son. (anon., ca. 1900); photo ERB

Sonora  203 and window surrounds. The façade features a centralized square tower, and the tall vertical French doors at the second floor lead to large wrought-iron balconies. The courtyard has a more delicate scale with circulation around covered open-air arcades supported on thin cast-iron columns. One of the most interesting aspects of the building is that at one end of the courtyard, opposite the entry from the street, is a stage so that the courtyard can be used as an open-air theater at night. On Cerro Guadalupe is the former Jail (anon., 18th–19th c.) that is today the Casa de Cultura, a museum that offers a spectacular panorama of the town. Other museums in town include the Museo Costumbrista de Sonora in a corner colonial residence that faces the plaza, as well as the Casa de María Félix Museum where the world-famous Mexican actress was born. During the Mexican Revolution, the city was entered by the forces of Carranza on April 1913, and afterward, the mines waned and the town started its economic decline. After 1945, the town was “discovered” by Americans, some of whom made a fortune in real estate, restoring courtyard houses and selling them to wealthy American retirees. This renewed attention caused Álamos to be declared a national monument (1952).

Unfortunately, this process has also largely gentrified the center of town, almost like San Miguel de Allende, Gto., or the “Mexican village” at Disneyland, and English can be noticeably heard on the main plaza. This is a doubleedged sword. Wealthy gringo retirees provide a muchneeded economic boost, engage in charitable projects, and restore buildings in the town. Yet the “culture” they are seeking is ironically steadily disappearing before their eyes and is being replaced by its simulation of “cute” folk art shops, “charming” bed and breakfasts, and “touristy” restaurants with mediocre food.

(left) Palacio Municipal, Álamos, Son. (Ing. Felipe Salido, 1899); photo ERB (below) Courtyard, Palacio Municipal, Álamos, Son. (Ing. Felipe Salido, 1899); photo ERB

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Sinaloa From Culiacán to Hermosillo, a series of irrigation systems has made this corner of Northeastern Mexico a farming emporium of prime importance. —Description of Sinaloa by Antonio Haas, Mexico

Geography Sinaloa (sina [cactus fruit] from the Cáhita dialect, and lobala [round house]) is directly south of Sonora, with the Pacific Ocean to the west and the rugged Sierra Madre Occidental to the east. Due to abundant annual rainfall, the state is watered by the Ríos Fuerte, Sinaloa, Humaya, San Lorenzo, and Piaxtla and over two hundred streams that have been the catalyst for Sinaloa’s incredibly fertile agriculture. While portions of the northern border with

Sonora are scrub and desert, the central and southern coastal plains are characterized by their heat and humidity, with a rainy season from June to October. The coastal plains have some of the richest soils and most productive agriculture in the world. The coastal waters are rich fishing areas, with shrimping season from September to April. The mountains of the Sierra Madre are cooler and lush and have rich mineral resources, which led to the development of mining towns during the colonial era.

History The inhabitants of this region prior to the Spanish Conquest included the Acaxee, Cáhita, Pacaxee, Tahue, Totorame, and Xixime peoples; archeologists have found petroglyphs on the offshore islands near Mazatlán that date from 8000 BC. Because of the dense vegetation of the area, Nuño de Guzmán and his 150 soldiers and 7,000 indigenous allies literally burned their way into this region during the bloody conquest of 1531. Many of the indigenous people they encountered were sick and dying due to the spread of European diseases that preceded them.

Topolobampo

Map of Sinaloa; portion of Mexico map, CAW

Leaving southern Sonora, the landscape begins to change and becomes more humid. Trees become more closely spaced, and larger-leafed species appear on the vast, flat coastal plain occasionally interspersed with craggy rock outcrops. The coastline here is marked by lush marshlands teeming with ocean life and birds, as well as lagoons with alligators. In this hot, humid coastal plain lies Topolobampo (Wildcat by the Water), founded as a utopian colony (1871) by Albert Kimsey Owen (1847–1916), who had lived for a time in the utopian colony of New Harmony, IN, founded

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Irrigation canal, Topolobampo, Sin. (19th c.); photographer unknown, from exhibit at Topolobampo Museum

by Robert Owen (no relation). Owen had searched the Pacific Coast for an ideal location for a new colony with a sheltered deep-water port. He selected a site on Ohuira Bay in Topolobampo and organized a joint Mexican-andU.S.-owned company. This company ambitiously planned to build a railroad from the port of Topolobampo to Texas and then connecting to the cattle markets and railroad hub of Kansas City and the East Coast ports and Europe. President Manuel González granted Owen a concession (1880) to build a railroad between Topolobampo, Sin., and the border town of Piedras Negras, Coah., across the largely impassable western Sierra Madre, with branch routes from the main line to Ojinaga, Chih.; Álamos, Son.; and Mazatlán, Sin. With six hundred people primarily from New England, Owen established the colony at Topolobampo (1886) as a socialist corporation open to anyone who would buy stock and could manage to get there; and it may be the only example of communalism as a form of capitalist enterprise. However, sickness, poverty, and a lack of organization and communication soon reduced this number. Nevertheless, the colonists did a tremendous amount of work in opening up the region to development, digging many miles of irrigation ditches, including an Irrigation Canal (anon., 1886–1894) by hand that was 8 miles long, 100 feet wide, and 15 feet deep! Dissension divided the colonists and they returned to the United States (1894), Owen’s contract was cancelled (1899), and no railroad track had been laid; and the mountainous Chihuahua-Pacific route that traverses Copper Canyon would not be completed until eighty years later (1960). Today, little remains architecturally of the original

Church, Topolobampo, Sin. (anon., ca. 1930); photo ERB

colony besides the massive irrigation ditches that spurred the development of the region. Some descendants of the original colony married into Mexican families and still live in the area.1 Some of the early wood-frame houses remain, and the town’s Church (anon., ca. 1930) at the top of the hill overlooking the bay remains an important community symbol. Today the port of Topolobampo, called “Topo” by locals, is noted for commercial fishing and shipping and, with Los Mochis, forms an important industrial and agribusiness corridor.

Los Mochis Los Mochis lies on a hot, humid flat coastal plain and was established by U.S. developer Benjamin Johnston (1893) to build a sugar refinery that became the United Sugar Company. Johnston and his family planned and developed the town until the 1930s, creating a rigorous, tightly gridded city characterized by broad avenues that are occasionally

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Parque Sinaloa (a tunnel formed by palms), Los Mochis, Sin. (Florence Yoch, 1929); photo ERB

interspersed with garden plazas, which today make up the downtown. Today the region is the principal agricultural zone of Mexico, containing over 70 percent of the country’s irrigated land, of which the “Valle del Fuerte” is the largest district. Los Mochis serves as a commercial and processing center for the El Fuerte and Carrizal agricultural districts that are irrigated by the Río Fuerte and have some of the most fertile agricultural and ranch lands in the world, lined by palms that produce sugarcane, grain, beans, and tomatoes, as well as cattle and pork products. The nearby port of Topolobampo provides seafood, especially shrimp, to the distinctive cuisine of the region. The Parque Sinaloa (Florence Yoch, 1929) was the 19-acre former private garden of Benjamin and Agnes Johnston that was an extension of their two-story Tuscan revival family residence, “La Casa Grande,” built with both local and imported materials from the United States, Spain, Germany, and Italy. The residence was abandoned (1938) after the family returned to the United States following the death of Benjamin Johnston and soon fell into decay. Unfortunately, it was mysteriously demolished for

unknown reasons (1967), and today only the exposed foundation remains. The self-contained world of the largely orthogonal garden bears a mimetic relationship to the gridded city. The garden is organized by an east-west axis that terminates in the now destroyed residence with a perpendicular northsouth cross axis. The two cross axes create four gardens that are further subdivided by minor diagonal cross axes. On either side of the residence are a formal garden and a citrus orchard, and more recently, a xeriscaped cactus garden. The gardens are characterized as the water garden, grove, meadow, and trial garden for citrus fruits, and are defined by alleys of palms and flowering tropical plants, with the largest collection of palms in Mexico and important collections of ficus trees. The trees and plants include local species and those from other parts of Mexico as well as from places where the United Sugar Company had production facilities, including India, the Philippines, Indonesia, Java, Africa, and Australia. The gravel and packed-earth paths are slightly raised above the gardens to permit flood irrigation. They are framed with landscapes at several scales and intensities

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Parque Sinaloa (an allée of palms), Los Mochis, Sin. (Florence Yoch, 1929); photo ERB

Regional Museum of the El Fuerte Valley, Los Mochis, Sin. (anon., ca. 1908); photo ERB

of color, including rows of orange, lime, and lemon trees; smaller trees paired with tall palms; walls of bougainvillea; alamedas shaded with several types of tree canopies; beds of flowers; and monumental allées of palms. The garden is watered by a series of acequias that flow along and

under the paths. Today the garden is a popular, welcome respite from the hardscape of the city as a place for walks by extended families, courtship, class excursions, and jogging along the gravel path at its perimeter; it also serves as a bird sanctuary for fifty-two species of birds from September to March each year. Adjacent to the park is the large sugar mill, still operating, that was built by Johnston and expanded over time. The city’s Regional Museum of the El Fuerte Valley (anon., ca. 1908) is an adaptive reuse of the two-story Chapman residence located in the former American colony. The residence is characterized by its discrete contrasting enclosure systems of thick brick walls with vertical wood windows, surrounded by continuous arched arcades that wrap around the residence to create coolness. The Plaza 27 de Septiembre (anon., ca. 1900) features tall, dense plantings of tropical trees with shaded benches and fountains at the center and on the perimeter and provides cool shade and a refreshing place to linger. Walkways are inscribed on the perimeter and diagonally across the plaza with flower beds between. Individual buildings constructed in the late nineteenth century surround the plaza and include the brightly whitewashed church of Sagrado Corazón (anon., late 19th c.) on the main plaza. The church is organized as a Roman basilica plan with side aisles. A series of continuous, shallow brick vaults at 5 feet on center span the 22-foot-wide main worship space. Light enters the church from above through tall clerestory windows that bear the monogram of the church, an interlocked “SC.” The clerestory is supported on a continuous set of arches that rest on columns that define the lower volume of the side aisles. The stone floor creates an acoustical space that is highly reflective. The original interior has unfortunately been lost to careless remodeling. On Avenida Obregón is one of the best neoclassical commercial blocks in the city, El Banco Los Mochis (anon., ca. 1900), which today presents an opportunity for adaptive reuse. Contemporary regional rituals have evolved in relation to the automobile. A popular activity among groups of teenaged boys and girls in Los Mochis is the “Leyvazo,” in which teenagers park their cars to socialize, talk, and flirt, or “cruise” with their friends along Boulevard Gabriel Leyva Solano in downtown Los Mochis.2 People also park their cars to gather for a drink or barbeque on the weekends under the poplar trees that line the highway to Topolobampo Bay. To the southeast of town are La Pergola and Cerro de la Memoria, the only hill on the flat plain of the valley; La Pergola serves as a mirador over the town and valley as well as the Shrine of Our Lady of the Valley (anon., 1993).

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(left) Sagrado Corazón, Los Mochis, Sin. (anon., late 19th c.); photo ERB (top right) El Banco Los Mochis, Los Mochis, Sin. (anon., ca. 1900); photo ERB (bottom right) Torre Condominio, Los Mochis, Sin. (anon., ca. 2000); photo ERB

The hill is also utilized as a Calvary hill during Semana Santa (Holy Week before Easter). New major boulevards lined with palms and shaped, tightly trimmed ficus trees appeared on the western perimeter of the town in the late 1960s. Today these boulevards feature the big-box stores and auto dealerships pf the typical U.S. automobile suburb. The Torre Condominio (anon., ca. 2000) overlooking the Parque Sinaloa is a prominent white tower that offers panoramic views into the park below and across the city.

Los Mochis is also the gateway to the Copper Canyon railway, an engineering marvel that traverses some of the most rugged terrain and deepest canyons in the Americas to reach the desert capital city of Chihuahua, Chih. Today, Los Mochis has a population of 388,344 and, with the nearby port city of Topolobampo, forms an industrial and commercial corridor with the deep-water maritime terminal in Topolobampo. The growth of agricultural, ranching, and fishing industries bodes well for increased trade with the United States and the Pacific Rim.

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El Fuerte The Río Fuerte is slow and winding as it passes through the town of the same name, has lush dense trees along its banks, and offers a glimpse of what cities established along rivers in Northern Mexico were like at the time of their founding, as the river does not have massive irrigation projects or a dam upstream. El Fuerte (The Fort) was founded (1564) on a commanding outcrop on the banks of the Río Fuerte by the Spanish conquistador Francisco de Ibarra, the first explorer of the western Sierra Madre. A fort was built (1610) to defend against the fierce attacks of the Zuaque and Tehueco indigenous peoples. Originally named Presidio Montesclaros, over time it became known as El Fuerte and served as access to the frontiers of Sonora, Arizona, and the Californias. After colonists subdued the Sinaloa, Zuaque, and Tehueco peoples, the town flourished and was the most important commercial and agricultural center in this part of the western Sierra Madre for three centuries. El Fuerte became a major trading post for silver and gold miners from the Urique, Batopilas, and “Rain of Gold” mines in the Sierra Madre.3 For several years it became the capital of what are now the states of Sonora, Sinaloa, and parts of Arizona (1824). The main Plaza (anon., 18th–late 19th c.) is the major social gathering place and outdoor room in the town, inscribed with diagonal walks that are lined by a forest of lush plantings and tall palm trees. On the north side of the plaza is the town’s church, the Iglesia Sagrado Corazón de Jesús (anon., 1750; interiors and bell tower, 1854–1877). Near the church are El Alto de Gamier (1800); the Hotel Diligencia (1850) that was originally the residence of Cirilo Ibarra Félix and served as a hotel for over one hundred years, currently being restored; the Casa Colorada (ca. 1880; remodeled ca. 1908); and the Mansión de Don

(top) Panorama of urban fabric, El Fuerte, Sin. (18th–late 19th c.); photo ERB (bottom) Iglesia Sagrado Corazón de Jesús, El Fuerte, Sin. (anon., 1750; interiors and bell tower, 1854–1877); photo ERB

Río Fuerte at El Fuerte, Sin.; photo ERB

Aurelio (1870–1880) that was the elegant two-story commercial block of Aurelio Ibarra, with his adjoining residence next door. On the east side of the plaza is the most prominent work of architecture in the town, the neoclassical Palacio Municipal (Luis F. Molina, 1903–1907). This magnificent

210  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico The residence has been restored and adaptively reused as the eighteen-room Hotel Posada del Hidalgo, which was later expanded to fifty rooms, with a larger dining room, bar, and pool. According to legend, adjacent to the Almada Mansion was the birthplace of Diego de la Vega, “El Zorro” (The Fox). At the age of nineteen he moved with his family (1804) to Alta California, to the nascent Spanish town that would become the global media giant of Los Angeles, CA. Rumors reached El Fuerte (1821) of a native son hero/ bandit who defended the poor against injustice. The legend of “Zorro” was born and has been captured in popular pulp magazines, books, films, and television series. Today this culturally rich town is home to 30,000 people and connected by highway to the rest of the state.

Choix

Courtyard, Palacio Municipal, El Fuerte, Sin. (Luis F. Molina, 1903– 1907); photo ERB

two-story brick building makes a wall at the street with a staccato rhythm of vertical windows at each floor. Entering through a large portal, the visitor encounters an immense shaded paved courtyard with covered outdoor arcades on all sides supported on slender stone columns. The nearby Centro Mercantil (anon., 1899) was the commercial block of the prominent merchant Rafael Almada y Almada. The Almada Mansion (Ing. Francisco Salido; Manuel M. Castañeda, builder, 1903–1908) was designed as a luxurious residence for Rafael Almada y Almada and his wife, who hosted the social elite of the region. Sited on a steep hill adjoining the plaza, the residence unfolds on seven levels with grand public rooms opening to a central courtyard with a stone fountain. The walls of the residence were primarily built of brick with stone masonry buttresses and the columns of stone or cast iron from the Mazatlán foundry, while the roof is supported on beams of both local amapa wood and imported red pine from Seattle, WA. A rear entrance provided access for carriages and horses.

Choix (“wax” in the local Indian dialect) was established (1605) in the Sierra Madre Occidental bordering the states of Sonora and Chihuahua, 76 miles northeast of Los Mochis. It was a village with fewer than one thousand inhabitants to the end of the nineteenth century, but today is a moderately sized town. The town was organized around a plaza with a notable Clock Tower (anon., 19th c.) that is heavily bracketed with cornices and pilasters and can be ascended by stairs to serve as a mirador over the town. The Templo de San Ignacio (anon., 17th–19th c.) was a Jesuit mission organized as a simple, austere abstracted mass that seems to grow from the earth. During Easter Week, native people from the surrounding Sierra Madre Occidental come to town to worship. Nearby are abandoned mines; hot spring baths in the thermal waters of Chuchaca, Agua Caliente de Boca, and Agua Caliente Grande; and the Luis Donaldo Colosio Reservoir, also known as Huites Dam, one of the largest in Mexico.

Guasave The town of Guasave is situated 90 miles from Culiacán and is well known for the raising of thoroughbred horses. The church of Our Lady of the Rosary Sanctuary (anon., ca. 1968) graces the town, and the Heroes of Sinaloa Auditorium (anon., ca. 1968) is the special site for cultural events. Nearby are a number of Jesuit Missions (anon., 17th c.).

Culiacán Nuño de Guzmán completed the violent conquest of Sinaloa (1531) by literally burning his way inland and

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Urban plan, Culiacán, Sin. (Luis F. Molina, 1890); drawing by Edgar Zárate and Ricardo García-Báez

founded the Villa de San Miguel de Culiacán at the confluence of the Tamazula and Humaya Rivers on the preColumbian settlement of Huey-Colhuacán (the place of worship of the god Coltzin, or, where the two rivers meet). Guzmán’s men received land to encourage them to become settlers. An indigenous rebellion led by Ayapin was brutally suppressed, and Ayapin was drawn and quartered in the center of the emerging town. However, the native revolt reignited, and Spanish settlers were forced to flee, leaving their parcels to their overseers; some of the descendants of these early settlers still live in Culiacán today. Although the early history of the town was marked by coups, rebellions, and civil wars, La Villa de San Miguel de Culiacán gradually developed with the construction of a parish, a plaza, and a house for the town council. It was the point of departure for a number of sixteenth-century explorations headed to the northern frontiers, was an outpost for the Spanish militia, and served as a welcome stopover on the long stagecoach journey from Álamos, Son., to Culiacan, Sin. Guadalajara, Jal. Wealth from the gold and silver mines of the Sierra Madre created economic stimulus, and a mint was established. Thus, Culiacán emerged as the administrative and

political center and the capital of the state (1823), while Mazatlán became the major port and trading center. Following the decline of the mines in the western Sierra Madre, agriculture began to flourish on the banks of the rivers and streams. The historic center of Culiacán contains many quality works of architecture. On one side of the Plaza de Armas is the Catedral Nuestra Señora del Rosario (anon., 1842– 1885), designed in a hybrid neoclassic and baroque vocabulary as a vertically dominant composition. The façade is crowned by a bronze statue of the city’s patron saint, St. Michael the Archangel, brought from France. The Palacio Municipal (anon., 1839) was originally a religious seminary and later a military barracks, hospital, school, and orphanage. The gleaming white neoclassical façade stands out in the bright sun. Entry occurs underneath a protruding two-story portal that leads to a transitional zaguán, and then into a two-story open-air courtyard that is now covered by fabric to give shade and used for the performing arts. The monumental two-story Procuraduría General de Justicia (anon., late 19th c.) was originally the tax office and is also composed in a neoclassical vocabulary. After a long period of turmoil, General Francisco

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Catedral Nuestra Señora del Rosario, Culiacán, Sin. (anon., 1842–1885); photo ERB

Palacio Municipal, Culiacán, Sin. (anon., 1839); photo ERB

Panorama of Plazuela Rosales, Culiacán, Sin. (Luis F. Molina, ca. 1895); photographer unknown, ERBPC

Cañedo became a local political chief of Porfirio Díaz, governing the state for over thirty years, until the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution. During the Porfiriato, Culiacán developed a modern infrastructure and became the first town in the northwest to have telegraph, electricity, piped water, and drainage systems.

The growing capital city also acquired a number of important public institutions and works of neoclassical architecture during the Porfiriato designed by Luis F. Molina, an architect who had close relationships with the city’s political, entrepreneurial, and religious elite.4 He redesigned the city’s Urban Plan (1890), which changed

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(above) Teatro Apolo, Culiacán, Sin. (Luis F. Molina, 1892); MF, MAS (right) Templo del Sagrado Corazón, Culiacán, Sin. (Luis F. Molina, 1893–1908); © mexicoenfotos. com/El Sanctuario/Culiacán, Sin.

the width and alignment of many streets in the downtown, and also redesigned the Plazuela Rosales (Luis F. Molina, ca. 1895) in the heart of the university district and the focal point of Independence Day celebrations. This plaza is named for General Antonio Rosales, the hero of the Battle of San Pedro in which the French were defeated (1864). Near the Plazuela Rosales are urban courtyard houses with garden patios surrounded by covered outdoor arched porticos. His other numerous important works included the Teatro Apolo (Luis F. Molina, 1892), a midblock urban infill that makes a continuous wall at the street. Two symmetrical solid end bays frame a filigreed central entry bay with loggia above that marks the centralized theater inside. The interior of the oval-shaped theater is ornate and has two levels of private boxes surrounding the sloped seats at ground floor. The neoclassical Templo del Sagrado Corazón (Luis F. Molina, 1893–1908) is unusual in that it was sited diagonally on its site to create a plaza. This church was named for the devotion in France to the apparition of the Sacred

Heart to St. Margaret and was sponsored by Bishop Echeverría and two brothers from the Monje family who were priests. Responding to the local climate, it featured a single dominant tower that formed a central entry portico that created shade and coolness. This was layered over the fivebay volume behind that was heavily bracketed and topped with smaller symmetrical domes on either side. The strategy of the single centralized tower at the entry seems to be related to the devotion to the Sagrado Corazon, with the precedents of the Iglesia del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús (anon., 1874–1909) in Monterrey, NL; the Iglesia Sagrado Corazón de Jesús (anon., ca. 1903) in Chihuahua, Chih.; and the Templo de San Antonio (Refugio Reyes, 1896– 1908) in Aguascalientes, Ags. The Colegio Nacional Rosales (Luis F. Molina, 1895) was originally constructed as the official residence of General Francisco Cañedo, who never occupied it, and became home to a college and today is the Autonomous University of Sinaloa. The house actually occupied by Gen. Cañedo is now the Sinaloa Youth Institute (anon., 1892). Other major

214  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Palacio de Gobierno, Culiacán, Sin. (Luis F. Molina, 1890; restored and remodeled, Juan Carlos Mercado, 1991); photo ERB

Mercado Garmendia, Culiacán, Sin. (Luis F. Molina, 1914–1917); MF, MAS

civic institutions include the Palacio de Gobierno (Luis F. Molina, 1890), a restrained neoclassical composition with vertically dominant window openings. This building was formerly the city hall, later the police department, and today has been adaptively reused as the Sinaloa Museum of Art (restored and remodeled by Juan Carlos Mercado, 1991) and features works by a number of prominent Mexican artists. The Mercado Garmendia (Luis F. Molina, 1914–1917) was composed in a colossal-scaled neoclassical vocabulary that recalls a Roman thermae. The gleaming white façade was organized around a dominant three-story glazed entry that marks the central space of the market with pediment above; it is bracketed by two solid symmetrical volumes with pairs of gigantic Ionic columns. On either side are smaller one-story volumes that serve as bookends for the composition, with shallow arched window surrounds and an articulated cornice and balustrade above. The market was named for an engineer and political leader who was killed during the revolution. A more spontaneous local, vernacular architecture is reflected in the Malverde Chapel (anon., ca. 1970s) that commemorates Jesús Malverde, a “Robin Hood” thief who stole from the rich and gave to the poor. Although he is not recognized as a saint by the Catholic Church, a number of miracles are attributed to him and he has become a patron saint of the disenfranchised and the underprivileged. Each year he is commemorated in the city with two important fiestas: on the Day of the Holy Cross and on May 3, the anniversary of his death.5 Culiacán was the scene of a violent battle during the Mexican Revolution and fell to Carranza’s forces (November 1913). After the revolution ended, the hydraulic potential of the rivers of Sinaloa were developed in projects like the Rosales Canal (anon., 1925) and the Sanalona Dam (anon., 1948) on the Tamazula River. As a result of the subsequent agricultural boom, Culiacán’s population grew from 30,000 (1948) to 100,000 a decade later. The Casino Culiacán (Constantino Haza, 1943) was one of the first modern buildings in the city designed in an art deco mode of composition and one of the earliest uses of reinforced concrete. Formerly a social center for the city’s elite, today it houses galleries and a bookstore. Art deco schools include the Escuela General Ángel Flores (Roberto Saavedra Reyes, 1948) and the Escuela General Manuel Ávila Camacho (Juan Segura, 1945), by the noted Mexico City architect. The adjoining municipality of Navolato features the noteworthy streamline moderne Escuela Primaria Benito Juárez (Juan Segura, 1945–1950), also designed by this important architect.

Sinaloa  215 ingly floats above and is carefully cut out to allow the frame and infill glazing to be revealed for the two stories of residential units above. At either end, this tectonic order was revealed. The experience was one of a floating volume that was innovative, and it deserves wider attention today.

(top) Casino Culiacán (with cathedral beyond), Culiacán, Sin. (Constantino Haza, 1943); MF, blogspot.com (bottom) Escuela Primaria Benito Juárez, Navolato, Sin. (near Culiacán; Juan Segura, ca. 1948); from Alejandro Ochoa Vega, Modernidad arquitectonica en Sinaloa

A Commercial Building (anon., ca. 1948) in the downtown near the plaza was one of the great undervalued modernist buildings of Northern Mexico. Unfortunately, the building has been thoughtlessly remodeled and is in need of restoration. The Jesús Tamayo Residence (Francisco Artigas and Germán Benítez, 1948) is one of the few works by the well-known Mexico City architect Francisco Artigas in the city and features an innovative interlocking mass of volumes. The Confederación de Asociaciones Agrícolas del Estado de Sinaloa (CAADES; Francisco Artigas, Germán Benítez, and Fernando Best, 1948) was composed with pilotis, a free façade, and a roof terrace. A mixed-use commercial building, Edificio Jaqueline (Germán Benítez, 1957), was one of the most formally and tectonically rigorous works of the period. The concrete frame was infilled with glazed commercial space at the ground floor, surmounted by a thin, darker membrane that seem-

(top) Commercial building (with cathedral beyond), Culiacán, Sin. (anon., ca. 1948); MF, ERBPC (center) CAADES, Culiacán, Sin. (Francisco Artigas, Germán Benítez, and Fernando Best, 1948); MAS (bottom) Edificio Jaqueline, Culiacán, Sin. (Germán Benítez, 1957); MAS

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Congreso del Estado, Culiacán, Sin. (Antonio Toca, 1992); MAS

The Santuario de Guadalupe (La Lomita; Jorge Molina Montes with Ing. Félix Candela, 1958–1967) is appropriately sited on a hill, offers a panoramic view of the city, and was the site of an important earlier church (ca. 1885). The church is approached axially up the hill by means of a long monumental flight of stairs and is perceived as a figural sculpture atop the hill. Tectonically, the church was an early exploration of Candela’s thin-shell concrete vaults. Its five acclaimed stained-glass windows that depict the apparition of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe act as infill

between the floor and the thin-shell sweeping roof above. The new Palacio de Gobierno (Eduardo de la Vega Echavarría, 1978–1980) is a modernist building composed as a rational concrete frame expressed as a horizontally dominant composition of articulated horizontal parapets and balconies. The building is organized around a lush courtyard filled with palms and trees with flaming red blossoms. One of the noteworthy public buildings in the city is the Congreso del Estado (Antonio Toca, 1992), a reserved and dignified building that is entered up a series of steps through a covered, shaded entry court that recalls a classical forum and colonial courtyard; it serves as a public place to meet and exchange ideas as well as an expression of openness in state government. The entry court frames and leads to the entrance to two major wings that house offices and assembly rooms that front each of the streets. These are raised several feet above the street on a base softened by palms and indigenous plantings that respond to the heat and humidity of the region. Large glazed openings in the poured-in-place concrete walls are shaded with

Culiacán Botanical Garden, Culiacán, Sin. (Tatiana Bilbao, master plan; Taller de Operaciones Ambientales [TOA], landscape architects, 2011); courtesy of architect

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Pavilion, Culiacán Botanical Garden, Culiacán, Sin. (Tatiana Bilbao, master plan; Taller de Operaciones Ambientales [TOA], landscape architects, 2011); courtesy of architect

Bio-Technology Park Research Facility, Culiacán, Sin. (Tatiana Bilbao, 2009); courtesy of architect

a series of tall vertical fins that act as brise-soleil as well as an abstracted colonnade. The walls are either exposed poured-in-place concrete or cladded with stone. The work is one of the best modern municipal facilities in Northern Mexico and skillfully balances the demands of a comprehensible vocabulary for civic architecture for the average citizen with a contemporary vocabulary that utilizes a local, cost-effective means of production. This challenging task is rarely accomplished in other contemporary municipal facilities in Mexico. The complex is a valuable contribution and extension of the vocabulary of the abstracted classicism of Aldo Rossi and the Italian Rationalist movement.6 New development, infrastructure, and major boulevards appeared on the western perimeter of the town in the late 1980s near the main interstate highway that links the western coastal cities of Northern Mexico. Today these boulevards feature the consummate symbols of globalization and the automobile suburb, with new big-box stores and auto dealerships, as well as important public projects such as the huge municipal bus station.

218  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico Among the best new proposals is the Iglesia de la Natividad (Herzog and de Meuron, 2007–2008), a 43,000 sq. ft. project with parking below, entry lobby at grade, and church above with a spectacular, massive 145-foot-high nave above. Random linear glazed slits on the curved walls of the church dramatically illuminate the sanctuary. The 24.7-acre Culiacán Botanical Garden (Tatiana Bilbao, master plan; Taller de Operaciones Ambientales [TOA], landscape architects, 2011) is a cultural, science, art, and museum space for the city integrated with world-class botanical collections. The project includes fifteen small buildings and interventions that are conceived as emerging as “rocks” in the garden landscape. These include two small buildings that form the main entrance, with offices, shops, and bathrooms; an educational area with three separate buildings for workshops, classrooms, and an auditorium for one hundred people; another open-air auditorium for seventy people divided by walls; three buildings that form the cultural/exhibition area, including a pottery workshop and a library; and a greenhouse that houses unique botanical species. The garden includes a series of ponds with aquatic plants and fish and thirty-five works of contemporary art curated by Patrick Charpenel, which are linked by a path system inspired by the huanacaxtle tree. One of the most innovative buildings in the region is the Bio-Technology Park Research Facility (Tatiana Bilbao, 2009), a center for biological research with floors for private companies that cantilever asymmetrically off a central service core, analogous to a tree, creating shaded terraces. The cladding for the frame building is expressed as a lightweight membrane screen that contained electricitygenerating turbines in the original proposal, while university support facilities are housed below grade and receive light from a subterranean courtyard. The Culiacán Agriculture Museum (a10studio + lab07, 2010) is an innovative competition proposal that creates a continuity between building and landscape as a “field” that wraps and unwraps, closes and opens, and both focuses and serves as the focus while engaging issues of topography and ecology. Today Culiacán is a thriving metropolis of 793,730 with an agribusiness-based economy that exports products to the United States and around the world.

Cosalá High in the Sierra Madre Occidental range, surrounded by mountains, is the town of Cosalá, founded as a mining town (1562). In the nineteenth century it became the most important mining town in the region and was named the capital (1826) of the western states of Mexico that included

Panorama, Cosalá, Sin.; Wikimedia Commons

Sonora and Sinaloa, as well as Arizona. It also contained the assayer’s office, and became a trade, religious, and military center for the mining towns of Guadalupe de los Reyes and San José de las Bocas. The first newspaper in Sinaloa was published here (1827). The town’s mines at their peak production produced 50 percent of the silver exported by Sinaloa.7 Cosalá has three old neighborhoods: El Centro (Downtown), La Canela, and the Llano de Carrera. Due to the town’s steep topography, the eighteenth- and nineteenthcentury wall-dominant vernacular urban fabric of the downtown lines the organic, irregular streets with patios surrounded by covered open-air arched arcades that open to rear gardens. Major streets and side streets end unexpectedly, creating unexpected vistas. Much of this work is built of local materials with adobe walls, some more than 3 to 4 feet thick, that provide thermal insulation. Surmounted by moldings, the walls support sloping timber-roof framing with reed and bamboo infill between roof beams with clay tile roofs. The Templo de Santa Úrsula (anon., 1602–early 19th c.) facing the plaza is organized as a Latin cross plan with a simple walldominant façade with a shaped espadaña. The interior features a silver tabernacle. Nearby on the plaza is the Mining Museum (anon., 18th–19th c.), an adaptive reuse of a former family home. The Capilla de Guadalupe (anon., end of the 18th c., with a 19th-c. tower) is constructed of rough stone with simple planar façade with merlons at the parapet and a cut-stone cantera doorway with a miniature nineteenthcentury bell tower. In nearby Llano de la Carrera, the vernacular architecture utilizes the typology of freestanding rural architecture

Sinaloa  219 of Northwest Mexico with buildings that are sited away from the street, with a covered outdoor porch with a tile roof at the front façade, and open to a rear garden.

La Noria Nineteen miles to the east of Mazatlán is the town of La Noria (The Well), sited in a bowl-shaped topographic feature that visitors descend to enter the town. The Church of San Antonio (anon., 19th c.) and the Jail (anon., 19th c.), which continues to be used today, are among the most notable works of architecture in the town. Today, La Noria is known for its handmade leather goods, such as sandals and belts, as well as pottery, knives, and piñatas.

Hacienda las Moras The Hacienda las Moras (anon., 1835; renovated 2004) was a former ranch and tequila distilling facility set in a hilly, green fertile landscape.8 Today it has been adaptively

reused as a 3,000-acre resort complex of rustic walldominant exposed-brick buildings and open-air loggias covered with low-slung clay tile roofs. These form a series of outdoor rooms, courtyards, and patios filled with bougainvillea, tropical flowers, and palm trees. Nearby are Mennonite communities started by settlers who arrived in the area in 1922, and 18 miles away is the Herreros Reservoir, an important irrigation project constructed at the turn of the twentieth century.

Mazatlán Mazatlán (“Place of Deer” in Nahuatl) lies on a natural bay on a narrow peninsula with a tropical climate of mild winters and hot, humid summers. Dense tropical vegetation surrounds the flatlands around the city, while the lush, green slopes of the Sierra Madre Occidental lie to the east. The coastline south of Mazatlán is primarily rocky, but to the north of the city lie 16 miles of white, sandy beaches Approx.Book Size as well as secluded coves with more intimate beaches.

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Catedral

Plaza de Armas

Plazuela Hidalgo

Portales Canobbio

Plaza Machado

Teatro Ángela Peralta

Urban plan, Mazatlán, Sin.; drawing by Alejandro Garza and Ricardo García-Báez

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500

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Panorama, Mazatlán, Sin. (ca. 1905); foldout postcard, photographer unknown, ERBPC

Offshore lie the craggy islands of Isla Lobos (Sea Lion Island), Isla Venados (Deer Island), Isla Pájaros (Parrot Island), and Isla Chivos (Goat Island). Archaeologists have found ancient petroglyphs on the offshore islands that date from 8000 BC. The Totorame civilization inhabited this region but declined two hundred years before the Spanish Conquest, while the area around Mazatlán was inhabited by the Chibcha people before the conquest. Although Nuño de Guzmán led twenty-five Spaniards to this place on Easter Sunday, 1531, a permanent settlement was not established for nearly three hundred years because of the lack of drinking water in what was then an isolated peninsula. By the 1700s, gold and silver shipments from the nearby mines of El Rosario and Copala passed through the outpost of Mazatlán and its harbor. However, French and English pirates also used the natural harbor screened by hills as a hiding place from which to attack Spanish galleons carrying gold that sailed up and down the Pacific coast. The colonial government established a small Presidio (anon., 1800) with watchtowers at the tops of the hills that guarded the entrance to the harbor. Even today, “urban legends” of buried gold still persist in the popular imagination. At the end of the colonial era (1821), the city was finally permanently established, nestled between the existing hills near the natural harbor and the rock outcrops that rise out of the ocean, which give the city its sense of intimacy. The loosely organized grid of the city’s streets was shifted to accommodate existing hills around the city and created a varying range of distinctive street perspectives. The Aduana Marítima (Maritime Customs; Francisco Bonet, 1828; additions, ca. 1863 and 1882) at Avenida Alemán and Batería was built facing the harbor and the town’s early pier, until landfill projects pushed the harbor

to the southeast. It formed the gate to the city from the Pacific Ocean through which enormous quantities of gold, silver, and merchandise, as well as leading politicians, writers, musical artists, and distinguished visitors passed. This austere, abstracted, symmetrical neoclassical building presents a symbol of authority, a gateway, and welcome shade, while a colonnaded portico that supports a distinct entablature with classical and nautical imagery. A more recent filigree of wrought-iron fence in between the colonnade establishes what today is a cool, welcoming colonnade filled with potted plants and ferns. Behind the colonnade is a wall-dominant façade punctuated by vertical windows facing the street. The entry is marked by a shaped pediment (Francisco Bonet, early 1860s) and leads to a formal courtyard, which unfortunately has been altered during extensive remodeling (ca. 1970). Early visitors to the burgeoning city included the noted American author Herman Melville (1819–1891), who had just joined the U.S. Navy and wrote about his experiences, including Mazatlán, in his novel White-Jacket.9 Prospectors and settlers were eager to reach San Francisco and the gold fields during the California Gold Rush (1849) prior to the completion of the transcontinental railroad (1869); they were often unwilling to sail across the Isthmus of Panama or Nicaragua. Instead they took the overland route, from Corpus Christi, TX, to Mazatlán, where they boarded a ship heading to San Francisco. As a key port on the Pacific, Mazatlán also became a vital strategic objective for a variety of invading military forces, and hills near the ocean and around the city were (opposite, top) Aduana Marítima, Mazatlán, Sin. (Francisco Bonet, 1828; additions, ca. 1863, 1882); photo ERB (opposite, bottom) Arcade, Aduana Marítima, Mazatlán, Sin. (Francisco Bonet, 1828; additions, ca. 1863, 1882); photo ERB

Sinaloa  221

222  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

(right) Paseo del Centenario, Mazatlán, Sin. (anon., 1848; pergola, 1948); postcard, photograph by Naka; ERBPC (below) Iglesia San José, Mazatlán, Sin. (anon., 1835–1842); photo ERB

pragmatically appropriated for civil and military engineering purposes. The U.S. Navy blockaded and occupied the port (1847) during the Mexican-American War. The Paseo del Centenario (anon., 1848; pergola, 1948) was built as a fort on Cerro del Vigía (Lookout Hill) to defend the port from foreign invaders with three cannons. Unfortunately, a private restaurant was built on the base of the fort during the 1960s for reasons that are difficult to comprehend. The Casa del Meteorólogo (anon., 1874) on the top of this hill was used for weather observation. The nearby Cerro de la Nevería (Icebox Hill) was named for the mid-nineteenth-century tunnels in the hill that stored precious ice imported from San Francisco, CA, for domestic use and to refrigerate and store food and fish products. This is the site of the oldest church in the city, the Iglesia San José (anon., 1835–1842), built by the Barefoot Carmelites on a steep site in a residential neighborhood. The church is entered from the lower street up a steep flight of stairs to an entry plaza surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. The church features a simple, austere neoclassical front façade with shaped espadaña, currently painted bright yellow with red trim, while stained-glass windows on the side façades allow light into the simple nave of the church. Today, the discrete location of the parish church and its plaza makes it a favorite resting spot for local police patrols when church services are not being held. The nearby island Cerro Crestón became the site and elevated base for El Faro (The Lighthouse; Ing. Domínguez, 1890–1892), the tallest natural lighthouse on the American continent and the tallest working lighthouse in the world at 515 feet tall. The lighthouse was originally a tower (1828) but changed (1892) to a more finished building. It was initially fueled by wood and coal, then oil and kerosene, then gas with an amplifying Fresnel lens, and finally electricity (1920). Later, a breakwater and causeway (1930s) was constructed that joined the island with the city. Mazatlán continued to be a strategic port and site of frequent foreign interventions. The French occupied the port (1862) during the era of Maximilian and later bombarded it (1864). During the U.S. Civil War (1861–1865), a group of Confederate soldiers unsuccessfully attempted to convert the area into a slave colony. Once the U.S. Civil War ended, President Lincoln’s government assisted the Republican resistance of Benito Juárez with weapons shipments from San Francisco, CA., to the port. Mazatlán was also occupied by the British Navy (1871). According to local legend, foreign invasions resulted in the tradition of bars on the windows and iron fences. In addition to invading forces, the city also endured numerous deadly epidemics

Sinaloa  223 in the nineteenth century, including cholera, yellow fever, and malaria, which devastated the city’s population. In spite of these challenges, the city enjoyed a surge in growth in the mid-nineteenth century when a group of German immigrants arrived who improved the harbor, established extensive trade relationships, imported farm machinery, and exported agricultural products. The prosperity related to trade earned the city the nickname of “the warehouse of the north” and made Mazatlán one of the wealthiest cities in Mexico and the Americas. The Ferrocarril Urbano de Mazatlán built one of Mexico’s first muledrawn street railways (1876) and had 3.75 miles of 3-footgauge track (1905). Small steam locomotives replaced some of its mules in 1908, but the system closed due to the revolution (1913).10 Wealthy trading houses, banks, mining offices, and luxurious mansions were drawn to the city’s Calle de Oro (now Calle Sixto Osuna). These well-crafted courtyard buildings align to make a continuous wall at the street, and their protected patios were filled with tropical plants and birds. One example is the Casa Redo (anon., ca. 1850), which served as a military barracks during the French intervention (1864–1866), and later it served as a residence for the Redo family, who were powerful merchants and politicians during the Porfiriato. It was acquired by Club Deportivo Muralla in the late 1960s, and remains a prestigious sports club in the city.11

Gazebo and Plaza Machado, Mazatlán, Sin. (anon., ca. 1850); photo ERB

Plaza Machado, Mazatlán, Sin. (anon., ca. 1850); photo ERB

The Plaza Machado (anon., ca. 1850) was the social and business center for the city and acquired its name from the man who donated the land for the plaza, the Filipino Juan Nepomuceno Machado. A Spaniard designed the two-story neoclassical Juárez Building (Federico Imaña, ca. 1870) and other buildings along the sides of the Plaza Machado, on Calle Constitución between Calles Heriberto Frías and Carnaval. The building housed businesses on the ground floor and residences and various societies on the second floor, including over the years La Gran Sociedad, the German Club, the Benito Juárez Group, and the Lions Club. The first motion picture in Sinaloa was shown here (1897).12 The Portales de Canobbio (Juan Mondini, 1846–1864) faces the west edge of the Plaza Machado. It originally was only a one-story building that served as a market called Portal de la Lonja. In 1864, during remodeling ordered by Teresa Osuna, the second story was added by Mondini. The Canobbio family, who were Italian immigrants, owned a drugstore on the ground floor that was the major drugstore for the city and lived upstairs, and the building became known as Portales de Canobbio. Today, the second floor of the house is the Machado family museum that re-creates the lifestyle of a prosperous nineteenth-century mercantile family with furniture, decorative arts, and artifacts, while the ground floor has several restaurants with outdoor dining under the portales. The Plaza Machado is also the center of the urban spectacle and ritual of Carnaval. Since 1898, Mazatlán has hosted its Carnaval prior to the Lenten season of traditional abstinence and pertinence, which serves as a last

224  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Portales de Canobbio, Mazatlán, Sin. (Juan Mondini, 1846–1864); photo ERB

excess of eating, dancing, and drinking (which at times came to a violent end for some revelers in the nineteenth century). Up to 8 inches of confetti fills the streets as a mass of people in costumes and disguises winds through the streets, concluding at the Plaza Machado. Today, Mazatlán’s Carnaval is a milder version of the Mardi Gras of New Orleans or Brazil, but it is a major source of pride and wildly popular with the local populace. It features parades, floats, elaborate costumes, and a prestigious competition among local young women in which a Reyna de Carnaval (Carnival Queen) and her court are crowned each year. Mazatlán served as the capital of the state of Sinaloa (1859–1873) when it had a population of only a few thousand people, but it had already attracted the attention of early photographers, including Edward Muybridge, who took early photos of the city (1875). During the Porfiriato

(1876–1911), the modern age fully arrived with the embracing of technological progress, education, journalism, and the arts and Mazatlán continued to grow as the railroad arrived, the port and lighthouse were improved, and the cathedral was finally completed. The Teatro Ángela Peralta (Ing. Navidad Librado Tapia and Vicenta Unzeta, 1869–1874; D. Santiago León Astengo, 1878–1880; restoration architect, Juan José León Loya, 1987–1992) is the former Teatro Rubio and was the premier opera house for the entire western coast of Mexico. The city was so interested in supporting this project that city taxes were not levied during construction to encourage its completion.13 Although the design for the building came from Europe, it was executed with local and imported materials and crafted with local labor. The theater presents a freestanding neoclassical façade that aligns

Sinaloa  225 (left) Plan, Teatro Ángela Peralta, Mazatlán, Sin. (Ing. Navidad Librado Tapia and Vicenta Unzeta, 1869–1874; D. Santiago León Astengo, 1878–1880; restoration architect, Juan José León Loya, 1987–1992) (below left) Street façade, Teatro Ángela Peralta, Mazatlán, Sin. (Ing. Navidad Librado Tapia and Vicenta Unzeta, 1869–1874; D. Santiago León Astengo, 1878–1880; restoration architect, Juan José León Loya, 1987–1992); photo ERB (below right) Theater façade, Teatro Ángela Peralta, Mazatlán, Sin. (Ing. Navidad Librado Tapia and Vicenta Unzeta, 1869–1874; D. Santiago León Astengo, 1878–1880; restoration architect, Juan José León Loya, 1987–1992); photo ERB

with the street and leads to an entry court that serves as the theater’s shaded outdoor lobby in this hot, humid climate. Inside the outdoor lobby, the curving red-wine-colored volume of the theater appears. The entrance is marked with rigidly composed windows with elaborate moldings and contrasting white floral flourishes at the arched upper window that allows light to the upper-level balcony corridor. Entering through the façade of the theater from the outdoor lobby court, the theater-goer comes into a horseshoeshaped 841-seat theater. The floor plane of the theater is steeply sloped to provide excellent sight lines. Three levels of stepped private boxes on the sides of the theater are supported on slender cast-iron columns with elaborate, bulging forged cast-iron balustrades that support an intricate cornice and entablature. The color scheme is reminiscent of a nineteenth-century Victorian palette with deep red-wine walls, gray and white trim, and a tan ceiling with white trim. The circular spoked ornament at the semicircular ceiling recalls the helm of a ship or the wheels of industry.14

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(top) Plaza de Armas with gazebo, Mazatlán, Sin. (anon., 19th c.); photo ERB (bottom) Catedral Basílica de la Purísima Concepción, Mazatlán, Sin. (anon., 1856–1899); photo ERB

When Ing. Librado Tapia died in a shipwreck during a trip to Europe to procure ornaments for the theater, his widow, Vicenta Unzeta, continued the project until completion of the initial phase of construction (1874), making her one of the first recorded woman builders in Mexico. She was forced to sell the theater to the local Hernández Medina Co. in order to raise cash. The theater was reinaugurated in 1881, and the era of the theater as a noted venue for prominent national and international performers began. Prior to its restoration, the theater had been a movie theater, a vaudeville stage, a boxing ring, and eventually a parking garage. Hurricane Olivia tore the roof off the Teatro Ángela Peralta and destroyed the interior in 1975. Standing in ruin for years, the interior of the theater soon reverted to a jungle in the tropical climate, with an enormous wild fig tree dominating the stage area. Fortunately, the theater was restored (1987–1992). Adjacent to the Teatro is the Municipal Center for the Arts (anon., 1870s), a former mansion that became the Hotel Iturbide, one of the first hotels in Mazatlán. When the ship of the operatic diva Ángela Peralta, “the Mexican Nightingale,” landed in Mazatlán (1883), she was received with great elation by a large crowd. As a gesture of thanks, she sang from the balcony of her room for the cheering crowd, an event that is reenacted today. Unfortunately her ship also carried a deadly yellow fever epidemic that killed not only the operatic diva but also 2,500 mazatlecos. Construction on the Catedral Basílica de la Purísima Concepción (anon., 1856–1899) was interrupted (1875) by the Laws of Reform implemented by President Juárez. The church is organized as a Latin cross plan with a dome over its crossing, executed in an eclectic vertical Gothic revival mode of composition with two slender towers and a tall vertical covered portico that faces the tropical Plaza de Armas (anon., 19th c.). The fenestration system features a series of vertical pointed Gothic revival windows and twenty-eight pointed, arched stained-glass windows, each with a Star of David. Money to construct the church was donated by a local Jewish man, and in gratitude, a Star of David appears in each of the twenty-eight stained-glass windows. The interior is in the Gothic revival mode of composition with exuberant, eclectic features. The organ was constructed in Paris by the noted organ builder Aristide Cavaillé-Col. Italian, Spanish, and German immigrants arrived around 1870, which was the catalyst for Mazatlán’s expanding maritime commerce, initially with Europe and the Philippines and later with San Francisco, CA. This era saw the construction of many elaborate buildings in the historical center in the tropical neoclassical vocabulary that

Sinaloa  227

El Mercado, Mazatlán, Sin. (anon., ca. 1886); photo ERB

characterized Sinaloan architecture of the time—less formal than that of the inland cities and more innovative and responsive to the hot, humid climate of the city. Many prominent residential and commercial institutions were built in Mazatlán to support the growing trade industry. The Banco Occidental (Ramírez, builder, ca. 1880) was built by a Mexican master builder who also constructed several other buildings that have survived along Calle Mariano Escobedo. El Mercado (anon., ca. 1886), the city’s cast-iron Gothic revival public market, still serves the city. The market was added on to in the 1930s with a brick art deco addition. Between the plaza and the malecón (ocean-side promenade) is the Hotel Melville (anon., ca. 1892), which was formerly a telegraph office and later a convent for Carmelite nuns. The façade of this neoclassical building is crisply detailed, and its tranquil courtyard with fountain and potted plants serves its function today as a boutique hotel. A nearby example of a commercial enterprise of the era is the Mercería Alemana (anon., 1904) a deep commercial block that made a distinctive corner with an elaborate profile against the sky. Founded by a German merchant and in operation nearly one hundred years, the store was filled with a vast selection of luxurious merchandise. The malecón, which faces the steep, rocky Playa Olas Altas (Tall Waves Beach), is a popular surfing spot15 and was the focus of beach-oriented tourism in the 1920s–1950s. An example of the early neoclassical commercial blocks facing the Olas Altas and bay is the Banco Mazatlán (anon., 1870) that today is the Bancomer with a completely remodeled interior. East of the centro histórico and just north of the shipping channel is the Cervecería Pacífico (anon., 1900 and transformed over time) that was established by three German immigrants. Before refrigeration, the brewery depended on ice delivered by ships from San Francisco, CA, for their

(top) Hotel Melville, Mazatlán, Sin. (anon., late 19th c.); photo ERB (bottom) Courtyard, Hotel Melville, Mazatlán, Sin. (anon., late 19th c.); photo ERB

228  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico (right) Banco Mazatlán, Mazatlán, Sin. (anon., 1870); photo ERB (below) The malecón, Playa Olas Altas (Tall Waves Beach; anon., ca. 1880–2000), Mazatlán, Sin.; photo ERB

Hotel Belmar, Mazatlán, Sin. (Myron Hunt, 1917–1921); photo ERB

brewing. Although the company was bought by the Cervecería Modelo conglomerate (1954) and now exports their Pilsner beer to the United States, Canada, and parts of Europe, locals still ask for a Pacífico “ballena” (whale, 32 oz.). The several-city-block complex features twenty massive cylindrical fermentation tanks, each 70 feet tall and painted to appear like six-packs of beer.16 Today the towers of the brewery are a landmark of the city rivaling the nineteenthcentury cathedral but dwarfed by the current television and radio transmission towers on the city’s skyline. During the Mexican Revolution, the city was occupied by the Federalist forces of Huerta (May 1914) and by the forces of Carranza (Aug. 1914), who ordered a biplane to drop a crude bomb of nails and dynamite wrapped in leather on Cerro de la Nevería adjacent to the downtown. The crude bomb missed its target, landed on the city streets, killed two citizens, and wounded several others, making the city the second to endure an aerial bombardment.

Following the revolution, a commercial and ferry service developed between Mazatlán, Sin., and La Paz, BCS, further strengthening the economic and political relationship between the two states. Photographers continued to immortalize the image of Mazatlán, including the German photographer Hugo Brehme, who made his noted career in Mexico; while the well-known American photographer Edward Weston visited Mazatlán with the prominent Italian expatriate photographer Tina Modotti (1923). A number of famous literary figures also visited Mazatlán during the 1950s–1960s, including the “beat” writers and poets Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Ken Kesey. The Hotel Belmar (Myron Hunt, 1917–1921), facing the malecón, was designed by the noted California architect and was one of Myron Hunt’s few projects developed outside the United States for Lewis Bradbury, a pioneer San Gabriel Valley, CA, landowner. Here Hunt utilized an abstracted colonial revival vocabulary and organized the hotel around an internal paved open-air courtyard with open-air covered galleries for circulation expressed as lighter, more transparent elements, with thin paired wood columns. In contrast to his more austere work in Southern California, the walls at the ground floor featured

Sinaloa  229 Islamic-inspired Mexican tiles while the courtyard contained potted palms. Window and door openings in the wall were expressed as vertical punches in the wall-dominant composition, with infill wrought-iron grills at the ground floor.17 Today the hotel has unfortunately been carelessly remodeled, although some elements of the front façade and a portion of the courtyard remain. This important building awaits the attention and restoration it deserves. Today the malecón is one of the major public spaces of the city and is packed on the weekend with an informal architecture of stalls selling fish tacos, coconuts, and corn on the cob with chili pepper, as well as beer and soft drinks. A series of public bronze Sculptures (anon., 1960s) portraying the everyday life of the city were installed along the malecón, including a motorcycle policeman; a large copper beer tank to commemorate the brewery; and the “Carpe Olivera,” a mermaid diving downward into the

Hotel Freeman, Mazatlán, Sin. (Ing. Guillermo Freeman, 1948; restored 2002); postcard, MF, ERBPC

Hotel Lido, Mazatlán, Sin. (Jorge Tarriba Rodil, 1958); postcard, AMEX Asociados, S.A., ERBPC

ocean in “pike” position that leads bathers down to a saltwater wading pool at ocean level. The main thoroughfare becomes packed on the weekends as a place for contemporary mobile celebration, with “party pickup trucks” with informal ramadas and benches in the truck beds and booming sound systems playing norteño, cumbia, salsa, and Mexican rap music. In the 1930s and 1940s, the engineer Guillermo Freeman utilized an art deco and moderne vocabulary with the imagery of ocean liners and portholes to create an abstracted modern architecture that related to its nineteenth-century urban context. Along the malecón and Playa Olas Altas, the Hotel Freeman (Ing. Guillermo Freeman, 1948) was the first tower to change the scale of the centro histórico. With one hundred rooms and a pool on the eleventh floor, this was the most elegant hotel in town until the new hotels were built in the 1970s and beyond along the northern coastline of the city; it was restored in 2002. Farther inland and north of the city, one of the best buildings of the 1950s and 1960s is the IMSS Hospital (Enrique Yáñez, ca. 1958), a modernist multistory block that pinwheels on the site with articulated systems of structure, enclosure, fenestration, and interior partitions. Some of the service core elements feature small, round porthole windows that suggest speed and movement and are appropriate for this port city. To the north of the Playa Olas Altas, on the other side of a rocky point, is the Hotel Lido (Jorge Tarriba Rodil, 1958), which seemingly floats above the ground plane and touches lightly on pilotis. The project is sited on a very dense urban pie-shaped site that overlooks the boulevard, malecón, and beach as two blocks. A rational five-story block offers views of the ocean with parking and reception below. A common circulation core provides vertical access

230  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Hotel de CIMA, Mazatlán, Sin. (Jorge Tarriba Rodil, 1957); postcard, Cristacolor, Lito Juventud, ERBPC

and is a joint for another irregularly shaped block at the rear of the site with guest rooms at the upper floors and parking and service below. Unfortunately, the ground floor has been carelessly filled in and remodeled, although the taut, narrow massing remains today. Nearby, the Hotel de CIMA (Jorge Tarriba Rodil, 1957) is sited as a distinct, articulate block parallel to the beach and the Pacific Ocean. The project dramatically contrasts with its lush site and creates an intimate tropical garden with a pool on the side away from the beach. The hotel is a long horizontal three-story abstracted block of guest rooms with a prominent series of three open vaults on the roof against the sky. This mass set on pilotis floats above the beach with a ground floor of support functions. The hotel is surrounded by a filigree of palms that contrast with the horizontal proportioned brise-soleil that relates to the scale of the beach and the Pacific Ocean. Today, although the basic massing remains, the ground floor has been carelessly filled in and remodeled and the relationship to the palms and beach no longer exists. The hotel has been engulfed in the urban fabric of the city, and a busy coastal access road separates the hotel from the beach. Trailer parks constructed along the beach in the 1950s–1970s appealed to a new kind of automobile-oriented tourism, but they are now becoming scarce due to the expensive price of land. Today, Mazatlán exists as two contrasting cities. “Old Mazatlán” consists of the traditional nineteenth-century urban fabric lying between the cathedral and its plaza, the Plaza Machado and the Teatro Ángela Peralta, and the Paseo de Olas Altas along the bay. Adjacent is the primary commercial port of the western coast of Mexico, with a large fishing and shrimp export industry, and the renowned local cervecería, Pacífico. Playa Norte is located just north of the centro histórico and is popular with locals,

with palapa (open-air palm shade enclosures) restaurants selling fresh seafood and cool drinks, and is where local fishermen anchor their boats. In contrast, the “New Mazatlán” has a variety of beaches north of the old downtown. This new area, generally known as the “Zona Dorado” (Golden Zone), extends for about 7 miles to the north parallel to the beach. In contrast to the intimacy of the pedestrian-oriented centro histórico, or even the commercial strip of the Playa Norte, the Zona Dorada is designed at the scale of the automobile with sixto thirty-story hotels that relate to the beach, not the street. With superb sandy beaches, the Zona Dorada resort area features beach sports such as paragliding, seaside discos, and restaurants, as well as persistent strolling families of vendors and aggressive condominium and time-share real estate agents. Unfortunately, compared to the memorable qualities of the centro histórico, the recent architecture of the Golden Zone is largely uninspired, although set in a

Panorama, “Zona Dorado” (Golden Zone) with Hotel El Cid (anon., 1988) at right, Mazatlán, Sin.; photo ERB

Hotel Playa, Mazatlán, Sin. (anon., ca. 1958); photo ERB

Sinaloa  231

Camino Real, Mazatlán, Sin. (Francisco Martínez Negrete, ca. 1973); postcard, Vistacolor, Litograf ía Turimex, ERBPC

beautiful landscape of sandy beaches, palms, and bougainvillea. Most of the architecture of the area consists of suburban architecture of Orange County, CA, imported to meet the expectations of tourists for a simulated version of “colonial Mexico” (which never existed in nineteenthcentury postcolonial Mazatlán), or largely mediocre speculative commercial hotel architecture with adjacent chain restaurants of few redeeming qualities. However, several notable resort projects developed in the 1950s to 1970s are exceptional and offer lessons in creating resorts in this beautiful place. One of the first of the new hotels in the area was the Hotel Playa (anon., ca. 1958) on the Playa Sábalo and Las Gaviotas. An early modernist composition, the hotel was organized as a V-shaped plan to maximize views facing the beach, with entry through an open-air lobby. Today the project has been heavily remodeled and added on to, although the basic plan configuration remains as well as part of the original façade on the beach side. The Camino Real (Francisco Martínez Negrete, ca. 1973) is spectacularly sited on a rock outcrop in a narrow isthmus that forms a private beach on one side and a yacht harbor on the other. The massing of the building is organized as a two-story entry pavilion with administration and restaurants that open to outdoor terraces and a pool. Attached to this are the guest rooms expressed as a three-story doubleloaded corridor linear block that is bent to conform to the existing rock outcrop. The contrast between the abstract architecture and the craggy rocks, crashing waves, beach, and palms is spectacular, and recalls the best work of Luis Barragán’s noted subdivision “El Pedregal” in Mexico City. Today the entry sequence remains largely intact and the hotel has been renamed the Faro Mazatlán. Unfortunately,

Club Balboa, Mazatlán, Sin. (Sergio Pruneda with Roland Coate Jr. and Louis McLane, ca. 1972); photo ERB

Hotel El Cid El Moro Beach, Mazatlán, Sin. (anon., ca. 1989); photo ERB

this incredible site has been compromised by extending the isthmus with large boulders and the construction of an anonymous hotel nearby. The Club Balboa (Sergio Pruneda with Roland Coate Jr. and Louis McLane, ca. 1972) is a resort hotel complex

232  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico that utilized abstracted vernacular types organized in a rigorous, gridded geometry of outdoor courtyards and indigenous landscape. A series of concrete pyramidal roofs that recall Louis Kahn’s Trenton Bath House mark the gridded open space of the lobby and loggias. Local materials were utilized in the brick walls and sloping tile roofs. Today the project has been heavily remodeled, although the public areas and open-air loggias remain. Among the best of the multistory towers is the Hotel El Cid El Moro Beach (anon., 1989). The twenty-eight-story tower is tectonically precise and expressed with services and circulation at the rear as a vertical spine with bands of horizontal glazing that provide panoramic views for guest rooms facing the beach. Farther north of the Zona Dorada is the Playa Escondido, home to many of Mazatlán’s newest condos and hotels, with a strong “break” that attracts surfers and boogie boarders. The best of these projects include the Torre Playa Dorado (anon., 2000), which extends the vocabulary of the noted architect Ricardo Legorreta in a narrow, brightly painted residential tower with tightly gridded openings; the Torre Escondido (Fernando Molins, 2008); and the 360 Tower (Jesús López, 2008). Located farther north of the Zona Dorada is a new circular marina with a perimeter road that will remind many of Marina del Rey or Newport Beach in Southern California, with boats parked in front of houses on artificial islands. Even farther north of the Zona Dorada, Playa Los Cerritos with its strong surf is one of Mazatlán’s most isolated, uncrowded beaches with expensive resorts nearby. However, this sprawling growth led to the decline of the centro histórico of nineteenth-century Mazatlán, as the area around the Plaza Machado slowly emptied as professional and public services relocated. By 1970, entire blocks of houses and offices were abandoned, but then a group of advocates began restoring this abandoned central core. Today, Mazatlán is unique among beach resort cities in Mexico in that it has a vibrant centro histórico with 479 buildings designated as national historic landmarks. The horse-drawn carts that were used for transporting people around Mazatlán up to the 1960s have now been replaced by pulmonías, small, shaded open-air taxis open at the sides for easy access and that keep both the passengers and drivers cool.18 Since the 1990s, big-box stores such as Walmart, Sam’s Club, and the Mexican Gigante have appeared farther inland to further suburbanize and homogenize the experience of this place. Among the big-box stores, by far the most memorable is Mega (anon., 2008), one of the best contemporary grocery stores in the Americas. The building

is composed as a large neutral volume that floats above shaded parking below, with an articulated entry sequence, and recalls many of the principles enunciated by the avantgarde architect who has embraced the realities of globalization, Rem Koolhaas. Access at grade is through a glazed narrow two-story vestibule that also contains small specialty stores; two remarkable moving ramps provide access to the big-box store above. Moving up through the doublevolume space is exhilarating, and the visitor explodes into a soaring double volume where the check-out lines occur that receives light from a continuous clerestory window above. The store itself is in an exposed steel-frame shed with freestanding shaped elements that float and hover above. Today, Mazatlán has a population of 403,888 and a diversified economy with shrimping, fishing, beer production, services, and tourism. Cruise ships visit the city from October to April, and there are twelve RV parks for winter visitors. This beach resort city has an unusually rich architectural history. It faces the challenges of restoring the early modernist work from the 1920s to 1960s; capitalizing on its spectacular natural setting and landscape; and thoughtfully designing its landscape infrastructure, roads, wastewater, and utilities that continue to sprawl to the north. These challenges also include measuring up to the quality works of architecture of Mazatlán from the early nineteenth to late twentieth centuries.

Villa Unión On the lush, humid coastal plain to the south of Mazatlán, on the wide Río Presidio, lies the town of Villa Unión. The town is organized as a grid with one-story and occasional two-story urban fabric around the town’s

Urban fabric with vernacular architecture, Villa Unión, Sin. (anon., 19th c.); photo ERB

Sinaloa  233 lush plaza of square proportions filled with palms and ficus trees, with a cast-iron bandstand of the Porfiriato at its center. Around the town, and especially at its center, are the scattered remaining fragments of nineteenthcentury one-story vernacular urban fabric. On the south side of the plaza is the Iglesia San Juan Bautista (anon., ca. 1860), organized as a single nave with an articulated tower that can be seen from a distance and that both guards and marks the symbolic center and heart of the town. Light comes into the church from both large arched lower windows and smaller upper windows cut into the 5-foot-thick masonry walls of the church. The well-lit interior is striking and has been vividly colored in a tropical pastel palette. The retablo in the apse is unusual in that it is wall dominant with carved arched openings (as opposed to the typical layering of engaged columns) and steps upward. At the center of the retablo is a statue of Christ as the “Good Shepherd,” an appropriate symbol for this rural town based on ranching and agriculture.

(top) Iglesia San Juan Bautista, Villa Unión, Sin. (anon., ca. 1860); photo ERB (bottom) Interior of Iglesia San Juan Bautista, Villa Unión, Sin. (anon., ca. 1860); photo ERB

234  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico and flying buttresses. The main entrance to the facility is marked by the use of articulated classical columns set on bases that support a dramatic shaped pediment. Surrounding the town and hacienda are lush green fields for ranching and agriculture.

Concordia

Factory and hacienda ruins, Villa Unión, Sin. (anon., ca. 1850–1910); photo ERB

The interior of the church is quiet during the day, with old women reciting litanies of prayers and fingering rosary beads, while the open side doors bring welcome breezes with the fresh scent of the trees and garden around the church. This silence is occasionally interrupted by the sound of grinding steel from the metal fabrication shop across the street and passing trucks mounted with loudspeakers playing “banda” music for advertising promotions that wind their way through the town. On the west edge of the town is an extensive abandoned Factory and Hacienda (anon., ca. 1850–1910) that produced pantalones vaqueros (blue jeans). This wall-dominant facility forms a long wall at the street and was organized around a series of courtyards that are not experienced axially but instead are only partially revealed from each courtyard to the next. Only the walls and courts remain, as the wood roof has fallen in over time. The walls are roughly crafted in brick and are an essay on the tectonic logic and expressive possibilities of handcrafted brick construction with deep-set arched openings in walls, protruding pilasters,

Concordia is a winding two-hour drive 28 miles from Mazatlán. On either side of the road to Concordia are thriving groves of mangos, which were imported to the region from the Philippines in the eighteenth century, as well as tamarind trees (brown ebony) with their distinctive yellow and pink blossoms. Local cacti form enclosures for farm animals and are harvested as nopalitos, while the copal tree produces a resin used like incense and a juice used to produce gum. Traditional “slash-and-burn” farming consists of rows of corn with beans in between with two crops per year. The town was founded (1565) by Francisco de Ibarra, who also founded Durango, Dgo., and it was one of the wealthiest silver mining towns in Northern Mexico. Concordia and the nearby towns of Pánuco and Copala formed a rich silver-mining region that accounted for their elaborate baroque churches. On the east side of the town’s plaza is the magnificent Church of Saint Sebastian (anon., 1700), one of the best colonial churches in Northern Mexico. Its ultrabaroque façade profusely carved in pink stone holds a statue of Santa Bárbara, who watches over the town from her pedestal. The church interior features oil paintings (anon., late 17th c.) and a sculpture of a saint with indigenous features. The town’s Palacio Municipal (anon., 1905–1910) is a neoclassical Beaux-Arts composition. The building is an L-shaped courtyard scheme whose principal south façade defines the edge of the town’s plaza, the west façade aligns with the town’s main street, and a narrow informal plazuela occurs on the north side. The principal south façade is organized as a striated one-story mass with arched windows on a rusticated base with a centralized tower, with protruding one-story pavilions with pairs of arched windows at both ends. The centralized two-story arched, shaded open-air entry tower from the main plaza features an arched cornice at the second floor that frames a clock imported from Italy with smaller arched doorways below. Inside, a cool, shaded covered open-air arcade provides access to the public rooms and serves as a transition to the outdoor garden court. The west façade reveals the tectonic order of the building with carefully crafted brick with special shaped bricks for moldings, trim, and cornice.

Sinaloa  235 (top) Plaza, Copala, Sin. (anon., 19th c.); photo ERB (bottom) Vernacular building outside Copala, Sin. (anon., 19th–20th c.); photo ERB

Palacio Municipal, Concordia, Sin. (anon., 1905–1910); photo ERB

The vernacular architecture of the region near Concordia still utilizes traditional typologies and local materials. Handmade bricks in the region are made near embankments of streams rich in clay that is mixed with sand, as well as straw, sawdust, and husks from farming. These are formed in wood molds, allowed to dry, and then fired. Clay tile for roofs was originally formed on the thigh while seated, similar to ancient Roman techniques, although now wood molds are used. Clay tile for floors provides coolness in the hot climate of the region. Concordia has been widely known for its pottery making since the pre-Columbian era and for its furniture making since the colonial period, both of which continue today. Currently, the town has a population of about 30,000.

Copala A short distance from Concordia is the remote mining town of Copala, sited on a small hillside of a mountain with ravines on three sides. Exiting the main highway, the visitor travels about one-half mile down a winding dirt road before reaching the cobblestone streets of the town. The center of town remains largely intact and is a National Historic Landmark. The organic town plan largely follows the varied topography of the town, with stone paved streets, and a nineteenth-century vernacular urban fabric of picturesque one-story and a few two-story buildings with whitewashed walls and clay tile roofs forms an edge at the street.19 The winding streets lead to a narrow orthogonal Plaza (anon., 19th c.), an exception to the organic order that is the heart of the town, with a garden and cast-iron bandstand (19th c.). The baroque Church of San José (anon., 1765) is at one end of the plaza, although the church’s tower was not completed until the nineteenth

century.20 The church is slightly skewed but generally axially sited on the plaza. On either side of the plaza are remarkable vernacular buildings that have simple wood posts with tile roofs that form covered open-air arcades on either side of the plaza. The town’s former prison is the oldest in the state, while the Tajita Mine (19th c.) and the surrounding mines closed after the Mexican Revolution. The town, which at one time had a population of 6,000 people, has about 600 people today, and about 162 traditional houses remain. Nearby are nineteenth-century haciendas and wall-dominant vernacular stone houses that are plastered, ranging in color from ocher to bright green, purple, and yellow.

236  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Cemetery Gateway, Rosario, Sin. (anon., ca. 1780–1860); photo ERB

Sinaloa  237

Rosario Farther south of Mazatlán, along the coastal plain amid lush papaya and tropical fruit orchards and set against a solitary green hill, lies the colonial silver-mining town of Rosario that was founded as Real de Minas (1655). At the center of the town are the scattered remaining fragments of its nineteenth-century one-story urban fabric. The original Parroquia Nuestra Señora del Rosario (anon., 1731–1759) was in danger of collapse due to underground mining operations. The original church was disassembled stone by stone, in a labor-intensive operation, and was reassembled on its new site on the town’s plaza in the center of the town as the Catedral Nuestra Señora del Rosario (anon., 1731–1759, with a solitary bell tower ca. 1850; reassembled on its current site 1932–1954). The reassembled walls of the church are notable in terms of their coursing that expresses individual stones. Inside is a spectacular golden baroque carved retablo (anon., 18th c.) that is the focus of the interior. Today only the partial ruin of the choir of the original church, which reveals the tectonic order of the walls and vaulting over the choir, remains on the original site on the edge of town. On the west side of town is the Cemetery Gateway (anon., ca. 1780–1860) with nineteenth-century tombs inside. Across the street from the partial ruin of the original Parroquia Nuestra Señora del Rosario are the Museo de Minería and Museo Lola Beltrán (anon., ca. 1850–1880) in a vernacular one-story building with a tile roof that forms an urban block at the street. Movement between

Palacio Municipal, Rosario, Sin. (anon., 1910–1935); photo ERB

rooms of the museum is under a covered outdoor arcade with tile roof at the edge of the rear courtyard with fountain. The museum celebrates the career of an internationally renowned singer who was a native of the city, and features her elaborate dresses and movie posters from her starring roles. Near the center of town on a low hill rising prominently in its surrounding urban context is the Palacio Municipal (anon., 1910–1935). What remains in the town is spectacular and evidence of the mining wealth of the town, but unfortunately much has been lost due to thoughtless architectural interventions since 1950.

Escuinapa

Museo de Minería and Museo Lola Beltrán (from rear courtyard; anon., ca. 1850–1880) with ruins of Parroquia Nuestra Señora del Rosario (anon., 1731–1759) beyond, Rosario, Sin.; photo ERB

South of Mazatlán is the town of Escuinapa that is organized around a central plaza. The colonial San Francisco de Assisi Church (anon., 18th c.), executed in finely carved stone, features unusual vaulted, articulated side aisles and an ultrabaroque bell tower, one of the best in Northern Mexico. On the plaza is the Town Hall (anon., 1905–1910), a restrained neoclassical French Beaux-Arts composition, currently painted white. The façade is organized as a onestory mass with arched windows, with narrow vertical windows at each side and protruding one-story pavilions at both ends, crowned by a strongly horizontal cornice that casts a strong shadow in this tropical climate. A centralized arched entry tower features a distinctive second story that holds a bell in a narrow vertical arched opening, while a shaped molding frames a clock. Four unusual merlons make a memorable, complex profile against the

238  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico sky. Today, the town is noted for its production of shrimp and mangos.

Teacapán Heading toward the coast, the 18-mile road from Escuinapa to Teacapán is a magnificent landscape of coconut palms and estuaries inhabited by birds that leads to the pristine beaches of La Tambora, Las Cabras, and Los Angeles. The town is set in a beautiful landscape of thousands of palm trees with a wide variety of fauna, including birds such as the pink spatula, white and gray heron, cormorants, frigates, storks, Canadian duck, and pichiguila (fulvous whistling duck), as well as deer, ocelot, and boar. The abundant marine species in the warm waters include snook, red snapper, mackerel, curvina, mullet, sailfish, and dolphin. Nearby is La Boca de Teacapán, a waterway to the Pacific Ocean between two strips of land that form a natural marina that meanders through mangrove swamps for more than 47 miles to the south. Like nearby Escuinapa, Teacapán is noted for its production of shrimp and mangos.21

Baja California Norte and Sur  239

Baja California Norte and Sur A pathless, waterless, thornful rock, sticking up between two Oceans. —A description of Baja California by an eighteenth-century Jesuit missionary

Geography Baja California (named for the mythical land of califes in Spanish literature and baja meaning “lower”), including Baja California Norte and Baja California Sur, is a long, narrow peninsula approximately 775 miles long with an average width of 90 miles. The backbone of the peninsula is the Sierra de Santa Clara chain of over 5,000 ft. with

broad areas of desert plateau on either side. In the Sierra de la Laguna, cacti and pines, palms and aspens coexist beside granite rock pools; the desert plateaus feature bays that form harbors, including Ensenada on the Pacific Ocean, La Paz and Loreto on the Sea of Cortés, and Cabo San Lucas at the tip of the peninsula where the Gulf of California meets the Pacific. With few flowing rivers, colonization and urbanization was a slow process in this largely arid state. The few rivers include the Río Tijuana, now reduced to a polluted trickle on the northern U.S border; the Río Mulegé, unusual in that it flows all year round in the center of the desert, creating a palm oasis; and the Río San José that terminates in a palm and reed estuary at the tip of the peninsula at San José del Cabo. Indigenous oasis settlements and colonial missions were established around the few scarce rivers and springs. The coastal waters off Baja California are some of the richest fishing areas of the world, with sea bass, swordfish, and red snapper; they are also habitat to dolphins, whales, sea lions, and seals. Today the degradation of water supplies and pollution to rivers, springs, cities, desert, and coastline are among the major issues facing the peninsula.

History

Map of Baja California Norte and Sur; portion of Mexico map, CAW

During the pre-Columbian era, the Baja California peninsula was an isolated area inhabited by the Cochimí, Yuman, and other indigenous peoples who lived in small tribal groups. Over seven hundred archaeological sites provide evidence of habitation, commerce, quarry production, and east-west travel across the peninsula.1 While they produced no monumental architecture, they did create a number of important pre-Columbian rock art sites, primarily around the Sierra de San Francisco, near San Ignacio, BCS. Spanish exploration of Baja California first

240  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico occurred at La Paz, where Hernán Cortés discovered large quantities of pearls (1535). However, aside from the pearl trade, the Baja peninsula was of little interest during the early colonial era. Missions were founded between 1683 and 1834 in harsh desert environments among defiant natives. After the first successful mission of the Californias at Loreto, BCS (1697), San Ignacio Kadakaamán, Santa

Rosalía de Mulegé, San Francisco Javier Viggé Biandu, San José de Comondú Caamanc Cadeu, Nuestra Señora de La Paz Airapí, Santiago de los Coras, San José del Cabo Añuití, Santa Rosa de las Palmas, and San Luis Gonzaga Chiriyaki followed and were among the thirty mission settlements established by the Jesuits, Franciscans, and Dominicans during the colonial era. However, epidemic

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Urban plan, Tijuana, BC; drawing by Vincent Ramírez and Ricardo García-Báez

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Baja California Norte and Sur  241 diseases depopulated the peninsula, and these missions were largely abandoned (1850). Baja California endured several foreign interventions (1834–1854), including those in Baja California and Sonora by the notorious filibusterer William Walker. U.S. forces invaded La Paz and San José del Cabo during the MexicanAmerican War. After the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Baja California became the northernmost frontier of the Mexican Republic, as the U.S. did not desire the desert peninsula. The state continued to be sparsely inhabited in the mid-nineteenth century, until the discovery of gold in San Rafael (1870), which became the capital (1872) and was renamed Real del Castillo.2 In the early years of the 1880s, during the Porfiriato, large land grants were made to foreign companies to colonize Baja California, and a decree (1887) created Baja California Norte and Sur. Immigrant groups followed, including Chinese, Anglo-Americans, English, Jews, Spaniards, French, Italians, and Germans. During the Mexican Revolution, Sinaloa and Sonora heavily influenced the politics of Baja California Sur to such a degree that Baja California Norte and Baja California Sur were politically like two different countries. Baja California was shaped in the American imagination through the writings of John Steinbeck (1902–1968) in books, short stories, and travel journals,3 and the paved Trans-Peninsular Highway (1973) opened the peninsula to economic development and tourism. The largest city, Tijuana, grew as a center for tourism and maquiladora assembly plants and has become the sixth-largest city in all of Mexico.

Tijuana The undulating land around Tijuana forms a series of valleys through which the Tijuana River flows and continues across the U.S. border and empties into the Pacific Ocean. Hot springs once existed in the hills above the city, and the original landscape of grassland and scrub with scattered trees was ideal for ranching. Father Junípero Serra founded the first mission in the area just across the current border in nearby San Diego, CA, which was originally inhabited by the Kumeyaay, a tribe of Yuman-speaking hunter-gatherers. The first formal settlement occurred when a large land grant was awarded to Santiago Argüello (1829). This large cattle ranch, Rancho Tía Juana (Ranch of Aunt Jane), covered 62 square miles, and as a result of the MexicanAmerican War, Tijuana acquired a new role as a border town (1848). Descendants of Santiago Argüello and Agust-

(top) Main street with curio shops, Tijuana, BC (ca. 1910); postcard, Eno & Matterson, San Diego, CA; ERBPC (bottom) Fuerte (Fort), Tijuana, BC (anon., ca. 1903); postcard, photographer unknown, ERBPC

ín Olvera entered an agreement (1889) to develop the town of Tijuana. By the 1890s, curio shops selling souvenirs and postcards, a bullring, and a small Fort (anon., ca. 1903) were constructed, and by 1910 the town had a population of 9,760. A comprehensive little-known Beaux-Arts Urban Plan (Ing. Ricardo Orozco, 1889) was proposed but never realized. The rigorously organized orthogonal plan with diagonal cross axes featured a centralized circular Plaza Zaragoza, with smaller plazas dispersed symmetrically around it.4 This ambitious plan seems incredibly idealized, given Tijuana’s ad hoc development after World War II until today. North of Avenida Revolución, the Catedral de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (anon., 1902; expanded 1964–1976) is the city’s religious symbol, and the exterior façades utilize an abstracted neoclassical vocabulary. The cathedral is currently impacted on two sides by urban fabric, so bringing natural light in is difficult, and the interiors are notably dark and have received ad hoc additions over time. Another

242  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico Proposed urban plan, Tijuana, BC (Ing. Ricardo Orozco, 1889); from Eloy Méndez Sáinz, Arquitectura nacionalista: El proyecto de la revolución mexicana en el noroeste (1915– 1962), courtesy Eloy Méndez Sáinz

ambitious expansion was begun in 2001 to seat three thousand, with standing room for fourteen thousand, and a proposed white obelisk-like twenty-five-story bell tower will become a major landmark of the city’s skyline. While the majority of the warfare during the Mexican Revolution was in other states in the north, Tijuana was the stage for revolutionaries loyal to the radical Socialist Ricardo Flores Magón, who captured the city from federal forces in March 1911. Citizens of San Diego, CA, watched the battle from the safety of the international border, and federal troops later routed and expelled the rebels. However, given the desperate economic situation during the revolution, it is not surprising that tourism was encouraged. Antonio Elozoua built the Tijuana Fair Casino in the center of town, which later became a municipal building (1915). The Panama Exposition (1916) brought a large number of visitors to San Diego. Tourists were lured across the border with an imaginary, simulated Feria Típica Mexicana (anon., 1915) that included curio shops, regional foods, thermal baths, horse racing, and boxing matches. The Monte Carlo Club (anon., ca. 1910), which promoted itself as an exotic international club, was another draw. As a result of the Volstead Act (1920), tourism boomed with visitors in search of drinking, horse racing, gambling, nightlife, fireworks, and prostitution. The Foreign Club Racetrack (anon., 1924) was built, and the city developed a reputation for illicit activity that would affect both its development and perception by others. Tijuana became the city in Mexico that received little respect, both

in Southern California and in Mexico, where it became derisively known as “TJ,” and became the subject of crude jokes regarding vulgar behavior. Hollywood celebrities and ordinary tourists crossed the border, and Avenida Revolución became the main “tourist drag” in the city and remains so today. Along the sidewalk of Avenida Revolución, tourists could pose for souvenir photos with pathetic burros painted in stripes to resemble zebras, complete with faux carts, sombreros, and “typically folkloric” Mexican backdrops. Avenida Revolución also became the site of The Whale (anon., ca. 1922), with its 300-foot-long bar, that attracted thirsty tourists and was billed as the world’s largest saloon bar. The architecture of the 1920s included eclectic compositions such as the San Francisco Café (anon., Cía. Comercial de BC, builder, 1924), an inventive art deco composition that later became the Villa Colonial. The HSBC Building (Miguel González;

Catedral de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, Tijuana, BC (anon., 1902, expanded 1964–1976); postcard, photographer unknown, photo ERB

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Feria Típica Mexicana, Tijuana, BC (anon., 1915); postcard, photographer unknown, ERBPC

Painted burro and cart for tourist souvenir photos, Tijuana, BC (ca. 1963); postcard, photographer unknown, ERBPC

Mexican beer hall with “the longest bar in the world,” Tijuana, BC (anon., ca. 1922); postcard, M. Kashower Co., Los Angeles, CA; ERBPC

San Francisco Café (Villa Colonial), Tijuana, BC (anon., Cía. Comercial de BC, builder, 1924); photo ERB

Cía. Comercial de BC, builder, 1929–1939) is the best remaining Beaux-Arts building in the city. An indoor Jai Alai Arena (Eugene Hoffman, 1926–1947) was constructed in a Spanish colonial revival and Islamic mode of composition and based on a model from Mexico City. With its distinctive profile against the sky and vibrant colored tiles, it is the most recognizable building along Avenida Revolución, and today it is primarily used for cultural events. In contrast to the central plaza with church and government buildings at the center of the typical colonial and nineteenth-century Mexican city, downtown Tijuana was organized as series of gridded streets with commercial strips based on the U.S. model, with freestanding houses at the perimeter of the grid. The original grid (1924) included streets named One to Ten, running north–south, and A to J, running east–west, that were later changed to names commemorating national dates and personages as in a typical Mexican city. The urban fabric was composed of one- and two-story freestanding buildings and small houses with sloped roofs largely constructed of wood framing from the United States. Even the Álvaro Obregón School (anon., 1930) was based on the design of a school in Yuma, AZ. Baron Long, Abelardo L. Rodríguez (who would later become president of Mexico), and two other partners developed the thermal mineral springs that had been utilized since the nineteenth century. The Agua Caliente Resort (Wayne McAllister and Corinne McAllister, 1927– 1928) was one of the first full-service tourist destination resorts, with a three-hundred-room luxury hotel, gourmet restaurants, a dance floor, bars, shows, casino gambling, game rooms, golf course, horse and dog racing, thermal baths, and therapeutic hot springs. The resort’s massing and façades were composed in the Spanish colonial revival

244  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

HSBC Building, Tijuana, BC (Miguel González, Cía. Comercial de BC, builder, 1929–1939); postcard, photographer unknown, ERBPC

Jai Alai Arena, Tijuana, BC (Eugene Hoffman, 1926–1947); photo ERB

vocabulary that was a claim to the local Spanish colonial roots of California5 and appealed to tourists’ expectation of an “exotic” past. The resort was frequented by glamorous Hollywood movie stars6 in the 1920s–1940s who also utilized this architectural vocabulary to build their own homes in Southern California, which led to its wide popularity. For many years, the Agua Caliente Resort and Casino was promoted as the “Monte Carlo of the Americas” and was a popular film location. In 1934, teenaged Margarita Carmen Cansino was her father’s dance partner at the resort, where she was “discovered,” appeared in the Busby Berkeley film In Caliente (1935), and went on to global fame. This young woman adopted her mother’s last name and became the glamour movie goddess of her time, Rita Hayworth. Visitors arrived at the resort in several ways: by car, approaching on an access road that ended at the central entry garden court; by rail on the San Diego–Arizona railway, arriving at a station next to the dog track; or by airplane, using the runway and control tower of the resort. The complex was organized around a series of patios that served as outdoor rooms and were elaborated on in terms of themes, not unlike stage sets, and was a magnificent example of “scenographic regionalism.” Visitors arrived

Baja California Norte and Sur  245

(top) Entry Tower, Agua Caliente Resort, Tijuana, BC (Wayne McAllister and Corinne McAllister, 1927–1928); photo ERB (bottom) Courtyard, Agua Caliente Resort, Tijuana, BC (Wayne McAllister and Corinne McAllister, 1927–1928); postcard, Western Novelty and Publishing Co., Los Angeles, CA, ERBPC

under the huge campanile, which served as an entry tower at the scale of the automobile, and then passed into a garden court. After checking in, visitors would promenade through the outdoor courts and large figural public rooms. A great square arched patio was called the “Palm Patio,” while a neo-Mudéjar pool and the date palms created an

oasis. The “Gold Room” was a neo-Islamic hall that recalled a mosque with oval arches and was finished in wood richly decorated in intricate geometric designs. The spa had Turkish and Russian baths, a pool covered in mosaic tiles in stylized designs, and a sun deck with art deco benches around the perimeter. The spa, pool, and bathhouse were richly decorated in tile by Gladding, McBean. Murals by Anthony Heinsbergen covered large expanses of interior walls. The fireplace was disguised as a smaller minaret and was decorated in many colored tiles and finished in wrought iron. A 150-foot-tall Moroccan minaret masked the smokestack and boiler room that supplied power for the resort. This semiarid site was landscaped with date palms, among other species, and turned into an oasis, not unlike the missions at Mulegé and San Ignacio in southern Baja. Visitors who desired additional privacy could stay in Spanish colonial revival bungalows meant to be experienced as freestanding buildings set among the lush gardens. The resort was closed by the Mexican government when gambling was prohibited (1935), expropriated and nationalized (1938), later occupied by a variety of tenants, suffered damage in a series of fires, and ordered demolished by local authorities in 1975. Today, the entry tower to the resort is all that is easily visible, sited in a small park that is one of the few public green spaces of the city.7 Tijuana grew again with the tourism from military bases during World War II and immigrants from all over the country who came to California in search of employment. Between 1940 and 1950 the city tripled in size and developed its utility and street infrastructure. Art deco and streamline moderne work include the Escuela Lázaro Cárdenas (anon., ca. 1940) and the Teatro Zaragoza (Centro Mutualista de Zaragoza, 1944) that featured a taut corner entrance. The speed and scale of the automobile inspired large-scale figural architecture of popular stereotypical symbols of Mexico, such as buildings designed as sombreros that could easily and quickly be discerned, including Sombrero Curios (anon., ca. 1945) and the Motel El Sombrero (anon., ca. 1953). These works would inspire later figural architecture in the city. By the mid-1960s, the poorest citizens constructed entire neighborhoods of “casas cartones” (cardboard houses) in the Tijuana River, which now was mostly dry except during the rainy season, when they were swept away. This astonished U.S. visitors as they crossed the riverbed in their automobiles on the way to Ensenada.8 By the 1970s, large automobile-based manufacturing and assembly plants emerged on the perimeter of the city. Playa de Tijuana, fronting the Pacific Ocean to the west and La Mesa to the east, finally received infrastructure, and

246  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

(top) Escuela Lázaro Cárdenas, Tijuana, BC (anon., ca. 1940); photo ERB (center) Sombrero Curios, Tijuana, BC (anon., ca. 1945); postcard, photographer unknown, ERBPC (bottom) Motel El Sombrero, Tijuana, BC (anon., ca. 1953); postcard, MF, ERBPC

a second border crossing at Mesa de Otay was constructed to handle the increasing border traffic. The casas cartones were removed from the riverbed, and the downtown Zona del Río Tijuana Urban Plan (Pedro Moctezuma, 1972) called for construction of a 230-foot-wide and 23-footdeep concrete flood control channel with automobile and pedestrian bridges across the river. The master plan also included the Paseo de los Héroes, a eucalyptus-lined boulevard with a new mixed-use and institutional district for the city with distinctive traffic circles modeled after the urban types of the Paseo de la Reforma in Mexico City and the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris. Inside the traffic circles were figural statues of heroes such as Cuauhtémoc and Abraham Lincoln, set within an abstracted landscape. In the Zona del Río, the Centro Cultural Tijuana (CECUT; Pedro Ramírez Vázquez and Manuel Rosen Morrison, 1982) is a figural sculptural object that makes a new landmark for the city. The project is organized with two wings of support functions and galleries framing a monumental circular globe with eroded exit stairs that houses an IMAX theater that references the heroic work of Boullée. The poured-in-place concrete work of the walls of the support functions, galleries, and form ties recall colossalscaled stonework; these are spanned by long-span steelframed trusses with a discrete enclosure system of ramps in the main gallery. The globe-shaped theater is an ambitious concrete pour with an exterior finish of smooth plaster, with steep seats and balconies inside the theater. While the actual architectural experience is somewhat uninspired, the exhibitions themselves are wonderfully composed, richly researched, and by far the most memorable aspect of the museum. Although the entire city was not comprehensively planned, stretches of ad hoc freeway also began to appear, and informal development spread to areas with steep topography and no infrastructure. Most of the commercial architecture of Avenida Revolución from the 1920s and 1930s was torn down and an uninspired version of neoconservative postmodern buildings appeared through much of the city. In the mid-1970s, the noted Los Angeles, CA, architectural firm Morphosis designed two buildings in Tijuana that were early explorations of ideas that would become further developed in the firm’s later work, which has received acclaim around the world. The low-budget La Floresta Housing9 (Morphosis, 1975) was an early exploration of functional zoning, privacy, and hybrid low-cost construction using industrialized systems such as concrete block and concrete planks as well as on-site poured-inplace concrete. The Reidel Medical Building (Morphosis,

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Centro Cultural Tijuana (CECUT), Tijuana, BC (Pedro Ramírez Vázquez and Manuel Rosen Morrison, 1982); photo ERB

1976) was an early exploration of transparency and choreographed movement.10 Despite areas of poverty, Tijuana is also now among the wealthiest cities in Mexico as a center for distribution, manufacturing, and maquiladora assembly plants. Walled housing developments for the middle class and elite, composed in a watered-down Spanish colonial revival vocabulary, are smaller, denser versions of walled, gated suburban communities in San Diego. These are served by big-box stores and enclosed shopping malls based on the U.S. suburban model. The very few green open spaces in the city occur around a few private golf courses, and condominium towers have sprouted on hillsides. In contrast, at the perimeter of Tijuana, shantytowns for laborers sprawl for miles. Today, the city has grown largely as series of informal developments, and the city now stretches from the coast for 12 miles east along the U.S. border. This architecture is more compositionally charged and built in seemingly unbuildable locations on steep hills, using discarded materials such as garage doors and tires. What marks this architecture is its extreme discontinuity and contrast, which are also parallel aspects of contemporary avant-garde architecture and have been admired as “visually liberating” by some. Bungalow houses have been brought over the border and elevated on steel frames to create a new typology with shops below. These informal developments are now occurring primarily on the eastern edge of the city. In contrast, areas such Colonia Norte and Zona Norte adapt older commercial buildings and housing near the center of the city and close to the border, and are known for a nightlife that includes strip bars, transvestites, and prostitutes.11 An informal economy of

entrepreneurs has created an ephemeral infill architecture of open-air markets in all but the most exclusive parts of the city, where almost anything may be purchased. On the U.S border, a defensive architecture of horizontal corrugated border walls has been built from recycled material from the Gulf War (1991). The wall extends all the way to the Pacific Ocean, where it continues into the water. A second precast concrete wall was constructed parallel to it in 1999, and today border patrol agents in SUVs patrol constantly. After the second wall was built, illegal immigrants were forced to cross farther east in the desert. The wall is perceived episodically from Tijuana where urbanization has occurred up to its edge, while on the U.S. side, the wall can be viewed at a distance from the cities of San Ysidro and the suburbs of San Diego.

Monumental Arch, Tijuana, BC (anon., 2000); photo ERB

248  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico The most recent large-scale intervention in the city dramatically reflects this orientation. The shimmering Monumental Arch (anon., 2000) is constructed of steel with metal cladding and was completed to mark the millennium. It recalls Eero Saarinen’s St. Louis Arch (1967), while its distinctive steel stiffener cables recall the semicircular dramatic bent-steel tube framing at Enrique Norten’s National School of Theater (1994) in Mexico City.

Manufactured Sites Project, Tijuana, BC (Teddy Cruz, 2001–); courtesy of architect

Casa GA, Tijuana, BC (Gracia Studio, 2004); courtesy of architect

Curiously, although perhaps not surprisingly, it faces north toward the border and is less intended to be viewed from the city than by tourists at a distance while approaching the San Ysidro, CA, border crossing. As an optimistic symbol of progress, it marks the gateway to the “tourist drag” on Avenida Revolución. Citizens of Tijuana have given the arch mixed reviews due to its scale at the street and contrast with the “historic district” around it, which apparently still resides in the collective memory, although little actually physically remains. Recently a group of inventive architects have emerged who are doing innovative, proactive work.12 Teddy Cruz has developed innovative strategies for community-based design that engage issues such as the border dynamics of suburban poverty, informal urbanism, and recycling and actively learn from the resourcefulness of the poor. Strategies include repurposing building materials and transporting wooden frame houses from the United States across the border, where they are integrated in Tijuana neighborhoods. One of his best projects is the Manufactured Sites

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Project for the Recovery of the Río Tijuana, Tijuana, BC (Alberto Kalach/TAX, 2009); courtesy of architect

Project (Teddy Cruz, 2001), a collective housing scheme that utilizes prefabricated steel frames produced in a maquiladora that serve as “hinges” for informal recycled materials and systems brought from San Diego, CA. The work of Gracia Studio includes residences as well as larger public projects. Their work engages the contemporary conditions of Tijuana and proposes new urban types often clad in distinctly different materials, a metaphor for the tectonic culture of this border city. One of their most distinctive projects is the Casa GA (Gracia Studio, 2004), a residence organized as two discrete volumes around a courtyard. Each volume is clad in contrasting materials: one in handcrafted dark redwood and the other in industrialized white polycarbonate panels.13 The Casa Becerril (Gracia Studio, 2007) is designed as a three-story horizontal bar with an attached service and entry core. The project provides open, common, flexible space for the extended family and their pets, as well as private indoor and outdoor spaces for individuals. One of the most promising recent proposals is the Project for the Recovery of the Río Tijuana (Alberto Kalach/ TAX, 2009), which addresses the challenges facing the city, including aridness, informal urbanization, pollution, a lack of green space, and utility infrastructure. Tijuana currently has twenty times less park space than the average for cities in the developed world and currently does

not recycle any of its wastewater. The proposal is based on the treatment and reuse of wastewater to restore the bed of the former Tijuana River that is now used only for storm drainage. The river will be refilled with 10 percent of the treated wastewater while still serving as a flood drainage system. The plan includes a campaign of reforestation to create “eco-parks” to help preserve water resources. This would become a vital asset to attract future development, with bridges, parks, rides, shopping, and real estate development to provide financial sustainability. Today, Tijuana is the sixth-largest city in Mexico with a population of 1,559,683, and the Tijuana–San Ysidro border crossing is claimed by some to be the busiest international land border in the world. Thousands of tourists continue to visit each weekend, creating a continuing demand for tourist services. While “cross-fertilization” occurred across the border in terms of materials and technology, in the case of the urbanization of Tijuana, the adjoining cities are quite different. San Diego from its earliest beginnings was oriented toward its port and ocean, and later, to sprawling garden automobile suburbs, and offered a buffer of largely open land near the border. In contrast, Tijuana was developed as an inland access to the United States, tightly sited against the border in a desperate struggle to capture the disposable income of tourists from the United States.

250  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Tecate Tecate lies to the east of Tijuana on the U.S.-Mexico border in a bowl-shaped valley at 1,690 ft. surrounded by rocky hills and dominated by 4,025 ft. Kuchumaa peak, considered sacred by the Kumeyaay peoples. It has hot, dry summers, cool winters with occasional frost, relatively abundant water, and fertile soils. Farmers and ranchers settled in the area in 1892 and turned it into a productive agricultural center with olives, grapes, and grain. In contrast to other towns such as Tijuana and Ensenada, Tecate is organized like a traditional Mexican town with its tree-shaded Plaza Hidalgo (anon., ca. 1900) in the center of town used as an outdoor room, with wrought-iron benches encircling the bandstand and a monument to Benito Juárez at the northeast corner. It is occupied by residents who chat with friends and vendors who sell “Tecate bread.” Tecate also processes coffee and is noted for its wine and beer production, including the renowned Tecate beer. Adjacent to a residential neighborhood, the Cuauhtémoc Brewery (anon., 1943) is a four-story facility that is one of the largest and tallest buildings in the town. A railroad was built that connected San Diego, CA, and Tecate, and today it still runs occasionally for tourism from San Diego. The Railroad Station (anon., ca. 1925) is extremely unusual in that it is designed in the Wrightian vocabulary of Wright’s Prairie Houses (1900–1910). The Rancho La Puerta (anon., 1940) was founded by Edmond and Deborah Szekely, who were early advocates of organic food, daily meditation, and exercise. Opposed to commercial fertilizers and pesticides, they initially grew much of the food that their health-seeking guests ate.

Today, the ranch sprawls over 2,965 acres at the foot of Mount Kuchumaa. The brick Spanish colonial revival complex with tile roofs is organized as casitas in a lush garden on the gently rolling property. The interiors have corner beehive fireplaces, large rough-hewn log ceilings, rough plaster walls with folk art in each room, and private patios. The public buildings and common areas are landscaped with brilliantly colored beds of flowers, trees, and shrubbery selected to thrive in Tecate’s semiarid climate. Winding paths meander past swimming pools, tennis courts, gymnasiums, a meditation labyrinth, and the large Spanish colonial dining hall. Sculptures adorn the lawns and other public spaces, including those by the well-known Mexican sculptor Francisco Zúñiga, and the scent of organically grown herbs permeates the massage and locker rooms.14 Today Tecate has a population of 51,557 with an economy based on beer brewing, car parts, and tourism. The town still celebrates a number of important fiestas, including the Vendimia (wine) Festival and processions in honor of the Virgen de Guadalupe on December 12, with music, popular and regional dances, and charrerías (Mexican rodeos). La Rumorosa, 41 miles east of Tecate at 4,300 feet, is a village with a huge rock formation that captures the sound of the wind and provides memorable vistas. Nearby is the remote oasis of Guadalupe Canyon Hot Springs, with bubbling hot springs that feed lush groves of native fan palms. Rock-rimmed hot tubs filled with sparkling-clear geothermal mineral water provide places for soaking among cascading waterfalls, indigenous caves, and hiking trails. Nearby is the wine country of the Guadalupe Valley.

Mexicali

Rancho La Puerta, Tecate, BC (anon., 1940); photo courtesy of Rancho La Puerta

Located in the northeast corner of the state, Mexicali was originally known as Laguna del Álamo and was inhabited by the Cucupá people. The border town was organized as a gridded urban plan in relationship to the gridded U.S. city of Calexico across the border (1898) and accommodated the diagonal railroad line and river that ran on the west side of the nascent city. Many Chinese immigrants arrived in the nineteenth century to build the railroads, and today the city’s “La Chinesca” (Chinatown) features numerous Chinese restaurants. The Catedral Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (anon., 1918) terminates a boulevard with a memorable walldominant façade with shaped espadaña and tower, while the interior is a composition of arched openings with finely crafted stained-glass windows.

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CALEXICO, CA

border fence Esc. Cuauhtémoc Parque Héroes De Chapultepec Esc. Leonra Vicario Catedral

Plaza Rio Nu ev o

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Urban plan, Mexicali, BC; drawing by Jonathan Sharp and Ricardo García-Báez

Notable civic buildings in the city include the Escuela Cuauhtémoc (Ing. Eduardo Trujillo, 1916) that axially aligns with a park parallel to the border, with a groundfloor colonnade and second-floor shaded porch, and today

Catedral Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, Mexicali, BC (anon., 1918); postcard, photographer unknown, ERBPC

is the Casa de Cultura; the two-story Palacio de Gobierno (Henry Clark Construction Co., 1919–1922), an abstracted Beaux-Arts composition with a prominent cornice organized around an open-air arcade and courtyard with fountain, which is now the administration building for the university (Universidad Autónoma de Baja California; UABC); the Escuela Primaria Urbana Federal Leona Vicario (Ing. José M. Acosta, 1923–1924), which originally featured a shaped espadaña at its entry; the one-story Palacio Municipal (anon., 1925) with colonnaded entry portico; the Escuela Primaria Benito Juárez (anon., 1926), now destroyed; and the Spanish colonial revival Correos y Telegráficos (Álvaro Aburto, 1947). Prominent commercial buildings include the Spanish colonial revival Colorado River Land Company Building (Mayer and Holler Inc., 1924), which is organized around a square courtyard but with informal massing; the Banco Agrícola Peninsular (Ing. Alfonso González Gallardo, 1927) that today is the Instituto de Bellas Artes; the Cooperativa Progreso (Ing.

252  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

(top left) Escuela Cuauhtémoc, Mexicali, BC (Ing. Eduardo Trujillo, 1916); photo ERB (top right) Rectoría UABC (former Palacio de Gobierno), Mexicali, BC (Henry Clark Construction Co., 1919–1922); photo ERB (bottom left) Escuela Primaria Urbana Federal Leona Vicario, Mexicali, BC (Ing. José M. Acosta, 1923–1924); photo ERB (bottom right) Colorado River Land Company Building, Mexicali, BC (Mayer and Holler Inc., 1924); photo ERB

Salvador España, 1925), an interesting wall-dominant composition with vertical slot windows surrounded by a climatic-responsive shaded colonnade; and the Cervecería Mexicali (anon., 1923). The Mexicali Project (Christopher Alexander and team, ca. 1976) was a co-op housing project where families were

taught how to build their own homes from a set of regionally responsive masonry building systems with a neovernacular vocabulary.15 Today Mexicali is the capital of Baja California Norte, an important agricultural center for growing cotton, fruit, and vegetables, and the thirteenth-largest city in the country with a population of 855,962. Nearby, at Laguna Volcán, is a rare mud volcano.

Ensenada Ensenada lies 70 miles south of the border, sited in the folds of the hills that surround the spectacular Bahía Todos Santos. Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo entered the bay and called it San Mateo (1542), but Sebastián Vizcaíno revisited the

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Military Headquarters and Barracks (currently Museo Histórico Regional), Ensenada, BC (anon., 1886); from el-molinito.blogspot .com

bay in 1602 and renamed it Ensenada de Todos Santos. Father Junípero Serra passed through the area to found the missions of Alta California (1769) and made the first report about the indigenous Yuman peoples who fished in the bay. Up to the mid-nineteenth century, Ensenada was a small settlement, but when gold was discovered in the nearby Real de Castillo Mine (1870), Ensenada grew and became the capital of the state (1882). The Aduana Marítima (Maritime Customs Building; International Company of Mexico, builder, 1887) is used today as a museum that focuses on the city’s history. The former Military Barracks (anon., 1886) later became a prison and today is the Museo Histórico Regional, and several of the former jail cells have been restored. It presents a somber, fortress-like façade at the street with crenellated parapet and towers and is organized around a central courtyard. A former private Residence (anon., 1887) that later served a variety of civic functions is today the Museo de Antropología e Historia INAH-Ensenada. George H. Sisson and Luis Huller obtained a land concession in Baja California (1884) for 18,000,000 acres and formed the International Company of Mexico (1885). The Ensenada City Plan (Richard J. Stephens, 1887) established the urban order of the town, and Stephens also designed other towns north and south of Ensenada. Unlike a traditional Mexican city with its centralized plaza, Ensenada was organized around commercial streets and residential neighborhoods and was to be named Ciudad del Porvenir (City of the Future). Ensenada was divided into 328-footsquare blocks, with streets 65 ft. wide, and lots were subdivided into 164 x 82 ft. parcels. Avenues were named for notable persons in alphabetical order in the downtown

area; the cross streets were ordered by number in the American tradition, a strategy that Tijuana and Mexicali followed.16 Ensenada had 440 inhabitants in 1887 and attracted farming, ranching, and small industries. The Hotel Iturbide (anon., 1887), a picturesque three-story building perched on a hill with a magnificent view of the bay, became the social center for the region’s elite. After another gold rush (1889–1890) in El Álamo, 62 miles southeast of Ensenada, Sisson sold his development (1889) in London to the Mexican Land Colonization Company. When the mines ran out, the mining buildings constructed by these English colonists were abandoned and are a ruin today. The oldest bar on the Baja California peninsula, Hussong’s Cantina (anon., 1892), was established by a German family in a former stagecoach terminal on the route from

(top) Ensenada Bay Land Subdivision Advertisement, Ensenada, BC (anon., ca. 1900); postcard, photographer unknown, ERBPC (bottom) Ensenada City Plan, Ensenada, BC (Richard J. Stephens, 1887); from Claudia M. Calderón A. and Bruno Geffroy A., Un siglo de arquitectura en Ensenada

254  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Hussong’s Cantina, Ensenada, BC (anon., 1892); postcard, photographer unknown

Templo Purísimo Corazón de María, Ensenada, BC (anon., 1887); postcard, MF, ERBPC

Los Angeles, CA, and presents a slender, bracketed wood façade at the street with a gabled roof hidden behind. It remains a favorite today of boisterous college students, surfers, and thirsty tourists from the United States. It remains little changed, and the saloon doors, tin ceiling, and long bar to slide beers on remain. By the end of the century, the town had a park; schools; telegraph; electricity; gas for street lighting; and maritime links to San Diego, San Francisco, and Mazatlán, Sin., and foreign vessels brought imports from around the world. Luisa Goicochea de Ochoa, a native of Mazatlán, Sin., convinced the military commander to donate the masonry for the construction of the Templo Purísimo Corazón de María (anon., 1887), an eclectic composition with a diminutive colonial-inspired vertical tower and a shaped scalloped parapet but with narrow vertical Gothic side windows. At the beginning of twentieth century, Ensenada was a bicultural town and the only large town in the isolated

northern Baja California. Ensenada’s economy temporarily declined when the capital was changed to Mexicali (1915) by Colonel Esteban Cantú. However, the economy improved when Baja California became a Duty Free Zone (late 1920s) and a paved road to Tijuana was constructed (1930s). In the late 1920s, the noted San Diego, CA, architect Irving Gill unsuccessfully tried to interest officials in Ensenada in building social housing.17 From the mid-thirties onward, the city continued to grow with increased migration and the influx of tourists drawn by fishing, drinking, and gambling. The Riviera del Pacífico (Ignacio Díaz Morales, 1930) was a magnificent picturesque Spanish colonial revival resort hotel complex that was frequented by Hollywood celebrities.18 The resort was sited on its own private beach and was organized around a series of lush gardens and shaded paved courtyards for outdoor eating that remain today. Tectonically, the complex was a white wall-dominant composition with volumetrically distinct public rooms, large arched windows at major public rooms such as the ballroom, ceramic tile accents at major doorways, and rectangular punched windows at guest rooms; it was surmounted by a sloping clay tile roof. Like the Agua Caliente Resort in Tijuana, the Riviera del Pacífico closed when President Cárdenas outlawed gambling (1938). Fortunately, unlike the Agua Caliente Resort, it has been adaptively reused as a cultural event center and museum. During World War II, Ensenada became a naval base, the fishing canneries flourished, and by the 1960s the city had grown to 85,000 inhabitants.19 The fish market, at the northernmost corner of the harbor, reflects the regional cuisine of Ensenada with its daily fresh fish catch and delicious Baja fish tacos. Motor hotels sprang up to cater to U.S. tourists, including the Misión Santa Isabel Hotel (anon., ca. 1945) and the Hotel Bahía (anon., ca. 1945).

Riviera del Pacífico, Ensenada, BC (Ignacio Díaz Morales, 1930); postcard, Frye and Smith Ltd., San Diego, CA; ERBPC

Baja California Norte and Sur  255 (left) Misión Santa Isabel Hotel, Ensenada, BC (anon., ca. 1945); postcard, photo Bitterlin, Paul Hall Specialty Sales, V. Raul Corral, Ensenada, BC; ERBPC (center) Hotel Bahía, Ensenada, BC (anon., ca. 1945); postcard, Western Lithograph Co., Los Angeles, CA; ERBPC (bottom) Augen Optics Laboratories, Ensenada, BC (Alberto Kalach/ TAX 2001); courtesy of architect

An elite subdivision sited north of the city, Chapultepec Hills was named for the prestigious wealthy subdivision in Mexico City. It offered spectacular views of the bay and seclusion from the bustle of the city below, including a number of undervalued modernist private residences. One of the best new buildings in the region, Augen Optics Laboratories (Alberto Kalach/TAX 2001), creates a new landmark for the city, recalling the oil depots along the highway. The project is an addition in front of the existing production complex, and the program includes high-tech research laboratories, workshops, administrative offices, and a cafeteria. The tower is clad in a series of lizard-scalelike steel panels that control the strong desert light, create varying degrees of opacity, and allow slits of light into the work spaces. The metal cylinder structure and V columns are both able to absorb seismic forces.20

256  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Hotel Endémico, outskirts of Ensenada, BC (Jorge Gracia, 2012); courtesy of architect

Puerto San Felipe Resort Proposal, Puerto San Felipe, BC (Alberto Kalach/TAX, 2006); courtesy of architect

As an important industrial, fishing, and tourist center, the city today has 413,481 inhabitants. On the south side of Punta Banda Peninsula is the spectacular La Bufadora, where rough surf breaks against cliffs and a “blowhole” produces a geyser 70 feet high. In the wine country outside the city is one of the best

recent projects in the area, the Hotel Endémico (Jorge Gracia, 2012), a boutique resort that features twenty abstract steel-frame cabins clad in metal siding that touch lightly on the rugged sloping site strewn with boulders that offers spectacular views. The 232-acre site is dotted with small vineyards and includes an infinity pool and Jacuzzi,

Baja California Norte and Sur  257 wireless Internet, and built-in stereo systems, as well as a 19,400-square-foot wine-production facility also designed by the architect that will house a tasting room and restaurant. Instead of allowing cars on the site, staff members shuttle guests. Sixteen one-bedroom units of 200 square feet and four two-bedroom units with 240 square feet are sited for views and privacy between 30 and 600 feet apart. Hovering over each cabin are angled corrugatedmetal canopies that provide shade and mitigate solar heat gain. Rusted steel panels coated in flaxseed oil to slow further rusting are affixed to steel frames that were precut at the client’s manufacturing facility in Mexicali, 130 miles distant. The room interiors are restrained with white or black plastic laminate walls, concrete floors, and minimal furnishings.21 Nearby are also several important proposals by the noted Mexico City architect Mauricio Rocha, including a number of resort and residential projects. Farther distant, a remarkable comprehensive coastal proposal for a sustainable resort, Puerto San Felipe (Alberto Kalach/TAX, 2006), is designed as a series of geometricized parallel blocks punctuated by thin tall towers.

Santa Rosalía Santa Rosalía was established (1885) on the Sea of Cortés after the discovery of rich copper deposits by the El Boleo Copper Company, founded by the Rothschild family of Paris and the Mirbaud Bank. (“Boleo” refers to the bowling-ball-shaped spherical copper ore.) The town grew as a French enclave in Mexico and a commercial mining port on the Sea of Cortés. The mining company imported Native American labor from Sonora, built a water supply pipeline to the town, and constructed a harbor to ship processed ore. With rows of uniform wood-frame buildings with sloping roofs and surrounded by shaded verandas, as well as several smelters, Santa Rosalía looks like a hybrid company mining town in the American Southwest/French Caribbean. The wood for these buildings was brought on the ships that exported copper ore to refineries in Oregon and British Columbia.22 The town consists of two plateaus separated by the Arroyo Santa Rosalía. The northern plateau with a panoramic view of the smelter, the Mesa Francia, is organized around the Plaza Benito Juárez and still has many wood-frame nineteenth-century French residences and commercial buildings. These include the Palacio Municipal (anon., ca. 1890) that fronts the plaza, the Biblioteca (Library; anon., ca. 1890), the El Boleo Panadería (El Boleo Bakery; anon., ca. 1890), and the Museo Minero de Santa

Panorama showing the Plaza Benito Juárez with Palacio Municipal, the Hotel Central, the Biblioteca (library), the El Boleo Panadería (bakery), and the current Museo Minero de Santa Rosalía, Santa Rosalía, BCS; postcard, photographer unknown

Rosalía (anon., ca. 1890) in the former mining office. Bordering the museum are a series of richly painted wooden clapboard single-family houses in mango, lemon, blueberry, and cherry colors. The Hotel Francés (anon., 1886) was the hotel of choice for elite business guests during the height of mining operations, and it remains a hotel today. The front of the building has a lobby, restaurant, and bar with a wraparound veranda, while guest rooms are located around a rear courtyard with pool surrounded by wooden porches and balconies. The interiors of the guest rooms feature the original wood-plank floors and tiled bathrooms. In contrast, the southern plateau was socially differentiated for working-class Mexican employees. Copper was exported, the French citizens of the town prospered, and the number of bars rapidly increased. Women in the town, led by Sra. La Forgue, the wife of the first manager of El Boleo, believed that religion would be a civilizing influence and persuaded the mine owners to build a church. On a European trip, the La Forgues stopped in Belgium (1894), where a church was sitting dismantled in a warehouse in Brussels that originally was intended as a termite-resistant church for the French colonies on the African equator and was exhibited at the Paris World’s Fair. An article in the Parisian newspaper La Paix, reprinted in the Mexican El Eco del Valle (The Valley Echo, 1894), is one of the few documents remaining that refers to the transaction: The Company requested a collapsible, transportable, metal church from the French metal industry and got it at a price that was less than what a stone church would have cost. It will be sent to Mexico. It will be

258  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Iglesia Santa Bárbara, Santa Rosalía, BCS (Gustave Eiffel, 1884; assembled 1890); Wikimedia Commons, Wonderlane Wonderlane

erected without the need for any foundations; it is 30 x 16 meters; it has a bell and a cross. The frame is made of metal and the walls are covered with steel and have a 23 cm insulating air cushion. The air can be renewed by means of valves, so that the building will be as fresh as one made of stone. This small sample from our national industry may possibly be a precursor to a peaceful revolution in the construction of buildings in the future.23 Fabricated of flat galvanized iron shipped in sections from France around Cape Horn, Iglesia Santa Bárbara (Gustave Eiffel, 1884; assembled 1890) was named for the patron saint of mining and miners (1897). Tectonically, the church is similar to the prefabricated steel house systems produced for export to the European colonies. The roofs were made of laminated metal, and the walls were metal modular panels fixed in place with standardized bolts. Unfortunately, the technical innovation of a double wall to control heat gain did not work on-site,24 but the metal

frames were ideal for a location such as Baja California that had to withstand hurricanes and earthquakes. Regrettably, this innovative work of architecture was carelessly remodeled over time. In the 1950s, the side aisle roofs supported by columns were made into part of the nave, and the lower part of the arches were enclosed under wooden cladding. Ore deterioration and other problems forced the closure of the mines (1953), but newly discovered supplies of copper and manganese led a Mexican company to continue mining operations on a smaller scale before the mines finally closed (1985). Today the town has a ferry service connection to Guaymas, Son.

San Ignacio In a rocky ravine 89 miles south of Guerrero Negro is the lush oasis town of San Ignacio. An underground river comes to the surface here that creates a quiet lagoon bordered by red grass and shaded by large date palms. The

Baja California Norte and Sur  259 lush green oasis dramatically contrasts with the surrounding desert and craggy mountains and was called Kadacaaman (Red Grass River) by the indigenous Cochimí. The first European to see it was the Jesuit Padre Francisco María Piccolo (1716). The oasis of San Ignacio flows into a river that runs from 12 to 18 miles, and in the summer it waters orchards and palms, creates freshwater pools along a pedestrian walkway, and provides habitat for species such as carp, turtles, and bullfrogs. The colonial church of San Ignacio de Loyola (Fernando Consag, SJ, and Juan Crisóstomo Gómez, Dominican, 1728–1786) is sited on the town’s small plaza that is shaded by leafy trees surrounded by narrow streets and nineteenth-century urban fabric.25 San Ignacio is also the gateway for the area’s cave paintings in the Sierra of San Francisco. The Fiesta for San Ignacio takes place the last week of July, when the plaza fills in the evening with light, music, dance, and fireworks, while the fair features horse races and cockfights.

year-round, enters the Sea of Cortés. The town is a lush oasis of mangroves, palms, and orange orchards that dramatically contrasts with the surrounding desert to form one of the most exquisite landscapes of Baja California. The original Santa Rosalía Mission was completed in 1766 to serve an indigenous population of two thousand but was destroyed in a flood in 1770. It was rebuilt on its current site on a bluff overlooking the river as an L-shaped plan and was abandoned in 1828 but later restored.

Mulegé Mulegé (from a Cochimí word for “great gorge with the white mouth”) was founded (1705) as a mission in an oasis estuary where the Río Santa Rosalía, which flows

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Mision de Santa Rosalia de Mulege

(top right) Palm Oasis, Mulegé, BCS; Wikimedia Commons, Tomás Castelazo (above) Urban plan, Mulegé, BCS; drawing by Ricardo García-Báez

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260  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico The town’s Penitentiary (anon., 1906) is a series of superimposed discrete wall systems. An elaborately shaped wall parapet with crenellated vertical towers at the corners frames a double-loaded square block of cells organized around a courtyard. Due to the isolation of the town, prisoners were allowed to go out to work in the morning and then return to the prison at night. Some prisoners married women in the town and had families, and some of their descendants continue to live in the town. Prisoners even pursued escapees to reincarcerate them! The facility continued to serve as a prison until it was converted to a cultural museum (1975). Today the town has a population of approximately 3,100 and is a tranquil tourist destination.

Loreto Loreto (named for the Italian Marian devotion to Our Lady of Loreto) is set between the Sea of Cortés and the mountains of the Sierra de la Giganta. The craggy islands of Coronado—Del Carmen, Montserrat, Santa Catalina, and Danzante—emerge from the waters just offshore and form a series of varied beaches along the coastline. The surrounding waters provide habitat for mother-of-pearl, starfish, sea urchins, fan coral, dolphins, sea lions, blue whales, and killer whales and was protected as a National Maritime Park in 2000. The warm coastal waters are also the destination for the 8,000-mile annual journey of gray whales from the icy waters of the Bering Sea to birth their calves. Loreto was initially explored by Europeans in 1533, and several expeditions followed in search of pearls but failed due to the difficulties of obtaining supplies, the resistance of indigenous peoples, and attacks by pirates. Loreto ultimately became the site of the earliest permanent colonial settlement of the Californias when Juan María Salvatierra founded the Misión Nuestra Señora de Loreto (anon., 1697, 1752–1840). It has been heavily restored, and its basic solid, squat, simple single-nave plan organization consists of five arched bays with a roof of closely spaced wood beams resting on transitional wood brackets. The inscription over the door reads: “The head and mother church of the missions of upper and lower California,” attesting to its importance as the birthplace of the Californias. The baroque altarpiece that came from Mexico City frames the “Virgen de Loreto” that was brought by Padre Kino. An unusual, eclectic Bell Tower (anon., late 19th c.) was added that gives the mission its distinctive profile. The mission was the head of the Jesuit missions of the Californias that were later administered by the Franciscans, and it served as the administrative capital of the entire territory until a devastating

hurricane struck (1829) that destroyed the city and resulted in the capital being relocated to La Paz. Next door is a small Museum (anon., 19th c.) organized as an L-shaped courtyard scheme with five rooms around a verdant garden patio. Austere, 3-foot-thick stone walls with small openings that admit light and a flat roof form the interior rooms that remain cool in the summer. The walls are so thick that in front of each of the small windows is a small seat built into the wall. The transition to the courtyard is by means of a covered open-air arcade of closely spaced rafters with a palm-frond roof that have held up well in the arid climate. In the middle of the court is a well surrounded by lush plantings. The scheme is remarkably appropriate for this hot desert climate. The museum chronicles the early conversion and colonization of Baja California, displays a scarce collection of early religious art from the missions of Baja California, and houses

Misión Nuestra Señora de Loreto, Loreto, BCS (1697, 1752–1840; bell tower, late 19th c.); photo ERB

Baja California Norte and Sur  261

Courtyard of museum, Loreto, BCS (anon., 19th c.); photo ERB

the declaration of Loreto as the historical capital of the Californias. The original city was loosely organized as a grid centered around the mission and plaza and facing the bay on the north side of the Arroyo de Loreto. Later, street trees appeared, and today tightly shaped ficus street trees form a welcome shade canopy of arched topiary over Calle Salvatierra. In the mid-nineteenth century, a small group of English settlers arrived, and a number of local families have British names. Late-twentieth-century development has occurred at the perimeter, primarily along the coastline. The malecón (ocean walk) and Boulevard López Mateos that parallel the town’s beach form the major public space and promenade of the city. Loreto was economically isolated until the Transpeninsular Highway arrived (1973) and an airport was built. Today, Loreto is a popular destination for fishing and diving enthusiasts and is enjoying renewed growth with the development of southern Baja California. The city features a rich local cuisine that includes cebiche, fish tacos,

Ficus street trees at Calle Salvatierra, Loreto, BCS (anon., 20th c.); photo ERB

lobster, seafood dishes, and the famous “almejas tatemadas” (chocolate grilled clams). Nine miles south of town, Nopoló is envisioned by FONATUR26 as a megaresort on the scale of Cancún, with clear water, several medium- and small-sized beaches, and a distinctive view of enormous El Carmen Island. An

262  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico airport has been designed, roads have been built, and electricity has been installed. As a result, downtown Loreto has been renovated and gentrified to a degree. One of the most interesting developments near Loreto is the sustainable New Urbanist community of Loreto Bay (Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company, 2000), a town plan for an eco-friendly resort community. The master plan follows many of the well-known New Urbanist precepts of the firm, including a ten-point plan that is ambitious and idealistic in the context of the reality of most real-world short-sighted development. However, it also remains to be seen if the development, despite the best of intentions, will become a nostalgic enclave, as opposed to a traditional town of messy vitality where wealthy and working poor live in close proximity. Forty miles away is the colonial Misión San Javier (1744– 1749), with white sand beaches to the south. Puerto Escondido, adjacent to Nopoló, is a small bay that features coves with small beaches and is almost completely closed off by the intimate Danzante Island and the mountains of the Sierra Gorda. Nearby, Bahía Concepción is a protected bay with blue-green waters and several small coves that can be accessed from the highway linking this town with Mulegé. Playa Santispac is surrounded by mangrove swamps bordered by rugged hills. At El Requesón, a white sand dune adjoins exposed rocks, and to the south at Bahía de Magdalena, a rocky outcrop becomes surrounded by water at

Loreto Bay, Loreto, BCS (Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company, 2000); courtesy of DPZ and Company

high tide to form a small island. Toward the northwest lies Laguna Ojo de Liebre de San Ignacio, where whales birth their young.

La Paz In 1535, Hernán Cortés entered the waters of a tranquil bay ringed by mangrove swamps with a vivid green shoreline in sharp contrast to the rugged, craggy, arid landscape of the surrounding desert. Cortés had come to investigate the reports of his officers who had explored the region (1533), who had been drawn by the legend of an island inhabited by women and rich in pearls and gold called “California.” Cortés named the place Santa Cruz, and found pearls in abundance, which made their way to aristocratic European households and became the economic impetus for the town. However, the geographic isolation, extreme summer heat, shortage of water, and the difficulties of obtaining supplies from the mainland discouraged settlement. The mission of Nuestra Señora del Pilar de La Paz Airapí (1720) was established by Jesuits from Loreto, BCS. However, the mission was abandoned due to lack of water and indigenous rebellions; not until 1811 was a permanent settlement established. These factors have given the city and its inhabitants a particularly independent character. Paceños (citizens of La Paz) include immigrants of Spanish, English, German, French, Chinese, Italian, Turkish, and Lebanese origins, as well as Mexicans from the mainland attracted by the pearl commerce and those who came to avoid the political turmoil of the nineteenth century and the Mexican Revolution. When the pearl trade mysteriously disappeared due to a marine disease in the 1940s, tourism related to deepsea fishing reinvigorated the city economically. At the top of a hill a few blocks from the malecón and bay, the Plaza Constitución (anon., 19th c.; restored 1981), originally the Jardín Velasco, is the former center of the city. A bandstand still provides music for strolling families in the evening in a landscape of palms, tamarind, rosebays, and laurel of India. At one side of the plaza is the Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Paz (anon., 1861), organized as a Latin cross plan and built by Dominican priests on the foundation of the original mission. The neoclassical façade features twin towers crafted of tan quarry stone. The interior has a curved ceiling of wood planks that recalls a boat, with an octagonal oculus that allows light into the middle of the nave. Statues in the interior include Nuestra Señora de La Paz, El Sagrado Corazón, and an oil painting of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe. The image of Nuestra Señora del

Baja California Norte and Sur  263 activities of the first half of the twentieth century, and then became a movie theater, the Juárez Cinema (1945). After being abandoned, it was restored (1996) to become a 1,500seat performing arts facility with art studios, galleries, workshops for children, a play area, and library. The facility features the La Paz Symphony, ballet companies, folkloric groups, dance ensembles, popular music, and experimental theater. Next to the theater are four windmills that originally pumped water and generated electricity. The Palacio de Gobierno (anon., ca. 1903), sited on a triangular site, was formerly the city hall, a political party office, and a military headquarters, and then became the state’s seat of government (1972). It is composed as a collage of informal neoclassical masonry elements with a centralized, squat two-story block with a rusticated base and rough brick walls with an attached three-story vertical tower of coursed stone. The entrance at the ground

Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Paz, La Paz, BCS (anon., 1861); photo ERB

Pilar and a few theological books are all that have survived from the original 1720 colonial-era mission. A side chapel contains an extraordinary wood model with exaggerated proportions of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome that is dramatically lighted in its niche. On the other side of the plaza is the Antiguo Palacio Municipal (Edmund Vives, 1889), composed in a rich eclectic vocabulary with a variety of textured surfaces and architectonic elements, utilizing a neoclassical vocabulary with references to the region’s eighteenth- and nineteenthcentury missions; a central tower over the entry has remarkable angular moldings that anticipate art deco architecture.27 Today it houses the Biblioteca de Historia de las Californias research library, with a large mural on the interior representing “Calafia,” the mythical “Queen of Golden California.” West of the plaza is the Teatro Juárez (anon., 1888–1910), which housed the most important political and cultural

Antiguo Palacio Municipal, La Paz, BCS (Edmund Vives, 1889); photo ERB

Teatro Juárez, La Paz, BCS (anon., 1888–1910); paola23070.tripod .com

264  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico La Perla de La Paz (The Pearl of La Paz), La Paz, BCS (Antonio Rufo Santa Cruz, builder, late 19th c.); photographer unknown, ca. 1929, Tripod.com

floor on the wall-dominant façade is marked by a shaped espadaña with a flagpole above and with three large arched windows and a balcony at the second floor. La Perla de La Paz (The Pearl of La Paz; Antonio Rufo Santa Cruz, builder, late 19th c.) was a large department store and export-import and shipping business in a neoclassical mode of composition on Calle Comercio, the main commercial street of the city. A cornice terminates the façade punctuated with a series of urns that make a complex profile. A few blocks southeast, away from the plaza on Avenida Cinco de Mayo, is the neoclassical Biblioteca Justo Sierra (Ing. Manuel Balarezo, 1918) that was originally the residence of the local political chief, Gen. Manuel Mezta; later a tuberculosis hospital (1930s); then a prison (1946–1972); and today serves as a children’s library adjacent to the city’s anthropology museum. The building is organized as an L-shaped courtyard that makes a wall at the street with an articulated tower at its corner. An ethnobotanical garden with medicinal herbs is in the rear courtyard. The ground floor features grand public rooms with 20-foot-high ceilings with shuttered two-story-high windows with iron grills. The walls are quarry stone, and thin stones level the courses of rough, rusticated pink cantera. Nearby, a Residence (anon., ca. 1905), a wood-frame building with lacy Victorian ornament and wide overhangs to respond to the hot desert climate, reflects the ability to import wood by maritime commerce from the United States and Canada.

The city is now reoriented from the plaza to the ocean. The malecón, a 3-mile-long pedestrian walk lined with palms and dappled light along the edge of the Sea of Cortés, is the most delightful public place in the city. This oceanside promenade caters to both locals and tourists for walking, watching sunsets, enjoying the ocean, observing people, and eating informal meals from carts of food vendors. A series of public sculptures line the malecón, with

(top) Biblioteca Justo Sierra, La Paz, BCS (Ing. Manuel Balarezo, 1918); photo ERB (bottom) Wood-frame residence, La Paz, BCS (anon., ca. 1905); photo ERB

Baja California Norte and Sur  265 the most memorable being La Paloma (The Dove; Juan Soriano, ca. 1972), a robust bronze similar to the one that graces the entry court to the MARCO in Monterrey, NL. Parallel to the malecón is Avenida Álvaro Obregón, which offers motorists a promenade along the bay and is lined with shops, restaurants, and hotels. The nearby Muelle Turístico (anon., 19th c.; remodeled ca. 1980) was the former Muelle Fiscal (Commercial Wharf ), where dolphins can be observed only a few yards away. Kayakers, divers, and fishermen who venture farther into the bay can experience whales, manta rays, and sailfish. Among the best modernist works in the city is the more recent Palacio de Gobierno (Pedro Moctezuma, 1962). The week before Ash Wednesday is Carnival, featuring food, music, dancing, and parades. Candelmas is a spring fiesta that combines pre-Columbian and European traditions, including candlelight processions and a blessing of seeds. Although many shops still close for the siesta, the city is the political and industrial center of the region, home to 232,546, and features the most important university in Baja California Sur, the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California.

gable roof that is framed by two tall towers crowned with vertical steeples, reflecting the memories of the European immigrants to the town. The front façade is plastered and cream colored with bright wine-colored trim, while the body of the church is exposed reddish brick. Visitors go in through an arched entry with an arched window above. Nearby on the Camino Real de Santa Ana that connected El Triunfo with San Antonio are more abandoned nineteenth-century buildings and mines, including El Hormiguero, Santa Rosa, and Mina Mendoceña. Like El Triunfo, San Antonio was a rich silver-mining town in the eighteenth century that was “mined out” at the beginning of the twentieth century. North on Highway 1 toward La Paz, on the Ejido El Rosario and then ten minutes on a dirt road, is the Cactus Sanctuary.28 This natural reserve of 124 acres includes a desert preserve of 12 acres in its initial stage that preserves flora and fauna of the desert surrounding La Paz. A self-guided tour along marked pathways provides an interpretive text with information about the region’s plants and animals. In addition to cactus and other desert plants, visitors can learn about the interrelationship between the local ecosystem and the animal life of the desert.

El Triunfo Thirty miles to the south of La Paz is the mining town of El Triunfo, established as a silver and gold mining town during the colonial era. The El Progreso Mining Company began working the site (1878), and the population increased from 175 to more than 4,000 persons (1890), many of them Italians, English, French, Germans, and Chinese in addition to the Mexican workers who came from the mainland. In tectonic contrast to Gustav Eiffel’s prefabricated cast-iron church in Santa Rosalía, BCS, the main chimney, La Ramona (Ing. Gustave Eiffel, ca. 1885), is built of brick and tapers as a sentinel toward the sky. Another, smaller brick chimney, Julia, also towers against the sky. Due to the prosperity of the mines, El Triunfo was the first town with electricity and telephone service in Baja California. An austere church was built, but the El Progreso Mining Company left the town in 1912, and the town was abandoned when mining the remaining ore deposits of the mountains became uneconomical. Today, El Triunfo is a haunted ruin with the La Ramona and Julia chimneys and abandoned stores, offices, and housing. An extremely abstracted, austere neoclassical Church (anon., ca. 1885) is sited at the side of the road, organized as a Latin cross plan with transept. The front façade is heavily bracketed with cornices and pilasters and features a centralized volume spanned with a steeply pitched

Todos Santos Fifty miles south of La Paz on Highway 1 is the oasis town of Todos Santos. Todos Santos is an unusually fertile area and due to the humidity and the breezes from the Pacific Ocean is 5 to 10 degrees C. cooler than the arid desert. The Mission Santa Rosa de las Palmas (anon., 18th c.) was founded in 1733 but abandoned in 1840 due to depopulation. Jesuit missionaries introduced sugarcane production, and there were eight sugar mills in the town (1850). A number of neoclassical buildings were constructed, including offices, hotels, and theaters. Prominent build-

Hotel Guaycura (former post office and municipal bldg.), Todos Santos, BCS (anon., ca. 1890); photo Francisco Estrada, courtesy Hotel Guaycura

266  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico ings include the Main School (anon., ca. 1890), which features a mural done by the first generation of teachers from the Regional School Painters of the Northwest, and the neoclassical Hotel Guaycura (anon., ca. 1890) that was formerly the Palacio Municipal and Post Office. However, the overutilization of the springs, drought, and the low prices for sugar after World War II caused a collapse in the economy that took several decades to recover from. Today, sugarcane production remains and has generated small businesses such as candy-making and bakeries. Todos Santos became an art colony after Charles Stewart established his studio there in 1986. Many nineteenthand early-twentieth-century buildings from the peak of sugarcane production in the town have been repurposed as hotels, inns, restaurants, and art galleries. In addition to its architectural tourism, the town promotes art, handcrafts, and sugarcane-related production. The Festival de Arte (Art Festival) is held in February and is the most important art festival in the state, featuring local, national, and foreign artists. Two miles south of Todos Santos, on the way to Cabo San Lucas, are the San Pedrito, Los Cerritos, El Estero, Punta Lobos, La Poza, and Batequitos beaches that are noted for surfing and camping.29 Nearby, 10 miles north of Los Barriles, is the town of San Bartolo, sited in the foothills in a large spring-fed arroyo that runs along the base of a valley and provides the town with a plentiful and welcome supply of fresh water. This town features thatched-roof homes and is noted for its mangos, avocados, local candies, and fruit-filled empanadas.

facilities from the 1980s onward, planning has been haphazard, and much of the commercial architecture of the area is uninspired, with several notable exceptions. Natives of Cabo San Lucas (sanluqueños) primarily live north and northwest of the plaza. The Hacienda Condominiums (Legorreta Arquitectos, 1972) were an addition to the existing Hacienda Resort Hotel and were one of the most innovative beach condominium projects in the Americas.30 They faced a white sandy sloping beach on the Bay of Cabo San Lucas and sublimated the project to the beach landscape by burying them into the existing sloping profile of the sand dunes. Thus, the project primarily framed views within splayed walls of this magnificent place with an empathetic and mimetic attitude toward the landscape, as well as creating shade and coolness. The condominium units were conceived as freestanding clusters of units staggered along two parallel slopes. Due to the existing slope of the beach,

Cabo San Lucas Cabo San Lucas lies at the tip of the Baja California peninsula where the Pacific Ocean meets the Sea of Cortés in a natural harbor marked by craggy, rocky outcrops, including the landmark Los Arcos that creates a natural bay. From a quiet cannery for fishing in the nineteenth century, the area has transformed into a luxury tourist mecca with over 550,000 visitors each year arriving by car, airline, and cruise ship. Noted for its sandy beaches and dry climate where desert dramatically meets the sea, the resort area is one of the best fishing areas of the world, with pristine clear waters teeming with ocean life, including dolphins and whales. The little historic urban fabric that remains is centered on the plaza just to the north of the harbor, with nineteenth-century buildings that have been restored. The centerpiece of the plaza is the Iglesia de San Lucas (anon., 1730–ca. 1880), the town’s church with its simple façade that gleams in the sun. Due to the rapid growth of tourist

Iglesia de San Lucas, Cabo San Lucas, BCS (anon., 1730–ca. 1880); photo ERB

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Hacienda Condominiums (Section), Cabo San Lucas, BCS (Legorreta Arquitectos, 1972); courtesy of Office of Legorreta + Legorreta

each unit had a view to the ocean, and light and natural ventilation was accomplished with entry courtyards and entry stairs at the rear of the unit. Outside each unit bougainvillea and one or two palms were planted. The project made a quiet architecture that allowed the landscape (the fundamental reason to visit and inhabit this place) to dominate. Unfortunately, the project was altered over time with uncaring, thoughtless minor additions, and this important project is currently scheduled for demolition (2006) to make room for more hotel units. No attempt was made to save Legorreta’s project in the new one that is basically anonymous, and this demolition is a real loss to the architectural culture of the region. Today, Cabo San Lucas has basically no urban or regional plan other than ad hoc market forces and the whims of individual developers and architects, and the landscape is unfortunately compromised by development largely unrelated to the specifics of this place. The Hotel Westin Regina (Javier Sordo Madaleno B. and José de Yturbe Bernal, 1993) is the best of the new luxury megaresorts that line the “corridor,” the 20-mile coastal road between Cabo San Lucas and San José del Cabo. Situated on a spectacular steep, rocky desert site overlooking the ocean, the project forms a semicircular walled oasis that frames a spectacular view of the ocean from inside the garden court. The resort is approached from the highway by an access road left in its desert state that leads to a covered open-air reception area, auto court, and area for conventions, which occur on several levels that take advantage of the steeply sloping site. The curving multistory block of the guest rooms forms a “dam” of garden oasis space, with single-loaded circulation on the oasis side, giving each room a spectacular ocean view. On the beach side lie pools and restaurants that look out to the ocean and up and down the coastline. A freestanding specialty restaurant is

also farther up the hill on the beach side. Opposite the specialty restaurant, and following the topography of the site, are two- and three-story condominiums. While also walldominant, they are expressed as a texture of discrete elements in contrast to the monolithic curved block of guest rooms. The project extends the wall-dominant architectural vocabulary of Ricardo Legorreta’s abstracted vernacular architecture. The materials reflect both the traditions of vernacular architecture, the colors of the site, and the massive scale of the project. The predominant color of the exterior textured plaster walls refers to the color of the rocky desert site, with contrasting rich accent colors that define areas, openings, and special functions. The wall-dominant composition is contrasted with stone floors and massive wood guardrails. The interior walls are executed in soothing sand colors.

Hotel Westin Regina, Cabo San Lucas, BCS (Javier Sordo Madaleno B. and José de Yturbe Bernal, 1993); photo ERB

Weiss Residence, Cabo San Lucas, BCS (Steven Harris, 2002); photo ERB

268  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico The most memorable recent work of residential architecture in Cabo San Lucas is the Weiss Residence (Steven Harris, 2002), designed by a noted U.S. architect and Yale School of Architecture faculty member. The residence is sited in an exclusive residential subdivision on a rocky cliff outcrop that faces the ocean above the port. The site is arid and rocky, interspersed with sandy windswept soils and sparse natural vegetation of desert grasses and cacti. To preserve this landscape and disturb it as little as possible, Harris organized the residence into two separate narrow, horizontal living wings that form a desert court that takes advantage of the rocky sloping site and provides spectacular views as well as cross ventilation. The pool cantilevers along the edge of the rocky cliff. The residence is expressed as a mimetic lower level that is engaged into the rocky cliff and utilizes native stone walls, while the upper floor seemingly lightly hovers above with transparent glass walls and a floating roof. The approach to the residence from the street is down steps carved into the rock at an entrance pavilion, and looks down on the gravel roofs with a view of the Pacific, which gives some sense of dramatic choreographed experience beyond. From the carport, one passes between large boulders, down a stair carved out of the rock, to a ramp between two walls where a view of the sea is denied. The path through an entrance pavilion opens into a rock garden, a reconstituted fragment of desert outcrop sprouting spiny cactus. On the east of this internal courtyard is the (private) master bedroom; on the west are living and dining rooms above a study, with guest accommodation fitted into the cliff below. Along the south cliff edge are an open pavilion with study and guest bedrooms beneath, and a pool, cantilevered toward the Pacific.31

Club Dolphin, Cabo San Lucas, BCS (TEN Arquitectos, Enrique Norten, 2005); photo ERB

Formally, the building’s vocabulary and sensory experiences have some elements that contrast with the site, while others bear a mimetic relationship to it. Views open to the vast expanse of ocean and also to intimate framed views of the desert. Some rooms are heavy and cavelike, while others at the cliff edge are light and barely enclosed by glass and seem suspended in midair. Light is carefully composed in the residence. Plexiglas rods embedded in the east wall of the master bedroom pick up the first rays of sunlight and project large circles on the opposite wall. Underground media and exercise rooms, excavated out of the rock cliff face, by day are illuminated by slivers cut through the site, yet also cast luminance at night over the rocky surface and over the entrance path. Steps of underlit stone seem to float at night. A glassbottomed skylight collects water during the short and torrential rains, and also serves as a skylight over a glass shower and over the guest room below. The tectonic system is conventional reinforced concrete walls, floors, and roof with high-strength laminated glazed openings. Because the region is subject to hurricanes, the large expanses of glass walls are braced by steel anchors and also have roll-up hurricane shutters. The interiors are thoughtfully and carefully detailed to achieve a sublime stasis with abstracted, subtle wood cabinets, highly abstracted plumbing fixtures, and carefully composed modernist furniture. Another quality work of architecture in Cabo San Lucas is the new Club Dolphin (Enrique Norten/TEN Arquitectos, 2005). It is sited on the north edge of the harbor on a triangular site with the harbor promenade on one side. The private facility provides an intimate two-hour experience of swimming with dolphins. The sequence is carefully choreographed with entrance at the side from the harbor promenade into a cool, cavelike exposed-concrete reception area that offers porthole views into the dolphin pool with a framed view south to the harbor. The visitor is drawn by the sound of splashing water into a triangular desert garden court that is refreshing, with lounges under shaded umbrellas, a palm grove, and desert landscaping. A stair takes the visitor up to the pool area with a panoramic view of the harbor and the main attraction, the highly sociable dolphins in a large oval-shaped pool. The pool is divided into two halves, one for interacting with visitors and the other for breeding. The project is characterized by its low-slung massing of a heavy oval boat-shaped pouredin-place concrete base and contrasting lighter metallic equipment and secondary enclosure elements of canopies and guardrails against the sky. The contrasting elements are conceptually and tectonically distinct, although the

Baja California Norte and Sur  269 crafting and construction are rough, reflecting the realities of local labor. It also remains to be seen if the facility can maintain its pristine condition over time, as so much modernist work in Mexico has been eroded by weathering and thoughtless additions and alterations. Nonetheless, it is a memorable building, particularly in terms of its sensory experience of moving through the building to shade and coolness and the sound of splashing water.

San José del Cabo The older colonial town of San José del Cabo was founded (1730) by the Jesuit missionary Padre Nicolás Tamaral in an attempt to convert the indigenous people and curb their frequent uprisings and polygamous lifestyle. This port oasis town southeast of Cabo San Lucas at the mouth of the Río San José was a strategic port during the colonial era as a source of fresh water for galleons traveling to and from the Philippines. Today, the estuary on the Río San José remains as a lush reed and palm grove. The town is less gentrified than Cabo San Lucas and today functions both as a servicing city for “Cabo” and also as a less-expensive popular tourist resort. It is connected by a highway lined with expensive resorts that are being built farther and farther away from Cabo San Lucas among more pristine desert landscape and beaches, while another highway leads to an international airport located midway between both and serves both cities. While the majority of the urban fabric of San José del Cabo is today dominated by anonymous tourist-related facilities, several noteworthy works of architecture remain in the town near the plaza. The center of the town is the Plaza Mijares (anon., 19th c.), named for José Ángel Mijares, a naval officer who defended the town during a siege by U.S. naval forces at the time of the Mexican-American War (1846–1848). On one edge of the plaza toward the top of the hill is the town’s church, Misión de las Palmas de San José del Cabo (anon., late 19th c.; remodeled 1940). The church is organized as a Latin cross plan with side entrances and a choir loft at the back. The bracketed façade is a wall-dominant composition with 3-foot-thick walls. The façade is divided into three bays, with a central bay with a shaped espadaña against the sky that marks the single-nave church and two symmetrical towers at either side framed by thick pilasters. The upper level of the bell tower steps back and is crowned with a steeply sloping pyramidal roof with crosses, and recalls the parish church of Guaymas, Son., across the Sea of Cortés. The façade is currently painted tan with white trim. The roof is a modern replacement after the original was destroyed.

Misión de las Palmas de San José del Cabo, San José del Cabo, BCS (anon., late 19th c.; remodeled 1940); photo ERB

The interior of the church is surprisingly bright. A series of vertical, narrow, divided light arched-wood windows allow light into the church and were probably imported by ship. The apse features an altar with pairs of niches that frame an “Eye of God” that is crowned by an entablature. A mural of Padre Tamaral, who was martyred by the local Pericú Indians in the eighteenth century, also graces the interior. The front entry doors, when open, provide a cool ocean breeze from the nearby bay. When no services are being held in the church, it also serves as an informal place to teach children their catechism. The Palacio Municipal (anon., 1891), with a shaped parapet, fronts a small plaza and is organized around a small courtyard. Nearby are a series of simple vernacular Commercial Buildings (anon., 19th c.) that make a wall at the street, with rear courts, and have now been largely converted to tourist-oriented shops.

270  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Palacio Municipal, San José del Cabo, BCS (anon., 1891); photo ERB

A sand bar at the mouth of the San José River forms the Estero San José, a lagoon and estuary with tall palms and marsh grasses, including fan palms, river cane, and tule, as well as two hundred species of birds. The Paseo del Estero is a pedestrian path that begins at Presidente, continues along the river and estuary, and terminates at Blvd. Mijares, where a new water treatment facility is located. This kind of “working landscape” to restore and preserve urban rivers serves as a model for numerous major cities throughout Northern Mexico and the American Southwest that have severely depleted aquifers and urban rivers that remain dry after being dammed farther upstream. Several recent hotel projects and an arts project are exemplary architectural interventions and some of the best contemporary work in the Americas. The Los Cabos Hotel Project (Javier Sánchez/JSa, 2007) is a resort proposal by the Mexico City–based firm to develop a series of one- and two-story hotel units, pool, and support facilities. The project is a system of parallel walls that slope in section, frame views of the desert and ocean, and create a mimetic relationship to the varied arid desert topography of the site. The Quinta Dos Project (Herzog and de Meuron, 2008–2009) is an important proposal for twenty-seven villas and a 120-room luxury hotel that steps down its sloping site to the ocean as a series of small-scale volumes on an irregular grid; these are expressed as a series of terraces

Los Cabos Hotel Project, Los Cabos, BCS (Javier Sánchez/JSa, 2007); courtesy of architect

Baja California Norte and Sur  271

Hotel Cabo, Los Cabos, BCS (Javier Sánchez/JSa, 2014); courtesy of architect

and floating horizontal roofs providing ocean views from every villa and hotel room. The Hotel Cabo (Javier Sánchez/JSa, 2014) consists of a pair of modernist blocks, sited as a V with spectacular ocean views, that are lifted above the ground on pilotis, with articulated public functions and continuous landscape flows underneath the blocks at grade. The Centro para los Artes (Alberto Kalach/TAX, 2009) takes its cues from the shards of rock on its craggy desert site that faces the ocean and makes a mimetic series of towers that form a rugged organic court with parking discretely concealed below grade. These towers allow light from above to provide a dramatic experience for the user.

Centro para los Artes, Los Cabos, BCS (Alberto Kalach/TAX, 2009); courtesy of architect

272  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Conclusions Lessons Learned and Opportunities for the Architectural Culture of the Region

Given the vast number of varied, largely undervalued works discussed in the preceding chapters, offering conclusions is daunting. However, the following observations regarding lessons and opportunities can provide a basis for further discussion of the architectural culture of the region.

Lesson 1: Architectural Experience and the Complexity of Contemporary Conditions of the Region Many often think about Mexico and the United States as monolithic cultures with homogeneous conditions. Yet despite the globalization of culture and architectural practice in an electronic-information age, the primacy of body experience still persists. It is still possible to know, while walking in Hermosillo in the Sonoran Desert on a 112-degree summer’s day, that one is not in the cool mountains of the Sierra Madre Occidental of Chihuahua or the hot, humid tropics of Tampico. On the other extreme, too often there is the sense of viewing the United States and Mexico as simply paired opposites, that is, industrialized vs. handcraft, pragmatic vs. romantic, Protestant vs. Catholic, secular vs. mystical, and so on. Simultaneously, there is also the misunderstanding that adjoining border cities are seamlessly linked at the scale of urban design, as opposed to architecture. Certainly in the case of Tijuana, BC, and San Diego, CA, nothing could be further from the truth. That being said, our contemporary condition along the border is complex. Examining the commingling of cultures, especially along the border, reveals unexpected insights and defies simple stereotypes. For example, the history of Protestants and Chinese in Northern Mexico, or Protestant missionaries on Native American reservations in the Southwest in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,

challenges presumptions and is a historical condition not discussed enough or appreciated in the United States or Mexico. As a Mexican colleague pointed out, “Pancho Villa typically wore a Stetson, not a charro sombrero.”1

Lesson 2: The Dominance of the Automobile and Architectural Experience for the Pedestrian Numbing suburban automobile sprawl offers an architecture of minimal qualities that sadly characterizes so much of urban experience after 1945 on both sides of the border and represents a lost opportunity. If we are honest with ourselves, unfortunately, very little urbanism built in Northern Mexico, or in the American Southwest for that matter, after 1945 is particularly memorable in any way. Why this is the case involves a number of interrelated considerations. In the American Southwest, the destruction of the nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century urban fabric of Tucson, AZ; El Paso, TX; and Albuquerque, NM, has created urban cores that may never fully recover. In Northern Mexico, the loss of much of the traditional urban fabric of Monterrey, NL, to create the Macroplaza and the unfortunate plaza in back of the former Post Office are perplexing. The destruction of the colonial urban fabric of Chihuahua, Chih., and the nineteenth- and earlytwentieth-century urban fabric of Nogales, Son., and Ciudad Juárez, Chih., is particularly tragic—not only in terms of what has been lost, but because the mundane architecture of minimal qualities that replaced it is largely not valued by these towns’ citizens as either architectural experiences or sources of community pride. Most of this can be attributed to several unfortunate choices on both sides of the border. These include the single-minded agenda privileging efficient automobile

Conclusions  273

Urban fabric of Monterrey, NL, prior to its demolition for the Macroplaza (photo ca. 1940); postcard, M. M. López, ERBPC

circulation and parking by traffic engineers over the experience of the pedestrian; the whims of shortsighted individual developers; the ignorance of some public officials and owners; failure to acknowledge the central-city urban core as having value beyond real estate; lack of any sense of new buildings relating to the city or one another; and the lack of any comprehensive strategy for street trees, signage, lighting, or paving in most cities in the region.

Lesson 3: Nineteenth-Century Urban Cores and Individual Buildings of Quality While many of Northern Mexico’s best works of architecture have been adaptively reused, much has also been lost in cities such as Monterrey, NL; Torreón, Coah.; Hermosillo, Son.; and Culiacán, Sin. It is hoped that this book will encourage both public officials and private landowners to reevaluate their architectural resources, developers to measure up to this proud tradition of quality architecture, and many local citizens and national visitors and visitors from the United States and further abroad to experience these undervalued architectural treasures. At the scale of the city, several tragic urban design interventions of the 1970s through 1990s led to a number of unfortunate outcomes for cities in the north that are difficult to overcome due to their scale and investment of scarce capital. In Monterrey, NL, the Macroplaza is largely deserted, but its construction entailed the controversial demolition of forty city blocks of colonial- and nineteenth-century urban fabric. In Torreón, Coah., many significant works of architecture have been lost. Although there are many

useful precedents for making cool, lush, shaded courtyards in Hermosillo, Son., the courtyard of the new government center is unfortunately overscaled and sweltering even on a moderately warm day. In Los Mochis and Culiacán, Sin., much high-quality nineteenth-century urban fabric has been lost. In Tijuana, BC, despite the fascination with commercial tourist-oriented architecture, a number of important works of architecture have been lost, including the Agua Caliente Resort. In Ciudad Juárez, Chih., a number of the best works of architecture in the city have been destroyed. Unfortunately, many large cities in Northern Mexico are modeled after contemporary cities in the American Southwest, where the efficient movement of automobiles and huge parking lots dominate. As a result, the mixed uses of traditional cities are eliminated, and there is little consideration for the creation of pedestrian experience and linkage between neighborhoods, buildings, urban landscape, and public open space. Those memorable urban spaces produced after World War II in the American Southwest and Mexico are sadly few and far between. In Mexico City, the Gardens of Pedregal Subdivision (Luis Barragán, 1945–1949); University City (Mario Pani and Enrique del Moral, 1958); and the urban proposals Lakes Project (Alberto Kalach/TAX, 2000) and Urban Reforestation Project (Alberto Kalach/ TAX, 2013) are exemplary. In Northern Mexico, the Colonia El Mirador (Lorenzo Zambrano Gutiérrez, developer, 1925); La Colonia Obrera (Santiago Belden, master plan, 1935–1945) and Vista Hermosa (anon., 1932–1940) neighborhoods in Monterrey, NL; the Jardín Residential Development (Jerónimo Gómez Rubleda, ca. 1948) in Torreón, Coah.; and the Tampico Canal Renovation Project (Mario Schjetnan/GDU, 2003) and unbuilt Río Tijuana Restoration Project (Alberto Kalach/TAX, 2010) are particularly noteworthy.

Lesson 4: Useful Hybrids and Electronic Information Technology The richness of the culture of Northern Mexico merits an urbanism of memorable qualities. Rather than architects, developers, and public officials retreating into a simulation of the past unrelated to contemporary lifestyles and building technology, the region begs for a rich architecture related to the contemporary conditions of the area. This suggests a conception of architecture and urbanism based on a thoughtful response to the realities of the present, including hybrids, contemporary lifestyles and experience,

274  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico

Lakes Project, Mexico City (Alberto Kalach/TAX, 2000); courtesy of architect

and accommodation of the automobile, and a vision to create cities that acknowledge layers of history that speak to one another across time rather than merely simulate the past.

opportunity 1: Beyond Nostalgia, Urban and Ecological Regeneration Given the current situation, the following opportunities present themselves for the region. Landscape infrastructure systems for the city offer areas with the most potential as pedestrian-oriented experiences. This is much cheaper and cost effective than constructing buildings to create and shape urban space and is also less politically contentious. It may not be possible to create cohesive urban space in the automobile suburbia that rings each city, but what may be possible is a landscape architecture of signs, lighting, and landscape. The restoration of urban rivers and creeks as working landscapes can recharge aquifers, offer wastewater

reclamation, provide much-needed recreational space for the city, and create didactic opportunities to educate citizens about water resources. Urban street trees and working landscapes for the urban core can help cleanse the air, and lighting infrastructure can create safe, secure 24-houruse places. The best underutilized buildings in the city’s center can be repurposed as mixed-use projects to stimulate economic activity and pedestrian districts. This can include contrasting new interventions that learn from traditional typologies, create cities that are more real, and avoid what Vincent Scully has described as overly precious places for “cute eating.” These can incorporate commercial space at the ground floor and include housing and office space at the second and upper floors, as well as museums, hotels, and restaurants at varying “price points.” These not only can serve all the citizens of the city, but also can function as vital revenue generators for cultural tourism that can pay for the other interventions. Mixed-use automobile parking can become an event in the city such as an outdoor market, or landscaped outdoor rooms for collecting water, or urban recreation spaces. Where automobiles

Conclusions  275 are required, the buildings can either be dual-use ones of parking/public space or structures with commercial space at grade. We should continue to support alternatives to the automobile to provide access to the city’s center, including bus systems that exist in all cities in Northern Mexico. The perimeter city edge can be regenerated with landscapes based around water reclamation, recycling, physical fitness as preventive health care, pro-active wellness facilities, and the production of healthy food.

opportunity 2: Future Architectural Investigations in Northern Mexico Numerous opportunities also exist to investigate unexplored areas of architectural culture and ideas in Northern Mexico. Comprehensive architectural histories of the major cities of Northern Mexico and of individual significant architects are needed. These discussions would also benefit from an exploration through a variety of “critical lenses.” These include, but are not limited to, typology, the tectonic culture of materials and labor, cultural landscapes, nationalism, and sensory experience, among others. In this context, the region’s unique proximity to the United States among the nations of Latin America and the hybrid nature of architectural culture along the border present a remarkable opportunity. Gloria Anzaldúa, in her book Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, provides an insight into this condition. She makes a compelling argument about borderlands in general being intrinsically “liberating” because they are a neither/nor culture— they are intrinsically hybrids where people are allowed to choose.2 This is perhaps even more intensified in the case of the border region between the United States and Mexico, a place characterized by its shifting crosscurrents and contested ground and one that offers a myriad of unforeseen yet potentially rich possibilities for the region.

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Appendix  277

Appendix Biographies of Architects, Engineers, Designers, and Builders in Northern Mexico, 1821 to the Present

This appendix begins the process of revaluing many previously little-known practitioners that have never been systematically discussed in either English or Spanish texts. Despite my best efforts and the contributions of my generous colleagues in Mexico, it should be seen as a working document that will be added to and amended by others. Unfortunately, many of those who have completed significant work in Northern Mexico are still anonymous at this time. I ask those clients, colleagues, friends, and family members with additional information regarding these individuals to contact me through the publisher so that future editions of this book can be more complete. Although I have had to primarily list individuals and firms here, it is not my intention to propagate the cult of the individual “hero” architect or the “superstar system.” Anyone who has ever practiced architecture realizes that any building project entails the important contributions of many individuals. These include members of the project team in the architect’s office and support staff, many engineering and technical consultants, general contractors, subcontractors, craftspersons, and fabricators, as well as the clients who initiated and supported the project. Due to the broad time period covered in the book over a large region, lack of information, and constraints regarding the length of the book, the contributions of those individuals in vital supporting roles were not able to be credited here. Without their valuable contributions, nothing would have been built. Aguirre Puente, Macario J. (1931–), architect, professor, and architectural historian, was a member of one of the first generations of architects to graduate from the ITESM, Monterrey Campus, where he studied (1947–1955) under José Villagrán García. He has taught architectural history and theory classes and design studios and been professor at the UANL, ITESM, UDEM, and UABC at Mexicali. He is an Academic Emeritus Member of the National Academy of Architecture of Mexico. A private man, Aguirre has not sought public acclaim for his work, which is primarily known to scholars in Mexico through copies of his essays that have been disseminated informally. Although primarily noted for his scholarship, he also built several

modernist residences in Monterrey during the 1960s, including the Luis Astey house. His scholarly work and built and unbuilt projects in Monterrey and in New York influenced several generations of architects in Northern Mexico. Alexander, Christopher (1936–), a native of Vienna, was educated in chemistry and physics and went on to read mathematics. He earned a bachelor’s degree in architecture and a master’s degree in mathematics and completed his doctorate at Harvard. He moved to the United States (1958) and taught at UC Berkeley (1963–), where he is now a professor emeritus. Alexander set out to produce a rational, systematic design process called a “pattern language,” which would not only provide a design process for architects but also empower any human being to design and build at any scale. His books include The Timeless Way of Building, Notes on the Synthesis of Form, and A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. Álvarez Fuentes, Augusto F. (ca. 1940?–) is the son of Augusto H. Álvarez (1914–1995). He designed the Museo de Historia Mexicana in Monterrey with Óscar Bulnes Valero (1997), among numerous other projects. Álvarez García, Augusto H. (1914–1995), architect, was born in Mérida, Yuc.; grew up in Mexico City; and graduated from the UNAM (1939), where he was a student of José Villagrán García. His rationalist work is noted for the high quality of his finishes of steel, concrete, and glass assemblies. He was an architecture professor at the UNAM and was founder and first director of the School of Architecture of the Universidad Iberoamericana. He designed a number of noted projects in Mexico City, and his projects in Northern Mexico include the Edificio la Nacional (1957) and a church in Culiacán, Sin. (1960). Amérigo Rouvier, Federico (1840–1912), architect, painter, lithographer, and diplomat, was born in Cuba to a French family; spoke six languages; served as a diplomat at the embassy in Rome; and by 1873 was a painter of historical, mythological, and landscape

278  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico scenes as well as a stage-set designer. After 1882, he lived in Cuba and Mexico and designed many notable residences in Hidalgo de Parral, Chih., at the turn of the twentieth century, including the Casa Alvarado (1903), Casa Griesen (1905), and Casa Stallforth (1908), as well as the Hotel Hidalgo (1906). Asúnsolo, Ignacio (1890–1965), sculptor, was born on the Hacienda de San Juan Bautista, Dgo. He served in the Mexican Revolution before enrolling in the Academia de San Carlos, continuing his studies at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris (1919). After returning to Mexico (1921), he began a productive career as a teacher and artist, executing numerous official public monuments in Mexico City. In Northern Mexico, he completed the monuments in Chihuahua, Chih., to Francisco Villa (1957) and the Monumento a la División del Norte. He also created the lowrelief sculptures at Clínica del Noroeste (1940) in Hermosillo, Son. His students included Luis Ortiz Monasterio. Ballina, Jorge (1939–), architect, was responsible for the design of the Universidad Iberoamericana, Torreón Campus, in Northern Mexico in association with José Creixell (1988). Barragán Delgado, Rodolfo M. (1968–), architect and professor, was born in Mexico City and moved with his family to Monterrey (1976). He received his undergraduate architectural education at the ITESM, Monterrey Campus (1991), a master’s in architecture from Columbia (1994), and his PhD from IIT in Chicago (2008) with his dissertation on architectural theory entitled “The Architectural Score: Recording and Communicating an Architectural Experience.” He has been a professor in the Architecture Department at ITESM (1991–) and has served as director of the school (2009–). He has worked professionally with his father, Rodolfo Barragán Schwarz (1987–1991), and Agustín Landa Vértiz (1992– 1993), and then independently (1994–), during which time he completed the design of two noted residences in Montemorelos, NL. Barragán Morf ín, Luis (1902–1988), architect, landscape architect, and developer, was born in Guadalajara, graduated with a degree in engineering (1924), and traveled extensively in Europe and North Africa. Barragán’s early residential works were designed in an abstracted colonial revival mode and after his move to Mexico City, an international modernist vocabulary. He synthesized these influences into a personal modern regional design vocabulary (1945). Barragán sought to create an architecture that retained its vernacular roots and strove for beauty and serenity through a romantic approach to landscape architecture. He became Mexico’s most prominent architect of the twentieth century; was the subject of numerous books, periodicals, and essays; and won the Pritzker Prize in architecture (1980). He designed two projects in Monterrey, NL: the Torre Faro del Comercio (1981–1984) and the Valdés House (1981–1983).

Rodolfo Barragán Schwarz, courtesy of architect

Barragán Schwarz, Rodolfo (1931–), architect and professor, is a native of Monterrey, NL, whose family was involved in the local steel industry. He studied architecture at the ITESM, Monterrey Campus, and the University of Bologna, and then worked for Giovanni Michelucci (1953–1954). He received his master’s of architecture from Yale, where he studied with Paul Rudolph (1960–1961). He taught at the UNAM (1961–1968) and the Universidad Iberoamericana (1962–1974), where he served as director from 1968 to 1974. In Monterrey, NL, he designed a number of distinguished projects, including a delicate steel-frame house, Casa Acero (1960); the offices for La Fundidora steelworks (1970); and the State Supreme Court Building on the Macroplaza (1985). He received the Premio Gallo from the Universidad Iberoamericana (2004). Belden Gutiérrez, Eduardo (?–1963), architect and engineer, was the son of an industrialist who studied at MIT and arrived in Monterrey, NL (ca. 1925). He was the brother-in-law of the XEW telecommunications (today TELEVISA) magnate. He designed a number of important projects in Monterrey, including the Hospital Civil (1939) and the Hotel Monterrey (1939), and in Ciudad Victoria, Tamps., the Hotel Sierra Gorda (1939). He was also the former director of the UANL Dept. of Architecture in Monterrey, NL. Francisco Beltrán, statue; photo ERB

Beltrán Otero, Francisco (1862–1934), engineer, soldier, and professor, was born in Mexico City and studied at the Military Academy. He was a professor in Monterrey’s Colegio Civil and was twice its director. He participated in the creation of the Universidad de Nuevo León (the precursor of the UANL) and was responsible for the founding of its engineering school. In Monterrey, he was the designer and engineer of the Palacio de Gobierno (1895– 1910) and the art deco–inspired Hotel Monterrey (1933). Benítez Cevada, Germán (1914–1987), architect, was born in El Palmar del Bravo, Puebla, and studied with Francisco Artigas at the Politécnico Nacional and also became friends with Reinaldo Pérez Rayón. He worked with his former professor, Francisco

Appendix  279 Artigas, in Culiacán, Sin., on a number of important commercial projects in the 1940s. He later became partners with Fernando Best (1927–1999), and together they designed the Colonia Chapultepec subdivision in Culiacán (1949). Among his own notable work as a sole practitioner is the Edificio Jaqueline (1957) in Culiacán, Sin. Tatiana Bilbao; courtesy of architect

Camargo Hijar, José Ángel (“Tito”; 1940–), architect and native of Mexico City, graduated from the ITESM and began his career working in Adán Lozano’s office. He later opened his own firm and has been active in Monterrey since the early 1970s. His noted works are his modernist houses in the Municipio San Pedro in Monterrey, NL, which were influenced by the work of Ricardo Legorreta. He designed the Oficinas en el Parque known to “regios” as Torres Moradas (the Purple Towers), and recently designed a large building for the ITESM, Monterrey Campus. Fernanda Canales; photo Alejandra Carbajal, courtesy of architect

Bilbao, Tatiana (1972–), architect, was born in Mexico City, graduated from the Universidad Iberoamericana (1996), and started her own multidisciplinary practice (2004) in Mexico City. Projects in Northern Mexico include the Botanical Garden in Culiacán, Sin.; Parque Biotecnológico, Culiacán, Sin.; and Ventura House, Monterrey, NL. Bilbao was named to Architectural Record’s Design Vanguard in 2007. Buenz, J. Fred (1904–1991), architect, was born in Laredo, TX, and was the son of an early settler from Germany who immigrated to New Braunfels, TX, and opened a lumber business in Laredo, TX. He attended the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture (1921–1923) and MIT (1923–1926), receiving both bachelor and master’s degrees, and the École des Beaux-Arts in Fontainebleau, France (1926). Buenz designed the Longoria bank in Nuevo Laredo, Tamps. (1929). He worked for the noted San Antonio architects Atlee B. and Robert M. Ayres (1933–1936) and opened his own office in 1936. Buenz was hired by the San Antonio City Council (1940) to direct the completion of the San Antonio River Walk, replacing Robert Hugman. Buenz was instrumental in the design of the Arneson River Theater and the area around the Houston Street Crossing. Bulnes Valero, Óscar (1944–), architect and administrator, was born in San Luis Potosí and graduated from the UANL. He established his firm, 103 Grupo de Diseño, in Monterrey, NL, and has received many prominent commissions in the public sector in Monterrey since the 1970s. His work is characterized by an interest in large-scale sculptural form and self-expression. His works in Monterrey, NL, include the CEDES at the Tec (popularly known as the “servilletero” (napkin holder), the Teatro de la Ciudad, and the Infonavit building. He also collaborated on the Macroplaza that eliminated much of the historic urban fabric of the city, and most recently on a sculptural bridge, Viaducto la Unidad. His most important work has been the administration of the work in the Parque Fundidora to repurpose it as a muchneeded public park and cultural center.

Canales González, Fernanda (1974–), architect, professor, and native of Monterrey, NL, received her architectural education at the Universidad Iberoamericana (1992–1997) and the ETSAB (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in Barcelona; 2000–2001), and worked in the offices of Toyo Ito (Tokyo), Ignasi Sola-Morales (Barcelona), and Luis Fernández-Galiano (Madrid). She has written extensively for the Mexican architectural magazine Arquine in Mexico City (2000–) and is a member of the editorial boards of Arquine and La Tempestad. She designed a series of contiguous single family houses (Casas M, 2003) and the new campus for the CEDIM design school in Monterrey (2006). She is currently a professor of design and urbanism at the Universidad Iberoamericana (2005–). Her work was featured in the Rotterdam Biennale (2004), Bienal de Arquitectura de São Paulo (2005), and Venice Biennale (2006). Candela Outeriño, Félix (1910–1998), architect and engineer, applied for a travel scholarship to Germany to study the theory of shell structures. The Civil War in Spain (1936–1939) altered his plans, and Candela joined the Republican forces and fled to France after the Nationalist victory (1939). He was briefly interned in a camp in Perpignan, and he did not practice architecture until he immigrated to Mexico (1939) as a Republican refugee from the Spanish Civil War. With his younger brother Antonio, he opened a construction company where he acted as architect, structural engineer, contractor, and construction foreman in order to realize his work. He became well known for innovative thin-shell concrete construction in which he explored tensile hyperbolic paraboloid shell structures. He collaborated with Enrique de la Mora on several thin-shell concrete churches in Monterrey, NL. Later, he immigrated to the United States (1971) and lived in North Carolina until the end of his life. Canseco, Enrique L. (1886–1959), architect, was born in Ciudad Victoria, Tamps., and was educated in Mexico City. He designed the Palacio Municipal (1929) in Tampico, Tamps. In his native

280  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico city, he designed many public projects, including the Palacio de Gobierno, Escuela Leona Vicario, Edificio de Correos, and Penitencia del Estado in the 1930s and 1940s, and was the most wellknown architect in Tamaulipas during this time period. He also served as the “interim governor” of the state (1935–1941), which may have accounted for his receiving so many important government commissions. Casa Montaña, SA is a family-owned art glass studio in Torreón, Coah., that has produced stained-glass windows and glass objects from its founding by Ramón Montaña (1913) to the present day. Their richly crafted stained-glass windows graced numerous significant works of architecture in the 1930s and 1940s in Northern Mexico, including the Colegio Civil (remodeled by FYUSA; windows by Roberto Montenegro), Monterrey NL (1933–1939); Centro Escolar Revolución (Ing. César Biossi), Ciudad Juárez, Chih. (1936–1939); Universidad de Sonora (Leopoldo Palafox Muñoz), Hermosillo, Son. (1940–1942); Iglesia de la Purísima, (Enrique de la Mora y Palomar), Monterrey, NL (1939–1946); and in Mexico City, the lobby of the Main Hospital of the National Railroads (Carlos Greenham, 1936), among others. Casas García, Juan (1972–), architect and professor, is a native of Mexico City who was educated at UANL (1995) and opened his own office in Monterrey, NL. He specializes in historic preservation and has published extensively on the subject. His major works include the partial restoration of the Museo Metropolitano (2002) and his most important work is the former Colegio Civil (2004–2007) with Elisa Sánchez, now the UANL Cultural Center. He has also taught at the UANL in the areas of history, theory, and historic preservation. Coate, Roland, Jr. (ca. 1915?–), architect, is a Los Angeles, CA– based architect and the son of the noted Southern California architect Roland E. Coate Sr. (1890–1958). He designed several projects in Northern Mexico, including a concrete residence (1974) in Baja California, and collaborated on the design of the Club Balboa, a resort hotel in Mazatlán, Sin., with Sergio Pruneda and Louis McClane (1970s). Among his notable projects in Southern California is the Alexander House, Montecito, CA (1971). Corredor Latorre, Julio (1874–1933), architect, was born in Bogotá, Colombia, and graduated with a degree in engineering (1894). After completing his studies, he traveled in Europe and Asia and completed his master’s of architecture in Brussels, Belgium. In 1904 his future client Manuel Gameros made the “grand tour” of Europe, including France and Germany, and saw an art nouveau residence in the south of France that infatuated him. Corredor was sent to France to visit the eclectic residence, and the Quinta Gameros was constructed (1907–1910). Corredor also served as Colombia’s ambassador to Mexico during the construction of the project. Later, the powerful governor of Chihuahua, Enrique Creel, invited Julio Corredor Latorre to build a monument to Benito Juárez in Ciudad Juárez, Chih.

Cortina, “Chato” (ca. 1900?–?) was a self-taught architect who designed the art deco–inspired Ateneo Fuente in Saltillo, Coah. (1932) that was one of the most famous secondary schools in Mexico. The engineer for the building was Ing. Zeferino Domínguez. Creixell, José L. (1937–), architect, is the son of the noted Mexico City architect José Creixell (1908–). His father designed a number of notable modernist projects in the capital, including an office building (1935) with Enrique de la Mora on Avenida Juárez. In Northern Mexico, the son was responsible for the design of the Universidad Iberoamericana, Torreón Campus (1988), in association with Jorge Ballina and Fernando Rovalo. CRS (Caudill, Rowlett, Scott), architects, engineers, and planners, included William W. Caudill and John Rowlett, who were architecture professors at Texas A&M when they founded a threeperson architecture firm (1948) with their former student Wallie Scott, in College Station, TX. The firm grew rapidly and moved to Houston, TX (1960) and became a noted megafirm specializing in school and health care design and large-scale commercial and institutional projects. CRS became noted for programming, team design process, and construction management, and won the AIA firm of the year in 1972. By the early 1980s, it was for a time the largest architecture/engineering firm in the United States, and its stock traded on the NASDAQ and later the NYSE. The firm merged with the South Carolina–based engineering firm Sirrine (1983) to become CRSS Architects and was ultimately acquired and merged with HOK (1994). In Northern Mexico, the firm completed the American School in Monterrey, NL (1958). William W. Caudill (1914–1983) graduated from Oklahoma A&M (1937) and completed his graduate studies at MIT (1939). He was a faculty member at Texas A&M College of Architecture (1939–?), and was the firm’s charismatic, intellectual leader. John Rowlett (1914–1978) was a native Texan and a faculty member at Texas A&M College of Architecture (1940–?) when he formed a partnership with Caudill and Scott in 1948. Wallie Scott (1921–1989) was a native of Port Arthur, TX, and graduated from Texas A&M College of Architecture, where he was a student of Caudill and Rowlett; he formed a partnership with them in 1948. Willie Peña (ca. 1926?–), a native of Laredo, TX, graduated from Texas A&M and became the fourth partner in CRS (1949) and a key member of the firm in terms of team-oriented design. Decanini Flores, Paolino (1899–1955), engineer, was a native of Sierra Mojada, Coah., who studied civil engineering in Mexico City and then moved to Monterrey (ca. 1925). His father, Antonio Decanini (1878–1948), was an Italian engineer who moved to Monterrey (1907). Both his parents were sculptors who executed work for tombs at the Dolores and El Carmen Cemeteries in Monterrey. de la Mora y Palomar, Enrique (1907–1978), architect, was born in Guadalajara, the son of the architect Manuel de la Mora. The family moved to Mexico City, and he studied at the National School

Appendix  281 of Architecture (1927–1933). He collaborated with José Creixell, his brother Ing. Manuel de la Mora y Palomar, and Pafnuncio Padilla in the design of a number of buildings in Mexico City (1935–1939). Beginning in 1939, his office designed many structurally and tectonically innovative projects, including a number of modernist churches in Northern Mexico noted for their thinshell concrete construction and sculptural form. The Iglesia de la Purísima in Monterrey, NL (1939–1946), with Ing. Armando Ravizé, has been described as the first modernist church in all of Mexico and Latin America. His other notable church projects include San José Obrero in Monterrey, NL, and a church in Reynosa, Tamps. de la Vega, Gustavo R. (1967?–) was educated at the Instituto Superior de Ciencia y Tecnología de la Laguna (1988) and received his doctorate from the Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña, Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Barcelona (1991), where he studied architecture and computer graphics. He also completed studies in construction administration at the ITESM, Laguna Campus. He has made a number of dramatic proposals for Torreón, Coah., utilizing digital technology, including his proposal for the Estadio de Fútbol. del Moral, Enrique (1906–1987), architect, was born in Irapuato, Gto.; graduated from the UNAM (1928); worked for José Villagrán García and Carlos Obregón Santacilia (1928–1935); taught design and architectural history at the UNAM (1938–1950); served as director of the UNAM School of Architecture (1944–1949); and was in private practice from 1935 onward in association with various architects. In Northern Mexico, he was responsible for a number of large hospital projects, including the Gynecology/ Obstetrics Hospital in Monterrey, NL (1955–1958); the IMSS Clinic and Hospital in Tampico, Tamps.; ISSSTE (1964), another phase of the Gynecology/Obstetrics Hospital for the IMSS/ ISSSTE in Monterrey, NL (1969–1970); the IMSS Clinic and Hospital in Ciudad Obregón, Son. (1960–1968); and the IMSS Clinic and Hospital in Nogales, Son. (1972). His many notable buildings throughout the country include the Rural School, Casacuarán, Gto. (1944–1946); Casa Yturbe, Acapulco, Gro. (1944); del Moral Residence (1948–1949); Ciudad Universitaria Master Plan with Mario Pani, Mexico City (1948–1952); Mercado de la Merced (1956–1957); and the office building at the corner of Insurgentes and Londres, Mexico City (1950). Díaz Morales, Ignacio (1905–1993), architect and professor, was raised in Guadalajara and graduated from the Escuela Libre de Ingenieros in Guadalajara (1928). He started the architecture school at the Universidad de Guadalajara (1949), where he was a professor of architectural theory and invited Mathias Goeritz to be a faculty member. He was a close friend of Luis Barragán and Rafael Urzúa. He designed many notable buildings utilizing an abstracted Spanish colonial revival vocabulary, including the Hotel Playa Cortés, Guaymas, Son. (1934), and railroad stations in Nogales, BC; Guaymas, Son.; and Ruiz, Son.

DPZ, architects and urbanists, was founded in 1980, and Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company has exerted a major influence on the practice and direction of urban planning in the United States and the Americas and is widely recognized as a leader of the international movement against the proliferation of suburban sprawl. A significant aspect of DPZ’s work is its innovative use of planning regulations, including the urban and architectural codes that address the manner in which buildings are formed and located to ensure that they create distinctive public spaces and address local architectural traditions and building techniques. The firm’s principals were co-founders of the Congress for the New Urbanism. They were responsible for the master plan in Loreto, BCS. Andrés Duany (1949–) was born in Cuba and received his bachelor of arts in architecture and urban planning from Princeton (1972), studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris (1972), and received his master’s in architecture from Yale (1974). He moved to Miami, FL (1974) and was a joint founder of Arquitectonica with Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Hervin Romney, Bernardo FortBrescia, and Laurinda Spear in Coral Gables, FL (1977). He has also taught periodically at the University of Miami (1975–). Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk (1950–) earned her bachelor of arts in architecture and urban planning from Princeton (1972) and her master’s in architecture from Yale (1974). She was a joint founder of Arquitectonica in Coral Gables, FL (1977), and joined the faculty of the University of Miami (1979), where she was appointed dean (1995). She opened Duany, Plater-Zyberk in Miami with her partner (1980), is a founder of the Congress for the New Urbanism, and is currently a board member of the Institute of Classical Architecture. Eiffel, Alexandre Gustave (1832–1923), engineer and entrepreneur, was born in Dijon, Côte-d’Or, Burgundy, France, and studied chemistry at the École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures (1856). He founded his own engineering office (1866) and designed and built bridges in France, Spain, Austria, Romania, Egypt, Peru, and Bolivia, as well as the structural supporting framework for Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi’s Statue of Liberty in New York City’s Harbor (1886). His most famous project, the Eiffel Tower, was built as the centerpiece of the 1889 International Exhibition and was the tallest structure in the world. He also designed a castiron prefabricated church that was erected in Santa Rosalía, BCS (1885), and brick smokestacks in Baja California. Espino, Carlos (date?–), sculptor, created the monument to Felipe Ángeles in Chihuahua, Chih., and Águila nacional in Tijuana, BC. His works are primarily large-scale, monumental, realistic figurative bronzes in outdoor settings that recall the work of nineteenth-century neoclassical sculpture. His works in other parts of Mexico include La ofrenda, in the gardens of the Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (Mexico City); Felipe Ángeles in Zacatecas, Zac.; Fuerza indómita in Arlington, TX; and Benito Juárez in Minatitlán, Ver., among others. Fernández Escamilla, Franklin (1934–), architect, was a native of Monterrey and was educated at the UANL (1958), in urban

282  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico design at the UNAM (1979), and in rural development at the Universidad Experimental Simón Rodríguez in Caracas, Venezuela (1979). He completed numerous projects in Monclova, Coah., including workers’ housing for Altos Hornos steelworks, as well as housing in Chihuahua, and at the Las Carolinas housing complex in Torreón, Coah., that today has been altered. Prominent buildings in Monclova, Coah., between 1959 and 1969 included the Palacio Municipal, Centro de Justicia, Iglesia de Guadalupe, the mausoleum for the Pape family, the School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering at the university, the Workers Cooperative, and the Secondary and Preparatory School at the Instituto Central. Guillermo Freeman; photo ERB

Freeman Rojo, Guillermo (1900–1983), engineer, and Freeman Rojo, José (1908–1973), builder, were a noted team of brothers who designed over forty residences and commercial, apartment, and housing projects in Mazatlán, Sin., from the 1930s to 1960s. Their most noted project was the Hotel Freeman on the Playa Olas Altas in Mazatlán, Sin., the first multistory tower that changed the scale of the centro histórico. Garita, Gonzalo (ca. 1890–?), architect and engineer, was the son of the noted engineer also named Gonzalo Garita (1867–1921), who completed a number of government projects in Mexico City and was involved with the engineering or construction of the Palacio de Correos, El Centro Mercantil, La Casa Boker, La Mutual (now the Banco de México), and the Columna de la Independencia (El Ángel). He was also Director de Obras del Palacio Nacional and the Castillo de Chapultepec, and Director de la Escuela de Artes y Oficios, as well as a consulting architect of the Banco de México since 1936 and Seguros de México since 1940. The son came from Mexico City to design the Banco de México, Hermosillo, Son. (1939), one of the most important modernist buildings in Northern Mexico that recalls the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and Michelucci. He also designed and supervised the Border Crossing Building with Carlos Romo in Nuevo Laredo, Tamps. (1950). Giles, Alfred (1853–1920), architect, was born into a wealthy English family; he apprenticed in a London firm and attended night courses at the University of London. He arrived in San Antonio, TX (1873), and worked for the builder John H. Kampmann, who taught him local building methods and materials. He opened his practice in San Antonio, TX (1875), where he completed many prominent commercial and residential projects. When railroad connections to Mexico were established, Giles learned Spanish

and opened a branch office in Monterrey, NL, where he completed numerous important banks, commercial buildings, and private residences, with eight major buildings within four blocks in downtown Monterrey, eleven buildings in the state of Chihuahua for General Luis Terrazas, and other projects in Saltillo, Coah. Gómez Palacio Bracho, Carlos (1918?–2006), architect, was originally from Durango, Dgo. He graduated from the UNAM (1939) and came to Torreón in the 1940s and designed many of the most important buildings of the 1940s and 1950s, including Edificio Vallina (1942), the CIAMCO Building (ca. 1945), Municipal Airport (1946), Banco de México (1947), Hotel Río Nazas (1947– 1954), parks, and numerous rationalist commercial buildings over a fifty-year professional career. He also founded the Escuela de Arquitectura de Torreón that became the La Salle, Campus Laguna, School of Architecture. Gómez Rubleda, Jerónimo (ca. 1900?–?), architect, was a professor of the Torreón architect Carlos Gómez Palacio at the UNAM. He came to Torreón to lead the design of the Jardín residential development and was active in the 1950s and 1960s. González Arquieta, Andrés (1929–), architect and urban designer, is a native of Monterrey, NL, who graduated from the ITESM, Monterrey Campus (1955), received a master’s in architecture from Yale (1962), and earned a master’s in city planning at Penn (1968). He was the former director of the ITESM School of Architecture in Monterrey (1976–1978) and was a pioneer in urban design in Monterrey. With his own firm, URBANA (1986– 2007), he designed numerous projects around Monterrey, including the San Pedro Urban Plan; Master Plan for Campestre Golf Club, San Pedro, NL; the Master Plan for Valle Alto Golf Club; the Social and Cultural Center, Guadalupe, NL; and the Colegio Regiomontano Elementary and High School, Monterrey, NL. He was also head of the Architectural and Urban Planning Department at the Secretary of Public Works of the State of Nuevo León (1981–1985). González Camarena, Jorge (1908–1980), painter, sculptor, and muralist, belonged to the second generation of Mexican muralists. His murals appear at the UNAM campus and Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City; the Administration Building at the ITESM in Monterrey, NL; and the Palacio Municipal in Saltillo, Coah. His subjects include heroic portraits of Mexican workers, the clash of Mexican cultures, and optimistic representations of modern technology. González de León, Teodoro (1926–), architect, is a native of Mexico City and studied at the Escuela de Arquitectura at the UNAM. He won a scholarship that enabled him to live in Paris, where he worked for Le Corbusier (1948–1949). He later worked for the noted Mexican architects Carlos Obregón Santacilia and Mario Pani. His work in Northern Mexico includes the Escuela

Appendix  283 de Derecho (1966) at the Universidad de Tamaulipas, Tampico. González de León collaborated with Abraham Zabludovsky (1968) and designed housing and public buildings, including the Delegación Cuauhtémoc (1972–1973), the Mexican Embassy in Brasília, the Museo Rufino Tamayo (1981), and the National Auditorium (1989–1991). Independently, he designed the Museo for El Tajín, Ver. (1991–1992), the office building for the Fondo de Cultura Económica (1990–1992), the Conservatorio Nacional de Música, and the Mexican exhibit at the British Museum (1994). González Mendoza, Guillermo (1900–1996) worked as a young man at the Fundidora steelworks, where he learned to draw and received a background in architecture and engineering and became a self-taught architect. He designed one of the earliest landmark modernist buildings in Monterrey, NL, the Edificio Chapa (1946), and many modernist houses in Obispado and in Col. del Valle. González Reyna, Jorge (1929–1969), architect and professor, was born in Saltillo, Coah., studied architecture at the University of Texas at Austin, and graduated from Harvard (1942). He taught architectural composition at the UNAM and ENA and entered private practice in 1945. His unbuilt church project for Torreón, Coah., designed with his Harvard professor Walter Gropius, was one of the most important avant-garde projects for Northern Mexico of the 1940s. He would later design projects such as the Cosmic Ray Lab with Félix Candela at the UNAM in Mexico City (1952). In Monterrey, his projects include the Edificio Oficina HYLSA and Edificio Industrial TAMAS Universales with Enrique Ungesheidt. González Virgen, Miguel (1964–), architect, professor, and writer, is a native of Colima, Col., and completed his undergraduate studies at Harvard and graduated from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Now based in Monterrey, NL, he has taught design, history, and theory at the ITESM, UDEM, and CEDIM. He recently completed the design of a residence on the outskirts of Monterrey, NL (2002). An accomplished writer, he has written extensively on art and architecture. Gracia, Jorge (1973–), architect, was born in Tijuana, BC; graduated from the Universidad Iberoamericana Noreste IBA (1997, 2000); and founded Gracia Studio (2005), which has offices in Tijuana, BC, and across the border in San Diego, CA, with an interest in extending the language of modernist architecture in terms of low-cost construction, expressive materiality, and prefabrication. His projects have been widely published and include Casa GA (2004), low-cost social housing in Tijuana; and Hotel Endémico (2012), a boutique hotel set in the hills of the wine country of Baja California. Grimshaw, Nicholas (1939–), architect, graduated from the AA in London (1965) and founded Nicholas Grimshaw and Partners (1980). The work of the firm explores expressive materiality, craft,

and sustainability in terms of structure, space, and skin, as well as innovative computer technology to design and disseminate information. The practice now operates worldwide, with offices in London, New York, and Melbourne employing 160 staff members. In Northern Mexico, they completed the Museo Acero in Monterrey, NL. Gropius, Walter A. (1883–1969), architect and professor, was born in Berlin and studied at Munich. After serving in World War I, he was appointed director of a group of schools of art in Weimar, which he reorganized to form the Bauhaus that proposed a new functional interpretation of the applied arts. His revolutionary methods were condemned in Weimar, and the Bauhaus was transferred to Dessau (1925). When Hitler came to power, Gropius moved to London (1934–1937), then to the United States, where he was professor of architecture at Harvard University (1937–1952). One of his students at Harvard was Jorge González Reyna, with whom he designed an unbuilt Church Competition Project (1944) that was one of the outstanding projects for a modernist church in Northern Mexico of the era. Guajardo Amador, Ricardo (1921–) was born in Mexico City and was one of the most influential architects in Monterrey, NL, in the 1950s and 1960s. He was the first director of the ITESM School of Architecture (1946), and he designed the ITESM Gymnasium (1965) and the Edificio Monterrey (1960) with Armando Ravizé. Other projects include an office building for the La Fundidora Monterrey steelworks. During his tenure as director of the school at the ITESM, José Villagrán García, the “father of modern architecture in Mexico,” served as a visiting critic in architectural design. Guerrero Herrera, Sergio (1955–), architect and professor, is a native of Torreón, Coah., and graduated from the Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara (1979). His firm in Torreón is best known for a series of tectonically and materially precise religious projects, including his brick, wall-dominant Convent Church (1998). He was also responsible for construction supervision of the Renault Plant in Gómez Palacio, Dgo., for Legorreta Arquitectos. He is also a professor of design, history, and theory at the Universidad Autónoma de Coahuila, Torreón Campus. Guindon, Henri E. M. (dates?), architect, was a French Canadian engineer who was also responsible for the Second Empire Caldwell County Courthouse, in Lockhart, TX (1894; frequently attributed to Alfred Giles), and the limestone Second Empire Goliad, TX, Courthouse (1894). He collaborated with Alfred Giles on an addition to Joske’s Dept. Store in San Antonio (1894). He moved to San Luis Potosí and designed the Teatro García Carrillo (1906–1910) in Saltillo, Coah. Harris, Steven (1950–), architect and professor, established Steven Harris Architects (1985). The firm’s work features a range of commercial and institutional projects. International projects

284  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico include work for the government of Saudi Arabia and a housing development in Bombay. Current large-scale projects include the master plan of an eco-tourist resort and equestrian center south of Mumbai, India, and a game preserve in the Karoo, in South Africa. In Northern Mexico, Harris designed the Weiss Residence in Cabo San Lucas, BCS. In addition to maintaining a practice in New York, Harris is an associate professor of architecture at Yale and has also taught at Harvard and Princeton. The firm’s work has won numerous awards and been published widely. Herzog & de Meuron, architects and professors. Jacques Herzog (1950–) and Pierre de Meuron (1950–) studied at the ETH in Zürich. The award-winning firm is based in Basel, Switzerland, and explores expressive systems of construction and the articulation of materials, and were awarded the Pritzker Prize (2001). Their projects in Northern Mexico include a building for the Botanical Garden, Culiacán, Sin. (2009–2012); the Quinta Dos Resort, Los Cabos, BCS (2008–2009); and the Iglesia de la Natividad, Culiacán, Sin. (2007–2008). Hidalga, Lorenzo de la (1810–1872), architect, was born in Vitoria, a province of Alava, Spain. He studied at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid and moved to Paris (1836) to complete his studies, where he was exposed to neoclassical architecture. He came to Mexico City (1838) and entered the social and intellectual society of the capital by marrying a woman from a prominent family. He was responsible for a number of important public projects in Mexico City; worked for several regimes of the mid-nineteenth century, including both Santa Anna and Maximilian; and earned awards for his work from the National Academy of San Carlos. His interest in functionalism was considered controversial at the time. Unfortunately, much of his work in Mexico City was unbuilt or destroyed, including the cupola for the Iglesia del Convento de Santa Teresa (1845); an unbuilt Monument to the Heroes of Independence for the Plaza Mayor (1843); the Teatro Nacional (1844), also known as the Teatro Santa Ana, which was demolished to widen Calle Cinco de Mayo; the pedestal of the statue of Carlos IV executed by Manuel Tolsá (1851) when it was moved to the Paseo Bucareli; and the Mercado on the Plaza de El Volador (destroyed in a fire in 1870). Emperor Maximilian appointed him architect of the Palace and the Cathedral. In Northern Mexico, he was responsible for the original design for the Templo de la Inmaculada Concepción (1831–1928), Tampico, Tamps. Hildenbrand, Wilhelm (1843–1908), engineer, was born in Karlsruhe, Germany, and studied mechanical engineering and bridge building at the Polytechnic School in Karlsruhe. He immigrated to North America (1867) and started his career as a technical draftsman and worked on the Brooklyn Bridge with John Roebling, where he worked for thirty years. He also worked on the design of the arched roof at Grand Central Station. He designed the Puente de Ojuela at the Ojuela mines in Mapimí, Dgo. (1892), constructed by local craftsmen, which when it opened in 1898, was the longest suspension bridge in Mexico.

Hunt, Myron (1868–1952), architect, relocated his practice to Southern California from Chicago (1903) and became a prominent architect in the region. Hunt became partners with Elmer Grey and completed many notable commissions in Southern California, including the Huntington Library (1920), Palos Verdes Library (1920), the Rose Bowl (1921), and the Pasadena Public Library (1927). He also designed the master plans for campuses of Pomona College (1906–1930), Occidental College (1911– 1950), and Cal Tech (1912), as well as many individual buildings on those campuses. He designed the Hotel Belmar (1917–1921) along the ocean walk in Mazatlán, Sin., for Lewis Bradbury, a pioneer San Gabriel Valley, CA, landowner. Pedro Ignacio Irigoyen; photographer unknown, from Web, “Chihuahua historia” (http:// www.chihuahuamexico.com)

Irigoyen, Pedro I. (1824–1900), engineer, was born in Chihuahua, Chih., where he established his career and served as rector of the Instituto Científico y Literario (1850–1851). He designed the private home of General Luis Terrazas and the Palacio de Gobierno (1882). A street just to the southwest of Paseo Bolívar in the capital city of Chihuahua is named for the Irigoyen family. Janssen, Ernst C. (1857–1946), architect, was a St. Louis, MO, architect who designed the Cervecería Cuauhtémoc in Monterrey, NL, that served as the catalyst for the city’s industrial development, and today is the Museo de Monterrey for contemporary art. He was in partnership with Otto J. Wilhelm (1879–1881) and designed a number of houses in the suburb of Parkview in St. Louis, MO, the most lavish of which was the Stockstrom House (1907), as well as the Hecker Civil War Monument (1882). His work is characterized by an interest in materials and eclectic modes of composition.

Kalach, Alberto (1960–), architect and professor, was educated at the Universidad Iberoamericana and Cornell. He worked for Agustín Landa Vértiz and opened his practice in Mexico City with Daniel Álvarez. His work has been widely published and includes the National Library and 27 Reforma, among others. He was a member of an interdisciplinary team for a far-reaching environmental proposal to partially restore the largely destroyed lakes in Mexico City, as well as new urban interventions, expressways, and an international airport on an artificial island in the lakes. He has taught at the Universidad Iberoamericana and has been a visiting critic at many universities, including the Harvard GSD (1998–1999). King, George, E. (1852–1912), architect, was born in London and came to the United States ca. 1871. He practiced architecture in

Appendix  285 St. Louis, MO, and then Boulder and Leadville, CO, where his work was influenced by Victorian and Second Empire works. He then moved with his family to El Paso, TX, where he had a flourishing architectural practice. He undertook more work in Mexico and by the early 1890s, he had opened offices in Mexico City (noted San Antonio, TX, architect Atlee B. Ayres worked in his Mexico City office, 1896), Guadalajara, Durango, and Chihuahua. He and his family moved to Mexico City, renting their house in El Paso. In Mexico he undertook many government commissions and built theaters, governors’ residences, and other important buildings (1893–1910), including the Aduana and Casino Club in Ciudad Juárez, Chih.; the Teatro de los Héroes, Chihuahua, Chih.; the Teatro Ricardo Castro (1900) in Durango, Dgo.; and Opera Houses in Zacatecas, Zac., and Mexico City. At the beginning of the Mexican Revolution (1911), the family had to flee back to Texas, but the harsh conditions of the journey took their toll, and both King and his wife died (1912). Lamadrid Rodríguez, Ramón (1930–2005), architect, was born in San Luis Potosí and graduated from the school of architecture at the ITESM, Monterrey Campus (1954). He was the son-in-law of the manager of La Fundidora steelworks and managed a number of Monterrey-based construction companies. He was responsible for the schematic design of the Condominio Acero in Monterrey, NL, in collaboration with Mario Pani’s office in Mexico City, which handled the design development, technical aspects, and coordination of the project, while Lamadrid oversaw construction of the project (1959). Others consider the project largely Pani’s, and there is still much speculation today about the authorship of this important building. In San Luis Potosí, he designed the Edificio Lamadrid (1969). He was also a professor of Construction at the ITESM, Monterrey Campus. During his spare time, he was an aficionado of numismatics, philately, golf, soccer, and bull fighting and was also a professional photographer. Landa, García, Landa Arquitectos executed some of the most notable work of the region. The firm has completed numerous commercial, institutional, and multifamily projects, including the Martel Office Building, the CX Networks Office Building, and Habitat 1, all in Monterrey, NL, among many others. Agustín Landa Vértiz (discussed below) was a partner in the firm prior to forming his own firm. Ignacio E. Landa García-Téllez (Nacho; 1959–), manager and attorney, studied at the Universidad de Monterrey, Universidad Iberoamericana, and Michigan State University. He was responsible for the administration, managerial, and public relations aspects of the practice. Roberto García Degollado (1957–), architect, graduated from the Instituto Politécnico Nacional in Mexico City and moved to Monterrey and became a partner of Landa, García, Landa (1998). His roles in the office included the technical and material aspects of the practice, such as design development, construction documentation, and administering the projects during construction. He is a member of the Academia Nacional de Arquitectura.

Landa Ruiloba, Agustín (1980–), architect, was born in Mexico City into a family of architects and is the son of Agustín Landa Vértiz and the grandson of Agustín Landa Verdugo (1923–2009). He graduated from the ITESM School of Architecture and is a noted architect in Monterrey who is responsible for the design of several outstanding residences in the city. Landa Verdugo, Agustín (1923–2009) and Enrique Landa Verdugo (1921–), architects and urban designers, were born in Mexico City and were leading modernist architects and urban designers in Mexico City. They established their firm in 1945 that has designed hundreds of public and private buildings. Agustín Landa Verdugo studied architecture at the UNAM. The firm’s work distinguished itself by its concern for technical rationalism, efficiency, and economical solutions. They were responsible for the design of many icons of functionalist architecture in Mexico City, including clinics for the ISSSTE in Mexico City, a number of multifamily housing projects, and religious facilities. Large-scale planning projects include the master plan for Cancún, including the Hyatt Caribe Cancún, and the master plans for the resort city of Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo and the city of Ciudad Sahagún. His uncle Enrique Landa was responsible for the Filosofía y Letras portion of the Humanities complex at the CU campus for the UNAM, an icon of Mexican modern architecture. In Northern Mexico, they designed the ISSSTE Hospitals in Chihuahua, Chih., and Delicias, Chih. Agustín Landa Verdugo also taught at the UNAM (1948–1968). Agustín Landa Vértiz; photo ERB

Landa Vértiz, Agustín (1951–2015), architect and professor, was a native of Mexico City born into an extended family of noted architects; he was the son of Agustín Landa Verdugo (1923–) and the nephew of Enrique Landa Verdugo (1921–). He received his architectural education at Universidad Iberoamericana (1977), where Rodolfo Barragán Schwarz was the director, and was a student of Carlos Mijares Bracho. He received his master’s degree from Oxford Brooks University in England (1979). Prior to opening his own practice, he also worked for Francisco Serrano and Sánchez Arquitectos in Mexico City. After moving his practice to Monterrey (1991), he taught at the Iberoamericana (1980–1986, 1988– 1991) and at the ITESM, Monterrey Campus (1991–1993, 2002– 2014), where he led the Cátedra Blanca honors design studio. He was a member of the Academia Nacional de Arquitectura. Legorreta Hernández, Víctor (1966–), architect and professor, graduated from the Universidad Iberoamericana (1990), and after graduation he worked for several firms. He then joined his

286  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico father’s office, Legorreta Arquitectos, as a project architect (1989), became the lead designer with his father, and became partner of the office as Legorreta + Legorreta (1991). He brought new compositional strategies and computer capability to the firm and has completed large-scale public projects around the world. He has also taught at the Iberoamericana Dept. of Architecture (2002–). Legorreta Vilchis, Ricardo (1934–2012), architect, was a native of Mexico City, graduated from the UNAM School of Architecture (1953), and was a partner of José Villagrán García (1955–1960). He opened his own practice (1959) and completed a variety of largescale projects. He was Mexico’s most recognized architect worldwide from the 1980s onward and completed numerous commissions internationally, including in the United States. In Northern Mexico, he completed the condominium project at the Camino Real Hotel in Cabo San Lucas, BCS (1972); the Renault Factory in Gómez Palacio, Dgo.; and several projects in Monterrey, including the MARCO (Monterrey’s Museum for Contemporary Art) and Calzada del Valle de Banamex Building (1982), among others. He lectured on his work around the world and also taught at the University of Texas at Austin and UCLA, among others. Lenoir Nicoulaz, Alexandre (1961–), architect and professor, is a native of Vevey, Switzerland, and graduated from the EPSIC School of Architecture, Lausanne, Switzerland (1982), and the EIF School of Architecture, Fribourg, Switzerland (1985); he also studied at Columbia University (1986–1987). He relocated to Monterrey, NL (1991), and established his firm, a+v architecture and urbanism, in 1992. The work of the firm is noted for its careful siting, formal clarity, rigorous tectonic order, and refined detailing. Lenoir Nicoulaz has completed many noted commercial and residential projects in Monterrey, including the Cooperativa Agrícola Martínez and a number of important private residences. He taught architectural design at the ITESM, Monterrey Campus, from 1993 to 2002; was a visiting professor at the ISAD in Chihuahua, Chih. (2005–2006); and currently serves as the director of the architecture program at the CEDIM School of Architecture and Design in Monterrey (2002–). Librado Tapia, Navidad (dates?), engineer, designed the Teatro Ángela Peralta in Mazatlán, Sin. The drawings for the restored theater are on display today in the museum portion of the theater, which one poll ranks as the twentieth most beautiful opera house in the world. Lobeira Castro, Juan (1906–1972), engineer, was born in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chis., studied at Colegio de San Jacinto in Mexico City, and became a military engineer. He came to Monterrey, NL, in the 1930s and designed the Campus Militar in a streamlined, art deco vocabulary. After leaving the military, he formed his own construction company in the 1940s and designed many Spanish colonial revival houses in the Vista Hermosa and Obispado suburban neighborhoods of Monterrey.

López-Guerra, Francisco (1949–), architect, was born in Mexico City, the son of a prominent architect, studied at the Universidad Anáhuac and graduated from the UNAM. He worked for the noted architect Pedro Ramírez Vázquez and then opened his own office (1973), doing large-scale public work, especially a number of museums. His work in Northern Mexico includes the Chapel in Nacozari de García, Son. (1985); National Museum of the Desert, Saltillo, Coah. (1997); El Trompo Museum of Science and Technology, Tijuana, BC (2000); El Caracol Museum of Science and Aquarium, Ensenada, BC (2000); and Semilla Museum of Science and Technology, Chihuahua, Chih. (2000). Lozano Arrambide, Adán (1935–), architect, was born in Zuazua, NL, and graduated from the ITESM, Monterrey Campus (1958). He opened his own firm in the 1960s and is one of the best architects of his generation in Monterrey, NL. His work has evolved over time as skillfully articulated compositions that are respectful of their natural and urban contexts. His early work deployed a Corbusian vocabulary, but his later work, such as the Casa en Volga 208 (1969), utilized a vocabulary reminiscent of Legorreta. His current work is composed within a contemporary tectonically expressive functionalist vocabulary. His projects include private residences in the Municipio San Pedro. Mayora, Miguel (1860–1889), engineer, was born in Mexico City, studied in Paris, and was later brought to Monterrey, NL, by Gen. Bernardo Reyes. He designed and built the Juárez Bridge, participated in the design of the Mercado Colón, and codesigned the State’s Prison with Francisco Beltrán. McAllister, Wayne (1908–2000), architect, was a native of San Diego, CA, and worked as an architectural designer with the American Building Company. He submitted an eclectic Mediterranean/Spanish colonial/art deco schematic design for the Agua Caliente Resort in Tijuana, BC. The scheme so captivated the owner that McAllister and his newlywed wife, Corinne, received the commission when McAllister was only nineteen years old. (Corinne McAllister is discussed as a collaborator for the design of the Agua Caliente Resort in Tijuana, BC, by some scholars.) He also designed the Spanish colonial revival Topo Chico Resort (ca. 1933) on the outskirts of Monterrey, although the project was never completed. McAllister moved to Los Angeles (1934) and created nightclubs, hotels, and dozens of drive-in restaurants. He designed the first hotel on the Las Vegas Strip, the El Rancho (1941), and went on to design the Desert Inn, (1956), the Sands, the Fremont, and the Horseshoe. Meléndez, Javier (1937–), architect, industrial designer, and sculptor, was born in Torreón, Coah., and graduated from the ITESM, Monterrey Campus (1962), where he later taught for more than five years. He began his career as an industrial designer in 1969 and was active in Monterrey from the 1970s onward. He has exhibited in more than sixty solo and group exhibitions in Mexico

Appendix  287 and abroad. He worked for the Vitro Corporation as an industrial designer of glass and has executed a number of sculptures in this material; he created the architectural monument Los Tubos of steel pipes that has become an icon of San Pedro Garza García. He also designed the Vidrio Plano office building, a series of glass pavilions that open to the lush gardens, as well as residential projects.

Antonio Méndez-Vigatá; photo ERB

Méndez-Vigatá, Antonio (1959–), architect and professor, is a native of Torreón, Coah.; received his secondary education in his native city and in Switzerland; and completed his architectural studies at the ITESM, Monterrey Campus (1985), and at the AA in London (1986–1989). In London he worked for James Stirling, Michael Wilford and Associates, and Ove Arup. He taught at the ITESM Monterrey and served as director of the Department of Architecture (1991–1993). He has created a noted regional modern architecture that responds to the local conditions of place, including local typologies, climate, labor, and materials, and has designed several important projects in Torreón that are among the best contemporary architecture of the region. These include the Colegio Cervantes (1991–2006), Graphimart (2002), the Shade-Otaduy Residence (2003), and the Herrera Residence (2005). He was also responsible for the DPZ complex in Saltillo, Coah., and the Villas Alejandras in Gómez Palacio, Dgo., among other projects. Mendiola Quezada, Vicente (1900–1986), architect, professor, and painter, was a native of Mexico City and studied architecture at the Academia de San Carlos (1918–1922). He produced a number of important works in Mexico City such as the Estación de Bomberos (1928), today adaptively reused as the Museo de Artes Populares. In Northern Mexico, his works with Guillermo Zárraga included the Escuela Central Agrícola de Durango, Dgo. (1926); Escuela Central Agrícola de Tomatán, Tamps. (1927); and independently the Escuela Central Agrícola de Tenería, Chih. (1928); Hospital Civil, Tampico, Tamps. (1934); the Aduanas in Algodones, Tecate, and Tijuana, BC, and in Sásabe, Son. (1936); the Planos Reguladores in Ciudad Juárez, Chih., and Nuevo Laredo, Tamps. (1937); and a proposal for a church in Monterrey, NL (1985). He also taught at the UNAM, UAEM, Universidad Anáhuac, and La Salle, among others. He was also a prolific watercolorist, producing numerous studies of traditional colonial and vernacular architecture of Mexico.

Carlos Mijares Bracho; courtesy of architect

Mijares Bracho, Carlos (1930–2015), architect and professor, was a native of Mexico City and completed his studies at the Escuela Nacional de Arquitectura (1948–1952). He founded his practice in Mexico City, and it was characterized by a concern for context, site, materials, and sensory experience; he was one of the leading architects in Mexico. His projects included the Parroquia de Ciudad Hidalgo; a chapel at Jungapeo, MI; Christ Episcopal Church, Mexico City (1989); a bank in Guaymas, Son.; and a residence in Durango. He also taught architectural design and architectural history and theory at the UNAM (1954–1975) and the Universidad Iberoamericana (1967–1975). Moctezuma Díaz Infante, Pedro (1923–2011), architect and urban designer, was born in San Luis Potosí and was mentored during his career by José Villagrán García. His important works included projects for the petroleum industry and government, including the PRI National Headquarters (1965); Pemex offices, Poza Rica, Ver. (1965); Central Hospital Pemex (1965); the expansion of the airport in Acapulco, Gro. (1965); the School of Accounting and Administration, UNAM, Mexico City (1967); Pemex Administrative Center, Mexico City (1968); and the Pemex Tower, Mexico City (1984). In Northern Mexico, he designed the Palacio de Gobierno, La Paz, BCS (1962); Zona del Río Urban Plan, Tijuana, BC (1971–1976); and Parque Urbano el Chamizal, Ciudad Juárez, Chih. (1976). Molina Montes, Jorge (1927–), architect, was born in Mérida, Yuc., and studied at Rensselaer Polytechnic in New York (1944–1948), then moved to Culiacán, Sin., to work for the industrialist Manuel Suárez. He worked with a number of engineers from Mexico City, including Gonzalo Ortiz de Zárate and Félix Candela, as well as Jorge González Reyna. His best-known project is the Santuario de Guadalupe in Culiacán, Sin. Molina Rodríguez, Luis F. (1864–1954), architect, was born in Ozumbilla, Méx., and was raised by an aunt in Mexico City. He studied at the Preparatoria de San Ildefonso, where he was a student of Gabino Barreda, and the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes (1884), where he was a friend of the sculptor Jesús Contreras. Molina was a prolific architect in Culiacán, Sin. (1890–1925). He redesigned the urban plan for Culiacán (1890), the Teatro Apolo (1892), Colegio Nacional Rosales (1895), Iglesia de Santuario (1908), Mercado Garmendia (1917), and a number of other government buildings in the city. Montoya, Benigno (1862–1929), builder, stone mason, and sculptor, apprenticed with his father from twelve years of age.

288  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico His works in Durango, Dgo., include the Santuario de Guadalupe (1885), the Palacio del Arzobispado (1885), the main altar of Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles (1897), the tower and altar of San Juan de Analco (ca. 1890), the main altar of San Agustín (ca. 1890), and portions of the Teatro Ricardo Castro (1900). Morphosis Architects, architects and professors, was formed by Thom Mayne and Michael Rotundi (ca. 1975), and had its work published and exhibited all over the world. Michael Rotundi (1949–), architect and professor, was educated at SCI-ARC and was one of the earliest directors of the school. He left the partnership Morphosis (1991) to form his own firm, RoTo Architects, led by principals Rotundi and Clark Stevens, based in Los Angeles. Projects including the Hollywood Orange Building, the Carlson-Reges Residence, the View Silo House, and the Sinte Gleska University have been recognized for their design excellence. Thom Mayne (1943–), architect and professor, received his bachelor of arts in architecture from the USC (1968) and the Harvard GSD (1978). With Ray Kappe and faculty and students from Cal Poly Pomona he founded SCI-ARC. After Michael Rotundi left the firm to form his own company (1991), Mayne remained with Morphosis and went on to win many local and national awards, including the Pritzker Prize (2005). Muguerza, José F. (1899–?), architect and engineer, was the son of José A. Muguerza and studied at Washington University in St. Louis, MO, and for a year in Barcelona. In the 1920s, he joined his family’s architecture, engineering, and construction firm, Muguerza Hermanos, that was active in Monterrey and all of Nuevo León. The firm designed and built the Casino in Linares, NL, among other projects. His nephew was the architect Antonio Elosúa Muguerza. Enrique Müller; photographer unknown

Müller, Enrique (Henrique, Heinrich; 1823–1899), banker, miner, developer, and engineer, was born in Germany, immigrated to the United States (1832), and became a naturalized American citizen (1839). He moved to Chihuahua, Chih., entered the mining business, and administered the mint (Casa de Moneda) for Juárez during the French occupation. Müller rented and later purchased the enormous Hacienda Encinillas, confiscated by the state from the Martínez del Río family in reprisal for their collaboration with the French. Müller later sold half of Encinillas to Luis Terrazas, who converted it into a retreat named El Sauz. He also designed a number of projects in Chihuahua, including the Hacienda Tabalaopa (1881) and a prominent residence to

the west of the Parque Lerdo now used by NAFINSA, S.N.C. His family married into the Luján family, one of the state’s oldest and wealthiest families. Norten, Enrique (1954–), architect and professor, studied at the Universidad Iberoamericana and received his master’s of architecture from Cornell. He began his professional practice in Mexico City (1981) as a partner of Albin y Norten Arquitectos S.C., then founded TEN Arquitectos (Taller de Enrique Norten Arquitectos) in 1985. Enrique Norten/TEN Arquitectos has been honored with numerous national and international awards and publications. He was a founding member of the editorial board at Arquitectura magazine, has lectured worldwide, and has participated in several international juries and awards committees. He was a professor of architecture at the Universidad Iberoamericana (1980–1990) and has served as a visiting professor at many prominent universities. Recent projects in Northern Mexico include an aquarium in Cabo San Lucas, BCS. O’Gorman, Juan (1905–1983), architect and painter, was born in Col. Coyoacán in Mexico City to an Irish father and a Mexican mother. He studied architecture at the Academy of San Carlos and helped introduce modern functionalist architecture to Mexico with his houses in San Ángel, including the house and studio for Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo (1929–1932). He was appointed head of the Architectural Office of the Ministry of Public Education (1932), where he went on to design and build twenty-six functionalist elementary schools in Mexico. At midcareer, he turned to painting that featured portrayals of Mexican history and landscape, including murals in Mexico City’s Chapultepec Castle and the large tile murals of the Central Library of the National Autonomous University of Mexico campus, designed with Gustavo Saavedra and Juan Martínez de Velasco (1952). Late in his career, O’Gorman turned away from strict functionalism and worked to develop an organic architecture influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright and pre-Columbian architecture. His little-known work in Northern Mexico includes a School Project in Tampico, Tamps. (1932). Ortega Flores, Felipe N. (1907–1980), architect, graduated from the Academy of San Carlos, came to Hermosillo, Son. (1941), and was active throughout the decade. His projects include the Museo Biblioteca de Sonora in Hermosillo, Clínica del Noroeste, and residences in Colonia Pitic in Hermosillo. Ortega, Salvador (ca. 1910?–), architect, was the brother of Felipe N. Ortega and was responsible for general plans of the museum, library, university plaza, and botanical gardens for Hermosillo, Son. (1945). Ortiz Flores, Guillermo (1923–2009), architect, engineer, and planner, grew up the seventh of eleven children in the Col. Atzcapotzalco in Mexico City and received his undergraduate and graduate education from the Instituto Politécnico Nacional. He began

Appendix  289 his career working with Enrique Yáñez on the Orthopedics Hospital at the National Medical Center. Subsequently, he focused his career on health care architecture and planning for the IMSS, ISSSTE, and SSA, including hospital projects in Northern Mexico in Saltillo and Monclova, Coah.; Villa de Guadalupe (Monterrey, NL); Durango, Dgo., as well as Reynosa, Ciudad Victoria, Ciudad Mante, and Nuevo Laredo, Tamps. He also created prototype clinics and many medical programming studies for the IMSS, ISSSTE, SSA, and the Ministries of Health of Ecuador and El Salvador. He was director of the Building Committee for the Ministry of Health and Welfare, Health Care Coordinator for the ISSSTE and IMSS, and advisor to the Urban Development Commission in Tabasco. He also taught at the IPN, UNAM, IMSS, and SSA and was a founding member of the Mexican Society of Professionals and Technicians of Planning and Design of Medical Facilities and the Mexican Society of Architects specializing in health. He published two books on medical planning in Mexico. He also designed other project types. In Coahuila, these included the federal inspection stations in Ciudad Acuña, offices and facilities for the IMSS in Saltillo and Monclova, workers’ housing for the Altos Hornos, and a nursing home in Monclova, Coah. Projects in Tamaulipas include the Technical University and IMSS facilities in Reynosa and Matamoros; maquiladora housing in Matamoros; the City Theater and federal inspection stations in Reynosa; the Police College, the military headquarters, the Legislative Palace, and Plaza de la Cultura in Ciudad Victoria; and IMSS facilities in Altamira. He also designed IMSS facilities in Ensenada, BC. He developed urban regeneration studies and workers’ housing in Mexico City for the National Housing Institute, ISSSTE, and IMSS. With his son Francisco, he produced a plan (1991–1992) for the Ministry of Health and the National Health Council, which made a comprehensive study of all the health services infrastructure of the SSA, IMSS, ISSSTE, armed forces, and private institutes. At the end of his career, he conducted a Social Welfare Development Plan (2006–2012) for the entire country, as well as designed the expansion and remodeling projects for Matamoros Hospital, the State Center on Addictions, and the First State Blood Bank in Victoria, which are currently under construction. Ortiz Monasterio, Manuel (1887–1967), architect, was born in Mexico City, where he completed his architectural education (1913). He was a professor of the Escuela Nacional de Arquitectura (1922–1924) and also served as director of the school. He completed many notable projects, including the Estación del Ferrocarril in Durango, Dgo. (1918–1922), as well as many in Mexico City, such as the noted midrise office tower La Compañía Nacional de Seguros (1930–1932). Palafox Muñoz, Leopoldo (ca. 1900?–), architect, graduated from the Academy of San Carlos; came to Hermosillo, Son. (1941); and was active the remainder of the decade. He was responsible for the Main Building at the Universidad de Sonora that combined classroom and lab wings around courtyards with a figural colonial revival entrance that faced a garden plaza.

Pani, Mario (1911–1993), architect, urban planner, and editor, was born in Mexico City and was the son of a diplomat who served in Genoa, Milan, and Paris; he was the nephew of Alberto J. Pani, secretary of the treasury (1932–1933). He received his architectural education at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris (1934), and became one of the most important twentieth-century architects in Mexico. He designed numerous influential projects, including large multifamily housing projects, public institutions, and urban and regional master plans. His master plan projects in Northern Mexico include the UANL campus with Pedro Ramírez Vázquez and others (1957); the National Border program for the U.S.-Mexico border (1960); a suburb in Monterrey, NL; and another in Empalme, Son. In Northern Mexico, he designed the Condominio Acero (1960) in Monterrey, NL, with Ramón Lamadrid. He was awarded the National Prize for Arts and Sciences (1986). Passement, Bartolo (ca. 1805?–), builder, immigrated to Matamoros, Tamps., from New Orleans, LA (1832), to escape discrimination after the Louisiana legislature increasingly restricted the rights of free African Americans. He was the nephew of Mateo Passement and the son of a Frenchman from Haiti, while his mother was of African descent from Cuba. In the 1850s, he reconstructed Matamoros’s Catedral de Nuestra Señora del Refugio after the hurricane (1844). One of his grandsons went on to become mayor of Matamoros in the 1890s. Passement, Mateo (ca. 1810?–), builder, was a brick mason from New Orleans, LA, who built the original Catedral de Nuestra Señora del Refugio (1814–1833). He was the uncle of Bartolo Passement, who would rebuild the cathedral after the hurricane of 1844. PLADIS has been responsible for many industrial and corporate projects in Monterrey, NL, and Northern Mexico. The partnership was established in 1982 and includes Eduardo Padilla Martínez Negrete, his son José Ricardo Padilla Silva, and Jorge Alejandro Estévez Ancira. Eduardo Padilla Martínez Negrete (1926–), architect and professor, was born in Guadalajara, studied at the engineering school at the Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara, entered the ITESM School of Architecture (1946) with the first architecture class of the school, and has been one of the most prolific architects in Monterrey, NL. He was in private practice in Monterrey (1959–), had close ties to the city’s industrial leaders during his career, and built both residential and workplaces for its members. His early industrial work from the 1950s included the Conductores Monterrey (1959) and Nylon de México (1958–1978). Among his residential works are the Jorge Fernández Ruiloba and the Everardo García houses. He designed two houses for his own family, the first one from the 1960s called Los Palomos, and the second one in the 1980s, El Cielo. He has held a number of public positions in the state government and also in the municipality of the Colonia San Pedro in the areas of culture and urban

290  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico planning. In addition to his professional practice, he has been a professor at the ITESM and UANL in Monterrey. Ricardo Padilla Silva (1956–), architect and professor, is a native of Monterrey and the son of Eduardo Padilla Martínez Negrete; he continues the family tradition of architectural practice. He received his architectural education at the ITESM, Monterrey Campus, and the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Barcelona (ETSAB) and has practiced in the partnership PLADIS with Jorge Estévez since 1982. The firm has built a number of large industrial and corporate projects, including the Vitro Corporativo (1985) and the noteworthy Corporativo Axtel (2004), sited at the side of the freeway that leads to Saltillo. He has also taught at the ITESM, Monterrey Campus. Ponzaneli, Ricardo (1950–), sculptor, was born in Mexico City and created the sculpture Diana Cazadora in Chihuahua, which resembles the same well-known Diana sculpture and fountain in Mexico City. PRODUCTORA is a Mexico City–based firm founded in 2006 by Abel Perles (1972–), Argentina; Carlos Bedoya (1973–), Mexico; Víctor Jaime (1978–), Mexico; and Wonne Ickx (1974–), Belgium. Rejecting an established design vocabulary, the firm looks for the specific opportunities of each project, ranging from single-family dwellings to office or public buildings. In Northern Mexico, they designed a noted residence in Chihuahua, Chih. (2008). Pruneda, Sergio (1928–), architect, is a native of Mexico City, and he completed his architectural studies at the UNAM (1953), where he was a student of José Villagrán García, Francisco Serrano, Jesús Aguirre Cárdenas, and Carlos Lazo. Afterward he traveled in Europe and came to Mazatlán, Sin. (1955), where he worked for Ing. Ernesto Velasco. After forming his own firm, he completed numerous hotel projects in Mazatlán in the 1950s and 1960s. Ramírez Vázquez, Pedro (1917–2013), architect, administrator, and professor, graduated from the UNAM School of Architecture (1943), taught at the school (1942–1958, 1966–1975), and is widely known as one of the leading architects of twentieth-century Mexico. He completed many government-sponsored projects as well as the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, codesigned with Rafael Mijares (1924–). In Northern Mexico, his projects include the Museum and Cultural Center in Ciudad Juárez, Chih.; the master plan for the UANL campus with Mario Pani and others (1957); the sculptural church of Our Lady of Guadalupe (1975) in Monterrey, NL; the Cultural Center in Tijuana, BC; and the Teatro de la Ciudad in Piedras Negras, Coah. Rangel, Cecilia (ca. 1962–) and Mayeux, James (ca. 1960–) both graduated from the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture in the late 1980s. Mayeux was educated at Texas A&M

University (1966–1968), the University of Texas at Austin (bachelor’s in architecture, 1968–1972), and Harvard University (master’s in landscape architecture, 1998–2000). They designed a noted house in Monterrey, NL, in the 1990s and then they moved their firm to Monterrey, first working out of Rangel’s family home and then out of a studio that is part of an apartment they renovated. They built an art studio and library for Sra. Milmo and their own home, which is one of the best residential works in Monterrey, NL, of the 1990s. Mayeux went on to become the dean of the School of Architecture, Art, and Design at the ITESM, Monterrey Campus, and was a principal in Upland Studio. Ravizé Rodríguez, Armando (ca. 1912–), engineer, designed one of the most important and undervalued projects in the country, the abstract modernist Edificio Monterrey (ca. 1949) on the main plaza of Torreón that was the tallest building in Northern Mexico for many years and deserves wider critical attention. He was also the engineer and builder for a number of important works in Monterrey, NL, including the church of La Purísima and the Estadio Tecnológico. Rendón, Gabriela (n.d.) and Robles-Durán, Miguel (n.d.), architects, moved to Tijuana (1985), then to Monterrey to study architecture at the ITESM, and later to Los Angeles to attend SCI-ARC. Robles-Durán opened Rhizoma (1999) with his wife, Gabriela Rendón, in Tijuana. He was an adjunct faculty member of design at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Tijuana and taught design at the New School of Architecture in San Diego (2003–). Gabriela Rendón studied at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and is a cofounder and active member of Cohabitation Strategies, an international nonprofit cooperative for research, design, and development based in Rotterdam and New York City. Her work combines research and practice at different scales, focusing on urban design and strategies and processes to counteract conditions produced by market-driven urbanization. Her work has been exhibited at the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art (MCASD), the Architectural League in New York, UrbanPlus in Zurich, and the Fourth International Architecture Biennale in Rotterdam. Reyes Rivas, Refugio (1862–1943), a self-taught architect, civil engineer, sculptor, and builder, was born on the ranchería of Sauceda, Zac. At fourteen he began working as a bricklayer and worked on the construction of the Capilla de Nápoles and the Mexican Central Railroad in Zacatecas with British engineers (1876–1881). This was a formative experience, and his work across his career reflected a concern for light, materiality, and tectonic logic. He also studied the engravings, photographs, and treatises of Vitruvius and Vignola. His designs were highly inventive and original and reflected eclectic vocabularies of the era. His first commission was the Gran Mercado de Zacatecas (1888). He relocated to Aguascalientes and had a thriving practice during which he designed the Church of San Antonio (1896– 1908) and built a teacher’s school, hotels, houses, the Banco

Appendix  291 Nacional de México (1905), and other works. He was also a contractor for architects Carlos M. Lazo and Federico Mariscol. “Don Cuco,” as he was known, passed away in 1943, and the Universidad Autónoma de Aguascalientes awarded him the title “Architect” posthumously (1985). Although Refugio Reyes did not practice strictly within the region discussed in this book, he is included here because he practiced in the adjacent North Central states of Aguascalientes and Zacatecas (Zacatecas is considered by some to be part of Northern Mexico). He is an example of the talented builder who also served as architect for his own built work in Northern Mexico in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Rocha, Mauricio (1963–), architect and professor, was born in Mexico City the son of the noted photographer Graciela Iturbide and the noted architect Manuel Rocha Díaz, with whom he collaborated until his death (1996). He studied architecture at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. His most outstanding buildings include the Center for the Blind in the Ixtapalapa district and the San Pablo Ozotepec Market in the Milpa Alta district in Mexico City. His work explores a materially expressive sensory architecture at a human scale. Rodríguez and Guerra Arquitectos (ca. 1975?–), architects. Felipe Rodríguez and Ángeles Guerra graduated from the ITESM and opened their practice in Ciudad Victoria, Tamp., where they designed the Casa San Ángel (2006) that utilizes an abstract vocabulary of expressive materiality. Rodríguez, Gilberto L. (1966–), architect and professor, received his architectural education at the ITESM, Monterrey Campus (1989); studied at the Politécnico de Milano (1990); and graduated from the Harvard GSD (1990). He opened his firm (1994) in Monterrey, NL, and has completed a number of residential and multifamily housing projects that have won awards and have also been published. He was a leading member of a younger generation of architects in Monterrey, NL, and has also taught architectural design at the UDEM (University of Monterrey; 1997–1998) and recently at the ITESM Monterrey (2000–). He has designed a number of apartment buildings and the conversion of the Edificio Monterrey office building to housing (2008). Rojkind, Michel (1969–), architect and professor, is a native of Mexico City. From 1987 to 1999, Rojkind was a drummer in Aleks Syntek’s band La Gente Normal and studied architecture at the Universidad Iberoamericana. After working independently for several years, he established a partnership (1998–2002) with Isaac Broid and Miquel Adrià. In 2002, he established Rojkind Arquitectos, an independent firm recognized as “one of the best ten Design Vanguard firms” by Architectural Record in 2005. His work explores new geometries that address questions of space, function, technology, materials, structure, and construction methods related to geography, climate, and local urban experiences. His completed projects in Mexico City include Liverpool

Interlomas (2011); Tori Tori restaurant in Polanco, Mexico City (2011); Reforma 232 apartment building; and Cineteca Nacional del Siglo XXI, Mexico City. Rovalo, Fernando (1940–), architect, was responsible for the design of the Universidad Iberoamericana, Torreón Campus, in association with Jorge Ballina and José Creixell (1988). Salido, Felipe (1863–1939), engineer, builder, and educator, was born in Álamos, Son. He entered the Colegio Militar de Chapultepec to study mathematics and graduated as a lieutenant engineer. He joined the staff of the First Military Zone during the administration of General José Guillermo Carbo (1884), served with Generals Carrillo and Martínez, and rose to the rank of captain. Leaving the military, he established a school in Álamos, Son., for primary and secondary education (1888). He became head of schools in Sonora (1900) and was appointed inspector of primary schools and also served as an engineer to the state. He built the Álamos Municipal and Federal Palace in Hermosillo, Son., and probably paid his workers with tokens that could be redeemed at a company store. He was elected a federal senator (1920–1924) but became paralyzed (1927) and lived in Mexico City until his death. Sánchez, Javier (1969–), architect, developer, builder, and professor, is a native of Mexico City and is the founding partner, lead designer, and director of the JSª design development, formerly known as Higuera + Sánchez (1996–2007). He received his architectural education from the UNAM and received his master’s degree in real estate development from Columbia. He received an award at the Venice Biennale of Architecture for the project República de Brasil 44. With more than forty national and international awards, including the Mies Van der Rohe Prize (2000) for the housing project Veracruz 81, he has designed projects of all types in Mexico, China, Costa Rica, Panama, and Peru. Sánchez García, Javier (ca. 1950?–), architect and administrator, graduated from the UANL (1972) and has specialized in historic adaptive reuse projects. He was responsible for the restoration of a nineteenth-century courtyard house in Villa de Santiago, NL, and the Hacienda de Soledad de Ramos (1830). He was the regional director for INAH in Nuevo León (1984–2004) and administered and supervised the restoration of many of the historic buildings in Monterrey during this period. He oversaw the restoration/adaptive reuse of the Museo del Vidrio (Óscar Martínez and Eliseo Garza, restoration architects) and the Cineteca (Héctor Domínguez, restoration architect). He also worked on proposals to restore neglected early-twentieth-century neighborhoods in Monterrey, including the Col. Obispado and Col. Alameda. Sava, Antonino (1898–1958), engineer and builder, was born in Belpaso, Italy; graduated with a degree in industrial engineering in Italy; and then studied at the Instituto Politécnico Nacional in

292  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico Mexico City. He arrived in Monterrey (ca. 1929), where he was designer/builder of Hospital Seville (1933–1943) and IMSS Hospital in Monterrey, NL, one of the most important modernist works in Northern Mexico. Schjetnan Guarduño, Mario (1945–), landscape architect, graduated from the UNAM (1967), received his master’s of urban design from the University of California at Berkeley (1970), and was director of urban projects and housing for INFONAVIT (1972). His Mexico City–based practice, Grupo de Diseño Urbano, is Mexico’s most noted contemporary landscape architecture firm. His projects in Northern Mexico include multifamily housing in Piedras Negras, Coah. (1982); Museo de las Culturas del Norte, Paquimé, Casas Grandes, Chih. (1995); and the Tampico, Tamps., Canal Restoration Project (2002–). His restoration project for the waterworks and gardens at Xochimilco in Mexico City has received worldwide acclaim for its ecological restoration of an endangered remnant of the pre-Columbian lake system of the Valley of Mexico. He has also served as the president of the Society of Landscape Architects of Mexico and was codirector of the magazine Etorno. Schott, Otto (ca. 1925?–), architect, was a graduate of the ITESM, Monterrey Campus; developed a rationalist architectural practice in Torreón, Coah.; and was active in residential development in Torreón in the 1950s and 1960s. He is believed to have designed the Villas El Rancho Beach Resort, a beach resort in Mazatlán, Sin., with twenty-eight guest villas. Sebastián (1948–), artist and sculptor, is a native of Chihuahua responsible for a number of urban-scale steel sculptures finished in primary colors that are inspired by forms in nature. His works have become landmarks in highway medians, highway intersections, and parks in Northern Mexico and the region over the past thirty years, including in Chihuahua, Chih.; Torreón, Coah.; Monterrey, NL; Mexico City; and San Antonio, TX. His work can also be seen in the Museo Sebastián at the Casa Siglo XIX in Chihuahua, Chih. Segura, Juan (1898–1989), architect, was based in Mexico City and worked primarily in an art deco vocabulary designing multifamily housing and low-cost social housing. His mixed-use project, the Ermita Building (1932), is noted for its innovative sectional organization with multiple functions. He also designed schools in Sinaloa. Siller, José María (ca. 1865?–), builder, was the builder of the Cervecería Cuauhtémoc (1898) in Monterrey, NL, designed by a North American firm. His brother, Gerónimo, was the governor of Nuevo León in 1925. He frequently worked with Alfred Giles, including on the entrance to El Carmen Cemetery. Slonecki, Estanislao V. (ca. 1860?–?), engineer, designed several of the most important buildings for the Porfirio Díaz regime

(1876–1911), including the Palacio Escárzaga in Durango, Dgo., for the wealthy merchant Pedro Ezcárzaga Coral in the late nineteenth century. His other works were the Light and Power Company, known as “El Palomar,” and the Bank of Durango (1898–1901). Sordo Madaleno Bringas, Javier (1956–), architect, was born in Mexico City and is the son of the noted architect Juan Sordo Madaleno (1916–1985). He studied at the Universidad Iberoamericana (1974–1979) and worked for Ricardo Legorreta, Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, and José de Yturbe Bernal. He continued his father’s firm, Sordo Madaleno Arquitectos S.C., which designs hotels and large shopping centers, among other projects. He was the architect for the well-known Westin Hotel in Cabo San Lucas, BCS, with José de Yturbe Bernal. Springall + Lira Arquitectos, architects, was founded in 1991 in Mexico City and has designed a variety of building types that have been widely published in Mexico. The firm designed the Librerías Gandhi in Monterrey, NL (2003). Billy Springall (1962–), architect, was born and educated in Mexico City and graduated from the Universidad Iberoamericana (1985). He has taught at the UNAM and at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City. Miguel Ángel Lira Filloy (1961–), architect, was born and educated in Mexico City, graduating from the Universidad Iberoamericana (1984). He has taught at the ITESM, Mexico City Campus; UNAM; UAM; and at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City. Talamantes, Juan Luis (ca. 1940?–), architect, was educated at the ITESM in Monterrey, NL (1963), and received his master’s in architecture (1969) and master’s in urban planning (1970) from Princeton. He designed the adaptive reuse of the Museo de Monterrey in the former Cervecería Cuauhtémoc in Monterrey (1976– 1984). He also taught at the ITESM (1966–1980). Talamás Murra, Mario A. (ca. 1974?–), architect, builder, and developer, has been active in Torreón, Coah., since the 1990s and has designed private residences, residential subdivisions, preschools, and commercial projects. He completed his architectural studies at the ITESO, Guadalajara, Jal. (1986), and continued business studies at the Universidad Anáhuac, Torreón Campus (2004), and at the IPADE, Torreón Campus. His work is primarily concerned with the reinterpretation of traditional typologies and construction types for the developer-based residential and commercial market of Torreón, Coah. Tarriba Rodil, Jorge (1928–), architect, is a native of Culiacán and also spent his early years in Mazatlán, Sin., and Los Angeles, CA. He entered the UNAM (1948) and realized his first work in Mazatlán (1953). He was responsible for a number of important modernist projects in Mazatlán, including his most notable works, the Hotel de Cima (1957) and the Hotel Lido (1958).

Appendix  293 Taylor, Isaac S. (?–1917), architect, was based in St. Louis, MO, and was the chief architect at the St. Louis Exposition (1904), which featured exhibits from fifty foreign countries and forty-three states that displayed the nation’s latest achievements in science, technology, manufacturing, and fine arts. Today only the centerpiece Palace of Fine Arts (Cass Gilbert, 1904) remains, and it has become St. Louis’s Museum of Fine Arts. In Monterrey, NL, he designed the Estación del Ferrocarril de Golfo (1891). His other buildings in St. Louis include the Commercial Building (1888) and the LaSalle Commercial Building (1909). Terrazas de la Peña, Eduardo (1936–), architect, urbanist, and graphic designer, was born in Guadalajara. Terrazas completed his architectural studies at the UNAM (1958) and at Cornell (1960). After graduation he collaborated in European offices, including Candilis, Josic, Woods (1962). He led the renowned graphic design program for the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City and has also taught design at Columbia and U.C. Berkeley. Terrazas has designed a number of large public architecture and urban design projects including the Macroplaza (1981–1985) in Monterrey, NL, and the Centro de Convenciones y Exposiciones (2008) in Tampico, Tamps., as well as proposals around the world in Tanzania and other countries. Toca Fernández, Antonio (1944–), architect and writer, was born in Mexico City and completed his architectural studies in 1967. Toca designed the Sinaloa Congress in Culiacán, Sin. He is also a noted critic and prolific writer on the architecture of Mexico, and has written numerous books and essays. He was a professor at the Universidad Metropolitano de México (1974–1986) and undersecretary of urban development for the state of Sinaloa. He was also head of the Design Division of the IMSS in Mexico City and is currently the General Director of Strategic Studies for the State of Mexico. Tresguerras, Francisco Eduardo (1759–1833), architect, painter, sculptor, and author, was a native of Celaya, Gto. He studied painting under Miguel Cabrera at the Real Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City but did not graduate and took up wood carving and engraving. He was familiar with the classical architectural treatises, especially from the Jesuit Jacopo Vignola. Tresguerras’s first major work (1780s) was the reconstruction of the convent church of Santa Rosa, Qro., as a neoclassical composition. Tresguerras also completed the Carmelite convent in Querétaro (1807) from the design of Manuel Tolsá. His most well-known work is the neoclassical redesign of the church of El Carmen in Celaya, Gto. (1802–1807). He designed the Palace of the Conde de Casa Rul in Guanajuato, Gto., as well as works in San Luis Potosí; Salvatierra, Gto.; Salamanca, Gto.; Irapuato, Gto.; and some towns in Jalisco. The Museo Nacional de Artes Plásticas in Mexico City contains several of his paintings, including La Virgen del Carmen, Santa Rosa de Viterbo, and Educación de la Virgen. Tresguerras also wrote devotional works and poetic satires and was arrested (1811) for his sympathy for the independence movement.

Tyrell, Henry G. (ca. 1840?–), engineer, designed the worldfamous Brooklyn Bridge with Wilhelm Hildenbrand and John A. Roebling. With Santiago Minguín, he designed the Puente de Ojuela at the Ojuela mines in Mapimí, Dgo. (1892). Urdapilleta, Manuel (ca. 1900?–), architect, was a refugee of the Spanish Civil War who came to Torreón, Coah. His innovative art deco and organic streamline works in Torreón, Coah., were influenced by Erich Mendelsohn and are some of the most notable commercial buildings in the city. He was also responsible for the art deco residential neighborhoods near the central core of Torreón. Among his other major projects of the 1940s in Torreón are a department store and a four-story multiuse building, with shops at the ground floor and three stories of apartments above, at Falcón between Juárez and Hidalgo. Vega, Santos (ca. 1880?–), builder, was a mason and quarry worker and a friend of General Francisco “Pancho” Villa. Villa commissioned him to build a house in Chihuahua, Chih., for one of his favorite wives, Luz Corral de Villa, where she lived until her death (1981). Velarde, Rodrigo (1937–), landscape architect, is a native of Monterrey who studied architecture at the ITESM and landscape architecture at the University of North Carolina; he was one of the earliest formally trained landscape architects in the region. In Monterrey, he was responsible for many large landscape projects, including the Plaza Zaragoza (1971), the Macroplaza (1982– 1988), and numerous subdivisions and golf courses such as El Campestre. In Monclova, Coah., he executed the Parque Xochipli at the Fundación Harold R. Pape (1982–1988). Villagrán García, José (1901–1982), architect and professor, was a native of Mexico City and received his bachelor’s degree in architecture from the National University (1923). The noted “father of modern architecture in Mexico” was a professor at the National School of Architecture (1924–1977), head of the department (1933–1935), and member of the board of directors of the UNAM (1953–1970). He also worked for the Department of Public Health (1924–1935), the Architecture Council of Mexico City (1934–1937), and the School Construction Committee (1949–1981). He was an advisor on hospitals for Latin America to the World Health Organization (1951). He imparted architectural theory and design courses to generations of students at the UNAM in Mexico City as well as influencing many through his prolific practice. Some of his most important built works include the Hygiene Institute in Popotla (1925), Tuberculosis Hospital in Huipulco (1929), National Institute of Cardiology (1937), UNAM School of Architecture (1951), Reforma Office Building and Movie Theater (1957), Alameda Hotel (1961), and María Isabel Hotel (1962). He also taught at the ITESM, Monterrey Campus (1947–1955), while completing several projects in Monterrey, including an office building in downtown Monterrey (now demolished) and a classroom building in the ITESM campus,

294  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico Aulas I. He became a member of El Colegio Nacional (1960) and received the National Arts and Sciences Award (1968). Wahrenberger and Beckmann (1883–1890), architects, designed a number of commercial and public buildings in San Antonio, TX, including the Joske’s Building (1887) and Our Lady of the Lake Academy, as well as the Edward Steves Jr. House (1884). They designed the Customs and Warehouse (1891) and the Federal Building (1891) in Piedras Negras, Coah., where Beckmann spent eighteen months overseeing the construction. James Wahrenberger (1855–1929), architect, was born in Austin, TX, studied architecture in Karlsruhe, Germany, graduating in 1876, and was the first Texas architect with a professional architecture degree. Wahrenberger moved to San Antonio (1883) and formed a partnership with Albert Felix Beckmann. In addition to his architectural practice, Wahrenberger wrote the first building ordinance for the city of San Antonio and served as the first San Antonio city building inspector. Albert Felix Beckmann (1855–1900) was born in San Antonio, TX, and traveled to Germany, where he studied architecture. Around 1890, Beckmann ended his partnership with Wahrenberger and opened his own office, but subsequently served with Wahrenberger as the local architect for the St. Louis firm of E. Jugenfeld and Company for the construction of the Lone Star Brewery (1895–1904) in San Antonio, TX. Federico Wulff Olivarri; www.estaciontorreon.galeon.com

Wulff Olivarri, Federico (ca. 1856?–1949), civil engineer, urban planner, and architect, was born in San Antonio, TX, to a Spanish mother and a German father and was sent to study at the University of Hanover. Upon returning to the United States, he designed bridges, married (1876), and had five children. Wulff moved to Torreón, Coah. (1886), at the invitation of Andrés Eppens and developed the first urban plan for the city after it became an important railroad junction. He constructed his family’s home (1904–1905) on a hill overlooking the downtown. He also built the Banco de Laguna and the Hotel Salvador (1904). Yáñez de la Fuente, Enrique (1908–1990), architect, academic, theorist, and writer, was a native of Mexico City and studied architecture at the National University (1927–1931), where he was a student with Enrique del Moral, Juan O’Gorman, and José Villagrán García. He established his career in the capital and went on to become an influential teacher at the National University. With Alberto T. Arai, Enrique Guerrero, Raúl Cacho, Carlos Leduc, and Ricardo Rivas, Yáñez formed the Unión de Arquitectos Socialistas (1938), an organization that emphasized the

utilitarian and social aspects of architecture, including the reduction of spaces to a bare minimum and the rejection of “bourgeois aesthetics.” His work was characterized by a concern for technical rationalism, functionalism, and the nationalist integration of “plastic” works of art by well-known Mexican artists such as Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Francisco Zúñiga, and José Chávez Morado in the 1950s. He is best known for his large hospital commissions that include the Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas (1938), the Centro Médico Nacional (1954–1958; destroyed, 1985), and the Adolfo López Mateos Hospital (1969– 1970). In Northern Mexico, he was responsible for major hospitals in Tampico, Tamps. (1967), and Torreón, Coah. (1967). Yoch, Florence (1890–1972) and Council, Lucile (1898–1964), landscape architects, were partners in their practice and from the 1920s to the 1960s designed more than 250 gardens. Florence Yoch’s designs were notable for providing multiple experiences in a single garden, utilizing several landscape traditions in a single garden, and including surprises in her garden designs. Their firm, Yoch and Council, flourished (1925–1940) and worked with the period’s best architects in Southern California, including Roland Coate, Myron Hunt, Reginald Johnson, Wallace Neff, and Gordon Kaufmann. Yoch also began to design movie sets, including her most famous film project for Tara in Gone With the Wind (1939). After World War II, Yoch began to draw more frequently on U.S. landscape vocabularies. During the later years of her practice, she added simple gardens to historic adobes in Monterey, CA, and designed the grounds of rural farms throughout California and Mexico. Yoch and Council had their final home together in Monterrey, CA, where they created a forest landscape surrounding their home, and where Yoch passed away.

Notes

Introduction 1. That architect was Agustín Landa Vértiz, the leading contemporary architect of Monterrey and Northern Mexico. See Burian et al., Landa García Landa Arquitectos. 2. See Polyzoides, Sherwood, and Tice, Courtyard Housing in Los Angeles, 9, 20. 3. See Oles, South of the Border, 75–145. 4. See http://www.rice.edu/armadillo/Past/Book/Part3/ mxinvent.html. 5. See Casas García, Covarrubias Mijares, and Peza Ramírez, Concreto y efímero. 6. Benedikt, For an Architecture of Reality, 34, 36. 7. See my own unpublished essay “A Brief Overview of Architectural Theory, Education, and Practice in Northern Mexico from 1821 to Present.”

The Geography and Landscapes of Northern Mexico 1. See Baedeker, Baedeker’s Mexico, 12–16. 2. Mexico signed a treaty with the United States in 1944 that specified that it would allow the Río Conchos to flow into the Rio Grande, and in return the United States guaranteed that the Colorado River would flow into Mexico. 3. Summarized from Baedeker, Baedeker’s Mexico, 15. 4. Ibid., 14. 5. Ibid., 12–13. 6. Ibid., 13. 7. Ibid., 14–15. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid.

A Historical Overview of Northern Mexico 1. Early sites in the north with pre-Columbian cave paintings include the Sierra de San Francisco close to San Ignacio, BCS, and the Cañón de la Huasteca near the town of Mina, NL

(ca. 5000 BC). The main pre-Columbian works of Tamaulipas lie in the southernmost coastal region, with a few Postclassic Huasteca culture pyramids located at Pánuco, El Ébano, and Tamuín. The largest site in Northern Mexico is Casas Grandes (Paquimé; AD 650–AD 1450) in Chihuahua. Other sites in northern Chihuahua include Cerro Juanaqueña (ca. 1150 BC), characterized by its terrace construction, and the site of Galeana. 2. See Lejeune, Cruelty and Utopia, 19–29. 3. Ibid., 21. 4. Colonial churches in large cities or wealthy mining towns in the north were primarily Latin cross plans with two towers and composed in Baroque vocabularies, such as at Chihuahua, Chih.; Saltillo, Coah.; Durango, Dgo.; Concordia, Sin.; and Copala, Sin., among others. In smaller towns, the sixteenthcentury type of single-nave church with simple massing persisted, as at Ciudad Juárez, Chih.; Parras, Coah.; and mission churches of Baja California and Sonora, including Loreto, BCS, and the Kino missions of Pitiquito, Oquitoa, and elsewhere. 5. See Lejeune, Cruelty and Utopia, 22. 6. See Nierman and Vallejo, The Hacienda in Mexico. 7. See Fehrenbach, Fire and Blood. Out of a total population of 212,000, only 4,000 were non–Native Americans, with approximately 1,500 Mexicans and 2,500 Anglos. 8. See Hatfield, Chasing Shadows. 9. See Katz, Life and Times of Pancho Villa, 14. 10. Ibid., 17–19. 11. Charlot, Mexican Art, 10, 19–20, 25, 108. 12. See Rubio, “Diligencias de México Revisited,” 118, 126–129. 13. See Mendoza, “The Camino Real México–Querétaro,” 62. 14. See Jiménez Codinach, México, 427. 15. Summarized from Ober, Travels in Mexico, 415–445. 16. See http://www.jsg.utexas.edu/lacp/files/2013-E1.pdf, “Guide to Electric Power in Mexico.” 17. See Burian, Modernity, 14–16. 18. Summarized from http://www.visitlaredo.com/history .html.

296  Notes to Pages 19–92 19. See Johns, City of Mexico, 3–6, 43–50. 20. Summarized from Follansbee, Stamps of the Mexican Revolution, 214–215. 21. Ibid. 22. Ibid. 23. See Rodríguez-Paz and Vázquez-Ortega, “Los trenes hospital,” 46–50. 24. This horrific number was almost twice as many as died in the bloody Civil War in the United States (1861–1865). 25. See van Hartesveldt, 1918–1919 Pandemic of Influenza. 26. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mennonites_in_Mexico. 27. See Burian, Modernity, 13–60. 28. Fox, “The New Mexico PRONAF,” 4. 29. See Burian, “Richard Neutra and O’Neil Ford.” 30. See Burian, “Technology and the Architectural Culture of Mexico.” 31. See Burian, “Worlds within Worlds,” 4–13. 32. Fox, “The New Mexico PRONAF,” 1, 4–5. 33. See Kaplan, “Fort Leavenworth,” 75–90. 34. See Easterling, Enduring Innocence.

Tamaulipas 1. Summarized from http://www.cityoflaredo.com/history .html. 2. Ibid. 3. See Vázquez Soriano, Patrimonio arquitectónico, 45–49, and Garza González, Historia de Nuevo Laredo. 4. See Vázquez Soriano, Patrimonio arquitectónico, 277. 5. See Link, Spirit of Entrepreneurship. 6. Ibid. 7. Summarized from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Nuevo_Laredo. 8. See http://www.rice.edu/armadillo/Past/Book/Part4 /tradit4.html. Mario L. Sánchez, “A Shared Experience,” Los Caminos del Rio Heritage Project and the Texas Historical Commission (Austin, Texas, 1994). 9. These became curio stores in the 1940s and later returned to local services after the 1950s when the curio stores moved closer to the border bridge. 10. Personal conversation with Rolf Abrahamsson in 1998. 11. Fox, “Creole Influence,” 27. 12. See Morrison, The Tramways of Mexico (Matamoros link). 13. E-mail correspondence with Stephen Fox from November 2012. 14. Benavides, “Behind the Cancel,” 191–197. 15. Ibid., 193. 16. Ibid., 195. 17. Villegas Moreno, XIII Premio Obras CEMEX, 130–133. 18. De Haro Lebrija and Fuentes Elizondo, Arquitectos mexicanos, 178–183. 19. Esquivel, Francisco, “Tampico, una ciudad con historia,” http://www.mexicodesconocido.com.mx/tampico-una-ciudad -con-historia.html.

20. See Mary Gehman, “Provencial Tampico: New Orleans of Mexico?” http://mexicolesstraveled.com/tampico.htm. 21. Chaslin, “The Art of the Catalog,” 102–103. 22. Morrison, The Tramways of Mexico (Tampico link). 23. “Sinclair History,” www.sinclairoil.com/history/page_21 .html. 24. See, Villegas Moreno, XIII Premio Obras CEMEX, 139. 25. González de León and Adrià, Teodoro González de León. 26. Summarized from “Tampico Bridge,” http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/Tampico_bridge. 27. See www.e-architect.co.uk/mexico/teleton_tampico.htm. 28. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampico.

Nuevo León 1. See Kemper and Royce, “Mexican Urbanization since 1821,” 267–289. 2. See Morrison, The Tramways of Mexico (Monterrey link). 3. See Burian, Modernity, 14–18. 4. According to the Monterrey architectural historian Juan Casas, the owner of the building, Fernando Ancira, had the building designed by an architect in Paris while he was living there. 5. See Follansbee, Stamps of the Mexican Revolution, 277. 6. Summarized from Kemper and Royce, “Mexican Urbanization since 1821.” 7. See essay by Barragán Villarreal in Cite, 35. 8. For an analytical video of the mural, see http://vimeo .com/48038084. 9. See Barragán Villarreal in Cite, 36. 10. The largest, wealthiest walled houses farthest up the hill feature chauffeurs and armed guards in addition to the requisite maids and gardeners. According to those in the know, SUVs offer security and the ability to jump curbs in case of trouble. 11. Personal correspondence with the architect, March 20, 2007. 12. Ibid. 13. Personal correspondence with Agustín Landa Vértiz, November 1, 2006. 14. Ibid. 15. Personal correspondence with his son, Rodolfo Barragán Delgado, February 22, 2006. 16. See the doctoral dissertation by Rodolfo Barragán Delgado, An Architectural Score: Recording and Orchestrating an Architectural Experience. 17. Some claim that the green laser lights pinpoint landmarks in the city, although personally I have never seen this and it appears doubtful. 18. See Tilley, “Artful Balance.” 19. Stephen Fox essay in Cite, 29. 20. See Kang, “Free Hand,” 30. 21. See Burian, Modernity, 71–74. 22. See Beaud, Monterrey y sus alrededores, 182. 23. Personal correspondence with the architect in 2007.

Notes to Pages 93–175  297

Coahuila 1. See Ober, Travels in Mexico, 600. 2. See Toca and Figueroa, México: Nueva arquitectura, 90–93. 3. Summarized from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monclova. 4. See Armendáriz, Guía México Desconocido. 5. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monclova. 6. Personal conversation with Antonio Méndez-Vigatá in June 2008 in Torreón, Coah. 7. See Kemper and Royce, “Mexican Urbanization since 1821.” 8. See Morrison, The Tramways of Mexico (Torreón link). 9. Personal conversation with Antonio Méndez-Vigatá in June 2008 in Torreón, Coah. 10. Jamieson, with Payne, Tulitas of Torreón, 120. 11. See Terán Lira, La matanza de chinos, 20–29. 12. Personal conversation with Antonio Méndez-Vigatá in June 2008 in Torreón, Coah. 13. See Burian, “A Contemporary Response to the Conditions of Place,” 22–23, 59. 14. Summarized from http://www.tourbymexico.com /coahuila/parras/parras.htm. 15. Some claim the Spanish symbolism of burying three gold coins as an offering during construction was the basis for the ornament of its ceilings and walls. 16. See http://descubresaltillo.blogspot.com/2008/08 /teatro-garca-carrillo.html. 17. See Ávila, “100 años del Teatro García Carrillo de Saltillo.” 18. See México Desconocido 228 (February 1996).

Chihuahua 1. Osorio, “Villismo,” 97. 2. Summarized from http://www.ojinaga.com/morehistory /six/six.html. 3. This building was the site of the first meeting between the presidents of the United States and Mexico (1909), William Howard Taft and Porfirio Díaz. After the Battle of Ciudad Juárez, the building served as the provisional capital for the Maderistas, and the Treaty of Ciudad Juárez was signed here, which led to the resignation of Porfirio Díaz. It served as Pancho Villa’s headquarters after he took Ciudad Juárez in a surprise attack (1913). 4. See Morrison, The Tramways of Mexico (Ciudad Juárez link). 5. Personal conversation with Ciudad Juárez resident and UTSA Dept. of Architecture student Ana Serrano in November 2010. 6. Personal conversation with Ciudad Juárez resident and UTSA Dept. of Architecture student Adriana Muñoz in April 2010. 7. Fox, “The New Mexico PRONAF,” 11. 8. Azulle, Ramírez Vázquez, 60–61. 9. See Fox, “The New Mexico PRONAF,” 12.

10. Summarized from “Brief History of Ojinaga,” http://ojinaga.com/Peguis/history/history. 11. For a virtual 360-degree view, see http://www .ah-chihuahua.com//wp-content/recorridos/museopaquime /recorrido.html. 12. Reed, Insurgent Mexico, 113. 13. For a virtual 360-degree panoramic view, see http://www .ah-chihuahua.com//wp-content/recorridos/lacasona/recorrido .html. 14. Morrison, The Tramways of Mexico (Chihuahua link). 15. See Rico Bovio, “Quinta Gameros,” and Payán-Fierro, “Centro Cultural Universitario Quinta Gameros.” For a panoramic walk-through, see http://www.uach.mx /extension_y_difusion/quinta_gameros/2008/03/11 /quinta_gameros/. 16. http://www.mexicodesconocido.com.mx/la-quinta -carolina-chihuahua.html. 17. Summarized from México en el Tiempo 2 (Aug.–Sept. 1994). For a panoramic walk-through, see http://www.youtube .com/watch?v=cgnFy6beIBw&feature=related. 18. See Burian, Modernity, 24–29, 40–44. 19. See México Desconocido 314 (April 2003). 20. See Wislocki, “Motorola Mexico, Chihuahua, Mexico,” 134–135. 21. Adrià, PRODUCTORA 1, 11. 22. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mennonites_in_Mexico. 23. For an overview of Parral, see http://www.youtube.com /watch?v=bDk7tfdLntQ. 24. See http://www.tramz.com/mx/cj/cj.html. 25. There is also an unsubstantiated rumor that Villa’s skull was stolen and resides in the Skull and Bones secret society “Tomb” at Yale. 26. On a train trip through the Copper Canyon in 2006, I personally witnessed aging U.S. hippies with walking sticks, backpacks, and long march boots displaying cultural tourism status symbols such as “I Visited Machu Picchu” caps and T-shirts. They claimed to be communing with nature and the Tarahumara’s “natural rhythms”!

Durango 1. See Chairez, Guía México Desconocido. 2. Ibid. 3. See O’Hea, Reminiscences of the Mexican Revolution. 4. See http://www.lerdo.gob.mx/lerdo/index.php?option =com_content&view=article&id=1401&Itemid=143. 5. See Meyers, Forge of Progress. 6. Summarized from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Santiago_Papasquiaro. 7. See Chairez, Guía México Desconocido.

298  Notes to Pages 180–250

Sonora 1. See West, Sonora: Its Geographical Personality. 2. Personal conversation in July 2007 with an employee at Photographic Works in Tucson, AZ, whose parents took her to “The Cavern” as a young girl. 3. Personal conversation in July 2007 with Teresa Leal at the Border Museum in Nogales, Son. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. The author personally attended several preliminary meetings regarding this project (ca. 2001). 7. See http://naid.sppsr.ucla.edu/research/naco.html. 8. See Bali, Tips Aeroméxico, no. 6, Sonora (Winter 1997–1998). 9. See Barrios, “Tucson’s Beach Is Booming.” 10. See Sinagawa Montoya, Tips Aeroméxico, no. 6, Sonora (Winter 1997–1998). 11. See Morrison, The Tramways of Mexico (Guaymas link). 12. Larrosa, Mario Pani, 97. 13. Summarized from “Ciudad Obregón, Sonora Mexico: Vacations and Travel Info,” at http://www.bestday.com /Ciudad-Obregon/.

Sinaloa 1. Robertson, A Southwestern Utopia. 2. Personal conversation with María Perdomo, a native of Los Mochis, Sin., in Tucson, AZ, July 2007. 3. See Villaseñor, Rain of Gold. 4. See Sandoval Bojórquez, Luis F. Molina y la arquitectura. 5. Summarized from http://www.laits.utexas.edu/jaime /jnicolopulos/cwp3/ncg/jesus_malverde.htm. 6. See Topelson de Greenburg, 50 años de arquitectura mexicana. 7. See Carlos Pérez Gallardo, “Cosalá, Sinaloa: Un pueblo mágico con encanto,” http://www.inah.gob.mx/index.php /especiales/164-cosala-sinaloa. 8. For a panoramic view of the Hacienda las Moras, Sin., complex, see http://display.maxvr.com/mapviewer/panoviewer1 .asp?pic=1176&imagefileid=3485&ident=CMPWV-XLKAM. 9. See Melville, White-Jacket. 10. See Morrison, The Tramways of Mexico (Mazatlán link). 11. Information found by the author on an exterior wall plaque during a trip to Mazatlán in July 2008. 12. Ibid. 13. Information found by author in an upstairs exhibit in the Teatro during a trip to Mazatlán in July 2008. 14. For a virtual tour, see http://delivery.vrxstudios.com/hal /destination/vrxviewer.asp?content=dest&id=1165. 15. According to local legend, John Wayne, the Hollywood action hero of the 1940s–1970s, once kept his boat here. 16. See “Pacífico Brewery,” www.mazatlan.travel/book /export/html/285.

17. See Gebhard, Myron Hunt, 42. 18. Summarized from Haas, Mexico, 212–216. 19. For a panoramic view of Concordia, see http://display .maxvr.com/mapviewer/panoviewer1.asp?pic=1166&imagefileid =1300&ident=CMPWV-XLKAM. 20. For a panoramic view of Copala, see http://display.maxvr .com/mapviewer/panoviewer1.asp?pic=1166&imagefileid=1301& ident=CMPWV-XLKAM. 21. Summarized from http://www.tourbymexico.com /sinaloa/escuina/escuina.htm.

Baja California Norte and Sur 1. Summarized from Backdirt, UCLA Dept. of Archaeology newsletter, Spring/Summer 1997. 2. Summarized from María Eugenia Bonifaz de Novelo, “Ensenada,” http://www.sandiegohistory.org/journal/84winter /ensenada.htm. In the village of Santo Tomás that became the capital of the territory (1851), there were only nine families. From this town to the border, only nine ranches were inhabited by Mexican families that were “barely surviving.” 3. Steinbeck also wrote the script for the Mexican film La Perla (The Pearl; 1949), directed by Emilio Fernández, as well as Viva Zapata! (1952), directed by Elia Kazan with the native of Chihuahua, Chih., Anthony Quinn. 4. This urban design plan was viewed by the author in an exhibit at the museum of the Centro Cultural during a trip to Tijuana in 2006. 5. See Polyzoides, Sherwood, and Tice, Courtyard Housing in Los Angeles, 81. 6. It attracted stars such as Clark Gable, the Marx Brothers, Jean Harlow, Jimmy Durante, Bing Crosby, Dolores del Río, and Lupe Vélez, among others. The Oscar-winning film The Champ (1931) and Busby Berkeley’s In Caliente (1935), starring Dolores del Río, were filmed at the resort. 7. See Víctor Escalante, México en el Tiempo #6 (April–May 1995). 8. I experienced this as a child while driving through Tijuana with my family to Ensenada, BC (ca. 1963). 9. See Cook and Rand, Morphosis, 30–33. 10. Ibid., 34–37. 11. The PRI presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio was assassinated in Tijuana in 1994; the violence of Tijuana is also depicted in films such as Traffic (2000). 12. See http://www.worldviewcities.org/tijuana/main.html, Tijuana: The Mother of Invention, by the Architectural League of New York, which featured the work of emerging practitioners in the city. 13. See Beaver, The New 100 Houses, 102–105. 14. See http://www.rancholapuerta.com/. 15. Thomas Fisher, “Revisiting Mexicali,” 79–81. 16. Summarized from Bonifaz de Novelo; see note 2 above. 17. Ibid. 18. These included Myrna Loy, Marion Davies, W. R. Hearst,

Notes to Pages 252–275  299 Lana Turner, Johnny Weismuller, Jack Dempsey, Ali Khan, and Dolores del Río. Local rumors persist that the resort was owned by Al Capone. 19. Summarized from Bonifaz de Novelo; see note 2 above. 20. See Ricalde, Lo mejor del siglo XXI, 17–19. 21. Jenna M. McKnight, “Cabins in the Sky,” Architectural Record, http://archrecord.construction.com/projects/building _types_study/hotels/2012/hotel-endemico.asp. 22. Niemann, Baja Legends, 192–196. 23. Francoise Dasques, Mexico Desconocido; adapted from México en el Tiempo #7 (June–July 1995). 24. The church was freezing in winter and like an oven in the summer, as the air space provided only minimal insulation. Insulation cavity walls were not fully developed until the 1960s. Unfortunately, the air space would have had only a modest insulating value. In the 1960s, architects and engineers began to study insulation and heat transfer much more carefully. Today, most every project in the desert utilizes foam fiberglass and rigid foam insulation in cavity construction, which are much better insulators. 25. Summarized from Tour by Mexico website, http://www .tourbymexico.com/bcs/snignaci/snignaci.htm. According to popular legend, Eiffel designed other buildings in Mexico, including the brick smokestacks in mining towns in Baja California Sur and the Mercado in Guanajuato, Gto. Some claim that the church was not designed by Eiffel at all, but by a Brazilian engineer, Bibiano Duclos, who, like Eiffel, had attended the École Central des Arts et Manufactures in 1878. 26. Summarized from Arturo Chairez, Guía México Desconocido #64, Baja California Sur (November 2000). 27. Ibid. 28. See Jacqueline Baleon, “The Cactus Sanctuary of Baja California Sur, Mexico,” March 13, 2010, http://www.thetravel word.com/2010/03/13/the-cactus-sanctuary-of-baja-californiasur-mexico/. 29. Summarized from http://www.vivalapaz.com/. 30. Attoe, The Architecture of Ricardo Legorreta, 134–135. 31. Summarized from “A Cut Above: On a Rocky Site over the Pacific Ocean, a Mexican House Exploits the Prospect and Arid Beauty of the Site,” The Architectural Review 213, no. 1271 (January 2003): 68–71.

Conclusions 1. Conversation with Antonio Méndez-Vigatá of Torreón, Coah., ca. 2003. 2. This was pointed out to me by my colleague Steven Moore in an e-mail. See Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera.

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Bibliography  301

Bibliography

Researching the architecture, cities, and landscapes of Northern Mexico from 1821 to the present was definitely not a “well-worn path.” In fact, the opportunity to do much-needed groundbreaking work on an undervalued and ignored area of Mexico’s architectural culture was one of the motivations that interested me in the subject. I quickly learned to appreciate what little information and documentation existed, no matter how limited or incomplete or how blurry or sharp the photograph. What limited material does exist may only be a few photos in a related book that I stumbled upon. Thus, the primacy of sensory experience shaped this book, as many buildings were unexpectedly encountered while I walked down the street. The major institutional libraries in the American Southwest and other parts of the United States were helpful starting points. The Benson Latin American Collection and the Map Collection at the University of Texas at Austin have one of the strongest collections on Mexico on either side of the border. The University of Arizona Library and Map Library hold a useful collection of material related to Sonora and Chihuahua. In California, important materials are located at the University of California at Berkeley Bancroft Library, as well as at the UCLA and University of Southern California Libraries in Los Angeles. In the Northeast, the Beinecke Rare Book Library at Yale, the Harvard University Libraries, and the Library of Congress have a number of scarce images of Northern Mexico. Websites, including those for specific states in Mexico and occasionally those for city governments of larger individual cities, as well the magazine México Desconocido, have background and occasionally limited information on architecture. Of course, libraries in Mexico hold essential material. In Mexico City, the rich collections of the Archivo General de la Nación (AGN; General Archive of the Nation) in the repurposed former prison of Lecumberri hold important items. In Northern Mexico, while I was a visiting professor at the School of Architecture, I utilized the library at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM) Monterrey campus, which has a strong map collection and a collection of old photographs of the city. The Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León (UANL) library also has a good selection of materials, and an important

collection of maps of Monterrey is held in the Archivo General del Estado. Archives for individual states and cities in Northern Mexico vary considerably. Almost none have electronic catalogs, and only occasionally do they have a handwritten catalog of their holdings. Archives of towns are usually documents, and only very rarely, historic photographs or architectural drawings. In very small towns, these may consist of a dusty heap of unsorted papers behind a locked door, or even an unlocked door, as in the town hall in Mapimí, Dgo. Because so little historic documentation exists, picture postcards from the era proved particularly important, as they provided vital sources of documentation. In many cases, these portray the only visual record of portions of cities, landscapes, and works of architecture that have been lost or altered over time. The beautiful tinted and hand-colored postcards from the “golden age of postcards” (1892–1919), or the “original photos,” “blackand-whites,” and “colored linens” from the 1930s–1940s, and the “chromes” (1950s–1970s) were all vital sources of information. Postcards exist primarily from cities that were frequently visited by tourists. Thus, a vast amount of material exists for the border towns of Tijuana, BC, and Ciudad Juárez, Chih., which were popular during Prohibition and beyond with U.S. tourists, although only a moderate amount survives for Mazatlán, Sin., and Monterrey, NL, and a very small amount remains for Ensenada, BC; Nogales, Son.; Chihuahua, Chih.; Culiacán, Sin.; Torreón, Coah.; Durango, Dgo.; Matamoros, Tamps.; and Tampico, Tamps. Very little exists prior to 1925 for places like Mulegé, BCS; Santa Rosalía, BCS; La Paz, BCS; Loreto, BCS; Hidalgo del Parral, Chih.; Ojinaga, Chih.; Monclova, Coah.; Parras, Coah.; Mapimí, Dgo.; Los Mochis, Sin.; Ciudad Victoria, Tamps.; or any of the smaller towns in Northern Mexico. I immediately learned to value a useful postcard view from any of the latter towns, because I was unlikely to ever see another copy. Institutions with useful postcard collections include the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez (UACJ) in Ciudad Juárez, Chih.; the El Paso Public Library, which houses an important collection of postcards related to the Mexican Revolution; the Southern Methodist University (SMU) Library in Dallas, TX; and the Loyola Marymount University Library in Los Angeles.

302  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico Information regarding architects and engineers who practiced in Northern Mexico is much less available and may occasionally be gleaned from a book or article on individual buildings, monographs for each state, social directories from the era, websites for each state and municipality, or word of mouth from practitioners or historians in each city. This bibliographic review quickly reveals how much remains to be researched, documented, and written regarding this period. Areas of architectural and urban culture that deserve more attention include basic typological studies and accurate documentation drawings of cities and individual buildings in terms of plans, sections, and elevations drawn to the same scale for comparison of urban fabric, plazas, alamedas, gardens, spatial organization, and nuances of individual buildings. The numerous schools of architecture in Northern Mexico and the American Southwest would be ideally suited to take on this important, vital, and useful task.

General Architectural Theory and Cultural Criticism Benedikt, Michael. For an Architecture of Reality. New York: Lumen Books, 1987. Easterling, Keller. Enduring Innocence: Global Architecture and Its Masquerades. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005.

Mexico and the U.S. Southwest Architectural Histories, Urban Histories, and Cultural Criticism of Mexico and the Southwest Arnal Simón, Luis. Arquitectura y urbanismo del septentrión novohispano. Mexico City: UNAM, Facultad de Arquitectura, 1999. Burian, Edward R., ed. Modernity and the Architecture of Mexico. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997. Charlot, Jean. Mexican Art and the Academy of San Carlos, 1785– 1915. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1962. Chaslin, François. “The Art of the Catalog.” El arte de hierro fundido: Artes de México, No. 72, 2004. Johns, Michael. The City of Mexico in the Age of Díaz. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997. Kaplan, Robert D. “Fort Leavenworth and the Eclipse of Nationhood.” The Atlantic Monthly, September 1996. Katzman, Israel. Arquitectura del siglo XIX en México. Mexico City: UNAM, 1973. ———. La arquitectura contemporánea mexicana: Precedentes y desarrollo. Mexico City: INAH/SEP, 1963. Kemper, Robert V., and Anya P. Royce. “Mexican Urbanization since 1821: A Macro-Historical Approach.” Urban Anthropology 8, nos. 3–4 (1979): 267–289. Lejeune, Jean-Francois, ed. Cruelty and Utopia: Cities and Landscapes of Latin America. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2005. Morrison, Allen. The Tramways of Mexico (with links to individual cities). http://www.tramz.com/mx/tto.html.

Nierman, Daniel, and Ernesto N. Vallejo. The Hacienda in Mexico. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003. Oles, James. South of the Border: Mexico in the American Imagination, 1914–1947. New Haven, CT: Yale University Art Gallery, 1993. Polyzoides, Stefanos, Roger Sherwood, and James Tice. Courtyard Housing in Los Angeles. Photography by Julius Shulman. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996. Topelson de Greenburg, Sara, coord. 50 años de arquitectura mexicana, 1948–1998. Mexico City: Plazola Editores, 1999. van Hartesveldt, Fred R. The 1918–1919 Pandemic of Influenza: The Urban Impact on the Western World. Lewiston, NY: E. Mellen Press, 1992. Historical Overviews and General Histories of Mexico Fehrenbach, T. R. Fire and Blood: A History of Mexico. New York: Macmillan, 1973. Haas, Antonio. Mexico. New York: Scala Books, 1982. Hart, John Mason. Empire and Revolution: The Americans in Mexico since the Civil War. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2002. Hatfield, Shelley Bowen. Chasing Shadows: Indians along the United States-Mexico Border, 1876–1911. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998. Jiménez Codinach, Guadalupe. México: The Projects of a Nation, 1821–1888. Mexico City: Fomento Cultural Banamex, 2001. McHenry, J. Patrick. A Short History of Mexico. Garden City, NY: Dolphin Books, Doubleday, 1970. Mendoza, Taide. “The Camino Real México-Querétaro.” Mexicana: The Journal of the México-Elmhurst Philatelic Society 55, no. 2 (April 2006). Rubio, Armando. “Diligencias de México Revisited.” Mexicana: The Journal of the México-Elmhurst Philatelic Society International 56, no. 3 (July 2007). Mexican Revolution (1911–1919) Brenner, Anita. The Wind That Swept Over Mexico. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000. Crónica ilustrada: Revolución Mexicana. Mexico City: Publex, 1967. Follansbee, Nicholas. The Stamps of the Mexican Revolution: 1913– 1916. Chicago: Collectors Club of Chicago, 1996. Hart, John Mason. Revolutionary Mexico: The Coming and Process of the Mexican Revolution. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987. Katz, Friedrich. The Life and Times of Pancho Villa. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998 King, Rosa E. Tempest over Mexico: A Personal Chronicle. Boston: Little Brown, 1936. O’Hea, Patrick A. Reminiscences of the Mexican Revolution. Mexico City: Editorial Fournier, 1966. Reed, John. Insurgent Mexico. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1969.

Bibliography  303 Rodríguez-Paz, Carlos Agustín, and Ramón Vázquez-Ortega. “Los trenes hospital de la Revolución Mexicana (1912–1915).” Cirujano General (Mexico City) 31, no. 1 (2009): 46–50. Terán Lira, Manuel. Fotos y corridos de Pancho Villa. Torreón, Coah.: Museo de la Revolución, 2003. Tweedle, Mrs. Alec. Mexico as I Saw It. London and New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1911. Vanderwood, Paul J. Border Fury: A Picture Postcard Record of Mexico’s Revolution and U.S. War Preparedness, 1910–1917. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1988.

Northern Mexico Architectural Histories, Cultural Geographies, and Cultural Criticism of Northern Mexico Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute, 1987. Arreola, Daniel D., and James R. Curtis. The Mexican Border Cities: Landscape Anatomy and Place Personality. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1993. Burian, Edward R. “A Brief Overview of Architectural Theory, Education, and Practice in Northern Mexico from 1821 to Present (2010).” Unpublished essay, 2010. The Century Atlas of the World. New York: Century Company, 1897. Fox, Stephen. “The New Mexico PRONAF: Constructing a New Mexico on the U.S. Border, 1961–69.” Paper presented at the Third AULA Latin American Architecture Symposium, University of New Mexico, September 13–15, 2012. L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui: Mexique, no. 109 (September 1963). (This issue documents a number of important projects in Northern Mexico from the 1940s through 1960s. See pp. xxi, 20–23, 68–69, 88–89.) Link, Betsy Leland. Spirit of Entrepreneurship: O. L. Longoria and the Twentieth Century Mexican Experience. PhD thesis, University of California, Los Angeles, 1989. Méndez Sáinz, Eloy. Arquitectura nacionalista: El proyecto de la revolución mexicana en el noroeste (1915–1962). Mexico City: Plaza y Valdés, 2004. Ramírez Rodríguez, Jesús. La arquitectura del noreste de México. Saltillo: Universidad Autónoma de Coahuila, Coordinación General de Estudios de Posgrado e Investigación y Facultad de Arquitectura, 2001. Tamez Tejeda, Antonio. Arquitectura vernácula mexicana del Noreste. Monterrey, NL: Fondo Editorial Nuevo León, 1993. Books, Journals, and Essays on Individual Architects in Northern Mexico Adrià, Miquel. PRODUCTORA 1. Mexico City: Arquine, 2012. Attoe, Wayne, ed. The Architecture of Ricardo Legorreta. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990. Azulle, Robert. Ramírez Vázquez. Mexico City: García Valadés, 1989.

Barragán Villarreal, Juan Ignacio, and Enrique Díaz Díaz. Arquitectos del Noreste (México). Monterrey, NL: Urbis Internacional, 1992. Burian, Edward R. “Richard Neutra and O’Neil Ford: Cross Connections Between a Second Generation of Regional Modernists in the United States and in Mexico, 1945–1968.” In Second International Symposium, Second Modernity: Urban Architecture, Projects and Works, Mérida 2011. Mexico City: UNAM (keynote address, unpublished). ———. “Technology and the Architectural Culture of Mexico from the Olympic Games of 1968 to the Onset of the New Millennium.” In Technology and Culture in Twentieth-Century Mexico, ed. Araceli Tinajero and J. Brian Freeman, 316–331. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2013. ———. “Worlds within Worlds: The Retail Districts of Juan José Sánchez Aedo and Grupo Arquitech.” In Arquitech: Juan José Sánchez Aedo: Intersecciones (2010–2011), 4–14. Mexico City: Arquine and Editorial RM, 2012. Burian, Edward R., Miquel Adriá, Humberto Ricalde, Agustín Landa, and Pablo Landa. Landa García Landa Arquitectos, Monterrey, México. Mexico City: Arquine and Editorial RM, 2006. Cook, Peter, and George Rand. Morphosis: Buildings and Projects. New York: Rizzoli, 1989. de Haro Lebrija, Fernando, and Omar Fuentes Elizondo. Arquitectos mexicanos: Sencillez vanguardista. Mexico City: Arquitectos Mexicanos Editores, 2007. George, Mary Carolyn Hollers. Alfred Giles: An English Architect in Texas and Mexico. San Antonio, TX: Trinity University Press, 1972. George, Mary Carolyn Hollers, et al. Monterrey a principios del siglo XX: La arquitectura de Alfred Giles. Monterrey, NL: Museo de Historia Mexicana, 2003. González de León, Teodoro, and Miquel Adrià. Teodoro González de León: Collected Works. Mexico City: Arquine and Editorial RM, 2010. Larrosa, Manuel. Mario Pani, arquitecto de su época. Mexico City: UNAM, 1985. López Rangel, Rafael. Enrique Yáñez en la cultura arquitectónica mexicana. Mexico City: Editorial Limusa, 1989. Martin, Percy Alvin, and Ronald Hilton, eds. Who’s Who in Latin America. Vol. 1: Mexico. Stanford University Press, 1951. Ricalde, Humberto, ed. Lo mejor del siglo XXI: Arquitecturas mexicanas/The Best of the Twenty-first Century: Mexican Architecture. Mexico City: Arquine, 2012. Ruy Sánchez, Alberto, et al. Carlos Mijares Bracho, arquitecto. Mexico City: Artes de México, 2012. Toca, Antonio, and Aníbal Figueroa. México: Nueva arquitectura. Naucalpan de Juárez, Mexico: Gustavo Gili, 1992. Trulove, James Grayson, ed. Ten Landscapes: Mario Schjetnan. Gloucester, MA: Rockport, 2002. Vera Ferrer, Jorge, and Jorge González Reyna. Jorge González Reyna: Vida y obra. Mexico City: UNAM, Facultad de Arquitectura, 2004.

304  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico ———. “Los ‘éxtasis’ del pasado: La historia en la obra mural de Juan O’Gorman.” In Juan O’Gorman, 100 años: Temples, dibujos y estudios preparatorios. Mexico City: Fomento Banamex, 2005. Institutional Postcard Collections on Northern Mexico El Paso, Texas, Public Library, El Paso, TX. Getty Museum Library, Los Angeles, CA. Loyola Marymount University Library, Los Angeles, CA. Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez, Chih. Colección mexicana de tarjetas postales antiguas. http://bivir.uacj.mx/Postales/ Introduccion.asp. Maps of Cities in Northern Mexico A Handbook of Mexico. Great Britain Naval Intelligence Division, 1919. (Available online from the Benson Latin American Collection at the University of Texas at Austin.) Photo Documentaries on Architecture in Northern Mexico Espino Barros, Eugenio. México en el centenario de su independencia 1910: Álbum gráfico de la república mexicana. Mexico City: Müller hnos., 1910. Melgar Adalid, Mario, and José Rogelio Álvarez Noguera. 6 años de arquitectura en México: 1988–1994. Mexico City: UNAM, 1994. (See information on restored Maritime Customs building in Tampico.) Michaud, J., and son, eds. Álbum fotográfico mexicano. Mexico City: Imp. de Andrade y Escalante, ca. 1858. Noelle Mereles, Louise, and Lourdes Cruz González Franco. Una ciudad imaginaria: Arquitectura mexicana de los siglos XIX y XX en fotografías de Luis Márquez. Mexico City: UNAM, 2000. Villegas Moreno, Gloria. XIII Premio Obras CEMEX. Monterrey, NL: CEMEX, 2004. Travel Guides and Travel Accounts for Northern Mexico (1829–1919) Baedeker, Karl. Baedeker’s Mexico. Stuttgart: Mairs Geographischer Verlag, n.d. Campbell, Ruel. Campbell’s Complete Guide and Descriptive Book of Mexico. Chicago: Rogers and Smith, 1907. Conkling, Alfred R. Appleton’s Guide to Mexico. New York: D. Appleton, 1895. Crawford, Cora Hayward. The Land of the Montezumas. New York: John B. Alden, 1889. Hardy, Robert William Hale. Travels in the Interior of Mexico, in 1825, 1826, 1827, and 1828. Reprint of 1829 edition. Glorieta, NM: Rio Grande Press, 1977. Ober, Frederick A. Travels in Mexico and Life among the Mexicans. San Francisco, CA: J. Dewing and Company, 1884. Terry, T. Phillip. Terry’s Guide to Mexico: Handbook for Travelers. Mexico City: Sonora News Company/Baedecker, 1909.

Specific States of Northern Mexico Baja California General Blaisdell, Lowell L. The Desert Revolution: Baja California, 1911. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1962. Francez, James Donald. The Lost Treasures of Baja California. Chula Vista, CA: Black Forest Press, 1996. Steinbeck, John. The Log from the Sea of Cortez. New York: Penguin Books, 1995 [1941]. Ensenada, BC Bonifaz de Novelo, María Eugenia. “Ensenada: Its Background, Founding and Early Development.” The Journal of San Diego History 30, no. 1 (Winter 1984). Calderón A., Claudia M., and Bruno Geffroy A. Un siglo de arquitectura en Ensenada. Investigación Fondo Editorial de Baja California. Mexicali: Fondo Editorial de Baja California, 2001. The Phaidon Atlas of Contemporary World Architecture. London and New York, NY: Phaidon Press, 2004. (Alberto Kalach.) Mexicali, BC Fisher, Thomas. “Revisiting Mexicali.” Progressive Architecture 72, no. 3 (March 1991): 79–81. Lucero Velasco, Héctor Manuel. Mexicali 100 años: Arquitectura y urbanismo en el desierto de Colorado. Mexico City: Editorial Patria, 2002. Robles Caro, Cuauhtémoc. La arquitectura de Mexicali (orígenes). Mexicali, BC: UABC, 2006. Tijuana, BC Beaver, Robyn. The New 100 Houses x 100 Architects. Victoria, Australia: Images Publishing, 2007. Burkholder, Jim. “Wal-Mart Tijuana.” Unpublished thesis, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, 1996. Centro Cultural Tijuana: 20 aniversario. Tijuana, BC: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, CECUT, 2002. Contreras García, Juana Irene. Al rescate de los sitios históricos de la vieja Tijuana. Tijuana, BC: Fortisa, 1991. Herzog, Lawrence A., ed. Planning the International Border Metropolis: Trans-boundary Policy Options in the San DiegoTijuana region. La Jolla: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego, 1986. Jacobo, José-Rodolfo, Manlio César Correa, and Mario Martín Flores. The Giving Gaze: An Intimate Topography of the Border/La mirada pródiga: Una topografía íntima de la frontera. San Diego, CA: Language Acquisition Resource Center Press, 2004. Padilla Corona, Antonio. Agua Caliente: Oasis en el tiempo: entrevista a Wayne D. McAllister, diseñador del Centro Turístico de Agua Caliente. Tijuana, BC: Instituto Municipal de Arte y Cultura, 2006.

Bibliography  305 Vernacular Architecture in Baja California INAH. Catálogo nacional, monumentos históricos inmuebles: Baja California. Mexico City: SEP, INAH, Programa Cultural de las Fronteras, 1986. Baja Califonia Sur Cabo San Lucas, BCS “A Cut Above: On a Rocky Site over the Pacific Ocean, a Mexican House Exploits the Prospect and Arid Beauty of the Site.” The Architectural Review 213, no. 1271 (January 2003): 68–71. Martínez, Mauricio. Casas de los Cabos. Guadalajara, Jal.: Amaroma Ediciones, 2005. Santa Rosalía, BCS Niemann, Greg. Baja Legends: The Historic Characters, Events, and Locations That Put Baja on the Map. Sunbelt Cultural Heritage Books. San Diego, CA: Sunbelt Publications, 2002. Vernacular Architecture in Baja California Sur INAH. Catálogo nacional, monumentos históricos inmuebles: Baja California Sur. Mexico City: SEP, INAH, Programa Cultural de las Fronteras, 1986. Chihuahua General Osorio, Rubén. “Villismo: Nationalism and Popular Mobilization in Northern Mexico.” In Rural Revolt in Mexico: U.S. Intervention and the Domain of Subaltern Politics, ed. Daniel Nugent, 89–104. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998. Roca, Paul M. Spanish Jesuit Churches in Mexico’s Tarahumara. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1979. Chihuahua, Chih. Chihuahua en 1910: Álbum del centenario. Chihuahua: Ayuntamiento de Chihuahua, 1994. Lazcano Sahagún, Carlos, Mario Arras Rodríguez, and Ignacio Guerrero. Chihuahua: Historia de una ciudad. Mexico City: Editorial México Desconocido, 2002. Montemayor, Alma. Escenario de tres tiempos: Acercamiento a la vida del Teatro Centenario de la ciudad de Chihuahua. Chihuahua, Chih.: Doble Hélice, Ayuntamiento de Chihuahua, 2001. Payán-Fierro, Humberto. “Centro Cultural Universitario Quinta Gameros: Volver a la Quinta.” In Los colores del recuerdo: Chihuahua, ríos de luz y tinta, edited by Ramón Gerónimo Olvera. Chihuahua: Sumar, Instituto de Cultura del Municipio de Chihuahua; INAH-CONACULTA, 2012. Rico Bovio, Arturo. “Quinta Gameros: Reencuentro con la Quinta.” In Los colores del recuerdo: Chihuahua, ríos de luz y tinta, edited by Ramón Gerónimo Olvera. Chihuahua: Sumar, Instituto de Cultura del Municipio de Chihuahua; INAHCONACULTA, 2012. Solís, Micaela. Imagen latente: Álbum fotográfico de Chihuahua, 1850–1940. Chihuahua, Chih.: INAH, Ayuntamiento de Chihuahua, 1992–1995, 1995.

Wislocki, Peter. “Motorola Mexico, Chihuahua, Mexico.” World Architecture 54 (March 1997): 134–135. Ciudad Juárez, Chih. Martínez, Oscar J. Border Boom Town: Ciudad Juárez since 1848. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1978. Plan de desarrollo urbano de Ciudad Juárez. Ciudad Juárez, Chih.: IMIP, 2003. Staines Orozco, Elide R. Inventario de monumentos históricos y edificios relevantes de Ciudad Juárez. Ciudad Juárez, Chih.: UACJ, 2006. El Paso, TX Antone, Evan Haywood, ed. Portals at the Pass: El Paso Area Architecture to 1930. El Paso, TX: El Paso Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, 1984. Valle Allende, Chih. Mancera Valencia, Federico, et al. Valle de Allende: Patrimonio cultural de Chihuahua. Chihuahua: Instituto Chihuahuense de la Cultura, Fondo Estatal para la Cultura y las Artes, 2000. Mennonite Architecture in Chihuahua Eighmy, Jeffrey L. Mennonite Architecture: Diachronic Evidence for Rapid Diffusion in Rural Communities. New York: AMS Press, 1989. Vernacular Architecture in Chihuahua INAH. Catálogo nacional, monumentos históricos inmuebles: Chihuahua: Municipios. Mexico City: SEP, INAH, Programa Cultural de las Fronteras, 1986. Coahuila General Martínez Sánchez, Lucas, Francisco Rodríguez Gutiérrez, and María Isabel Saldaña Villarreal. Coahuila, A través de sus municipios: Tomo I, II, III, IV. Saltillo, Coah.: Gobierno de Coahuila, 2013. Pérez-Gavilán, Ana Isabel, and Víctor Raúl Ruiz García. Arquitectura y patrimonio religiosa de Coahuila: Ámbitos, ornamentos y festividades. Saltillo, Coah.: Gobierno de Coahuila, 2013. Monclova, Coah. Armendáriz, Lorenzo. Guía México Desconocido 286 (Tlacotalpan), December 2000. Saltillo, Coah. Ávila, Livio. “100 años del Teatro García Carrillo de Saltillo.” Vanguardia, July 27, 2010. García Ortega, Roberto, with Ismael Aguilar Benítez and Roberto Rivera Cardona. Monterrey y Saltillo, hacia un nuevo modelo de planeación y gestión urbana metropolitana. Tijuana, BC: Universidad Autónoma de Coahuila, Colegio de la Frontera Norte, 2003.

306  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico Torreón, Coah. Burian, Edward R. “A Contemporary Response to the Conditions of Place: The Colegio Cervantes in Torreón, Coahuila, Mexico.” Texas Architect (January–February 2004): 22–49, 59. Jamieson, Tulitas W., with Evelyn Payne. Tulitas of Torreón: Reminiscences of Life in Mexico. El Paso: Texas Western Press, 1969. López Fuentes, Filiberto. Restauración de la conciencia. Torreón, Coah.: Grupos Étnicos de Torreón, 1992. Terán Lira, Manuel. La matanza de chinos (Torreón 1911). Torreón, Coah.: Editorial Macondo, 1999. Villa Guerrero, Coah. Graham, Roy Eugene, and Lynn Osborne,. Report on the Architectural Survey of Villa Guerrero, Coahuila, Mexico, and Eagle Pass, Texas, United States. Texas?: N.p., 1976. Vernacular Architecture in Coahuila INAH. Catálogo nacional, monumentos históricos inmuebles: Coahuila: Municipios. Mexico City: INAH, Programa Cultural de las Fronteras, 1986. Durango General Chairez, Arturo. Guía México Desconocido 67 (Durango), March 2001. Tamarón y Romeral, Pedro, et al. Durango en su arquitectura. Durango: SEP, Subsecretaría de Educación e Investigación Tecnológicas, Dirección General de Institutos Tecnológicos Regionales, 1990. Durango, Dgo. Guerrero Romero, Javier, and Jaime Andrade Ramírez. El Palacio Escárzaga, Durango. Durango, Dgo.: H. Ayuntamiento, 1986– 1989, 1988. Guevara Sánchez, Arturo. El sitio arqueológico de la Ferrería, Durango: Trabajos de 1993. Durango, Dgo.: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia: Secretaría de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, 1994. Mijares, Enrique. La construcción de la ciudad: Durango a cordel y regla. Durango, Dgo.: Universidad Juárez del Estado de Durango, 1990, 2000. ———. Patrimonio arquitectónico de la ciudad de Durango. Durango, Dgo.: Consejo para la Preservación del Patrimonio Artístico y Cultural de Durango, 1995. Yáñez Díaz, Gonzalo, et al. Revitalización de centros históricos. Durango, Dgo.: Presidencia Municipal de Durango, INAH, 1994. Gómez Palacio, Dgo. Meyers, William K. Forge of Progress, Crucible of Revolt: Origins of the Mexican Revolution in La Comarca Lagunera, 1880–1911. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994.

Lerdo, Dgo. Vargas Garza, José Jesús. Lerdo: 104 años de esperanza. Torreón, Coah.: CONACULTA, 1998. Mapimí, Dgo. Puentes, Roman. “’Firm through Time’: A Proposal for the Posada Cigarroa Mapimí, Durango, Mexico.” Unpublished thesis, UTSA Library, San Antonio, TX, 2004. Nuevo León General Flores Salazar, Armando V. Calicanto: Marcos culturales en la arquitectura regiomontana, siglos XV al XX. Monterrey: Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, 1998. Fondo Nacional para las Actividades Sociales. Cuide el patrimonio arquitectónico. Monterrey, NL: Gobierno del Estado de Nuevo León, Secretaría de Servicios Sociales y Culturales, FONAPAS, 1978. González-Maíz, Rocío, and Rodolfo Maldonado. Testimonios y vestigios del siglo XVIII en Nuevo León. Monterrey, NL: Fondo Estatal para la Cultura y las Artes, 2000. Nuevo León, Dirección de Servicios Culturales. Muestra del patrimonio arquitectónico de Nuevo León. Monterrey, NL: Secretaría de Servicios Sociales y Culturales, Dirección de Servicios Culturales, FONAPAS, 1979. Individual Architects and Engineers in Monterrey, NL, and Nuevo León Cavazos Garza, Israel. Diccionario biográfico de Nuevo León. Monterrey, NL: Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, 1984. Maycotte, Mónica M. Quién es quién en Monterrey. Monterrey, NL: Libromex del Norte, 1987. Modern Architecture in Nuevo León Casas García, Juan Manuel, and Claudia Murillo. Bajo el símbolo del rojo clavel: Arquitectura de Nuevo León en la época de Bernardo Reyes, 1885–1909. Monterrey, NL: CECB, 2010. Monterrey, NL Barragán, Juan Ignacio. San Pedro Garza García: Participación ciudadana y desarrollo urbano. Monterrey, NL: Urbis Internacional, 2000. (Includes information on Eduardo Padilla, Tito Camargo, and Adán Lozano, among others.) Barragán Delgado, Rodolfo. An Architectural Score: Recording and Orchestrating an Architectural Experience. Chicago: Illinois Institute of Technology, 2008. Beaud, Beatrice, ed. Monterrey y sus alrededores. Monterrey, NL: Urbis Internacional, n.d. Casas García, Juan Manuel, Rosana Covarrubias Mijares, and Edna Mayela Peza Ramírez. Concreto y efímero: Catálogo de arquitectura civil de Monterrey 1920–1960. Monterrey, NL: CONARTE/CONACULTA, 2008. Cite: The Architecture and Design Review of Houston 52 (Fall 2001). (Essays by Juan Ignacio Barragán Villarreal, Stephen Fox, Juan Casas, and others.)

Bibliography  307 Crowley, William K. “The Urban Renewal Process in the Gran Plaza, Monterrey.” Unpublished thesis, Department of Geography, Sonoma State University, 1984. Elizondo Elizondo, Ricardo. El Tecnológico de Monterrey: Relación de 50 años. Monterrey, NL: Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, 1993. Elizondo Elizondo, Ricardo, José Antonio Rodríguez, and Xavier Moyssén. Monterrey en 400 fotografías. Monterrey, NL: Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey, 1996. Kang, Michelle. “Free Hand: CEDIM Campus Expansion.” Architecture 95, no. 9 (September 2006): 30. La visita del señor presidente de la República, General Porfirio Díaz, a la ciudad de Monterrey, en diciembre de 1898. Monterrey, NL: R. Díaz, 1899. Martínez, Eduardo. “Monterrey, ciudad nueva, ciudad vieja: Su arquitectura y urbanismo.” In La Enciclopedia de Monterrey, ed. Israel Cavazos Garza, 2:209–310. Monterrey, NL: Milenio Diario de Monterrey, 1996. Martínez Garza, Óscar Eduardo, ed. Encuentro con el Barrio Antiguo de Monterrey. Monterrey, NL: UANL, R. Ayuntamiento de la Ciudad de Monterrey, 1999. Narváez Tijerina, Adolfo Benito. “Los Condominios Constitución en Monterrey: Historia de dos ciudades.” In La experiencia de la ciudad y el trabajo como espacios de vida, ed. Camilo Contreras Delgado and Adolfo Benito Narváez Tijerina, 135–156. Tijuana, BC: El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, Plaza y Valdés, 2006. Nuevo León: Imágenes de nuestra memoria. Monterrey, NL: Museo de Historia Mexicana, Gobierno del Estado de Nuevo León, 2003, 2005. Saragoza, Alex. The Monterrey Elite and the Mexican State, 1880– 1940. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1988. Schjetnan, Mario, et al. Monterrey: A Mexican City and Landscape in Transition; Three Rivers, One Region/Monterrey: Ciudad y paisaje en transición; tres ríos, una región. Cambridge, MA, and Mexico City: Harvard Graduate School of Design and Agencia para la Planeación de Desarrollo Urbano del Estado de Nuevo León, 2005. Tamez Tejeda, Antonio. El centro de Monterrey: Arquitectura y crecimiento metropolitano. Monterrey, NL: Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, 2009. Tilley, Ray Don. “Artful Balance.” Architecture Magazine, August 1991. Villa Santiago, NL García S. Narro, Jaime, and Israel Cavazos Garza. El centro histórico de la villa de Santiago, Nuevo León: Memoria e identidad de un pueblo que nos permite conocer su historia, tradiciones y raíces. Monterrey, NL: Consejo Municipal de la Crónica de Santiago Nuevo León, 2003. Vernacular Architecture in Nuevo León INAH. Catálogo nacional, monumentos históricos inmuebles: Nuevo León. Mexico City: SEP, INAH, 1986.

Sinaloa General Sinaloa: Una nueva realidad. N.p.: Gobierno del Estado de Sinaloa, 2001. Villaseñor, Víctor. Rain of Gold. New York: Dell, 1992. Individual Architects in Sinaloa Sandoval Bojórquez, Martín. Luis F. Molina y la arquitectura porfirista en la ciudad de Culiacán. Culiácan/Rosales, Sin.: Crónica de Culiacán, 2002. Modern Architecture in Sinaloa Ochoa Vega, Alejandro. Modernidad arquitectónica en Sinaloa. Mexico City: UAM, Unidad Xochimilco/Culiacán, Ayuntamiento de Culiacán, 2004. El Fuerte, Sin. Fisher, Richard D., ed. Sinaloa: Tierra fértil. Mazatlán, Sin.: Sunracer Publications/Sinaloa Dept. of Tourism, 2004. Mazatlán, Sin. Archivo Histórico Municipal, City of Mazatlán. Gebhard, David, ed. Myron Hunt, 1868–1952: The Search for a Regional Architecture. Santa Monica, CA: Hennesey and Ingalls, 1984. Martini, Mario. Grandeza mazatleca. Mazatlán, Sin.: Editorial Paralelo 23, 2004. Melville, Herman. White-Jacket; or, The World in a Man-of-War. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1970 [1844?]. Topolobampo, Sin. Robertson, Thomas A. A Southwestern Utopia: An American Colony in Mexico. Los Angeles: Ward Ritchie Press, 1964. Topolobampo Collection, Henry Mappen Library, California State University, Fresno. Sonora General Tinker Salas, Miguel. In the Shadow of the Eagles. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. West, Robert. Sonora: Its Geographical Personality. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993. Zúñiga, Ignacio. Rápida ojeada al Estado de Sonora. 3rd ed. Hermosillo: Gobierno del Estado de Sonora, 1985 [1835]. Álamos, Son. Messina, John. Álamos, Sonora: Architecture and Urbanism in the Dry Tropics. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2008. Guaymas, Son. Gordon, Alvin J. Guaymas, an Invitation to Life: Guaymas, Bacochibampo, San Carlos. Photographs by Ray Manley. Tucson, AZ: Villa del Mar Publishing, 1973.

308  The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico “Proyectos y planificación Guaymas-Empalme, Son.” Arquitectura 43 (September 1953). Uribe Corona, Alfonso, and Mauro Barrón Robles. Guaymas: Historia fotográfica, 1867–2003. Hermosillo, Son.: N.p., 2003. Hermosillo, Son. Bali, Jaime. Tips Aeroméxico, no. 6, Sonora (Winter 1997–1998). Carlson, Raymond. “Miracle in Mañanaland.” Arizona Highways, Vol.XXIII, No. 11, Nov. 1947. (Photos, developments in Sonora.) De Hermosillo. Hermosillo, Son. (Journal of history.) La revista de la ciudad. Hermosillo, Son.: N.p., 1992–. Méndez Sáinz, Eloy. Casa de tiempo y sol: Experiencia de rediseño en el centro histórico de Hermosillo. Hermosillo, Son.: Fundación Educativa y Cultural Don José S. Healy, El Colegio de Sonora, 1999. ———. Hermosillo en el siglo XX: Urbanismos incompletos y arquitecturas emblemáticas. Hermosillo: El Colegio de Sonora, 2000. Méndez Sáinz, Eloy, and Juan Castro Castro. Una modernidad edificada: La arquitectura de Felipe Ortega en Sonora. Hermosillo: El Colegio de Sonora, Universidad de Sonora, 1996. Sinagawa Montoya, Heberto. Tips Aeroméxico, no. 6, Sonora (Winter 1997–1998). Uribe García, Jesús Félix, and Joel Montoya Haro. Universidad: Espacio y arquitectura: Memoria gráfica de la arquitectura de la Universidad de Sonora. Hermosillo: Universidad de Sonora, 1996. Nogales, Son. Archive, Historical Museum, Nogales, AZ. Piñera Ramírez, David. Caminando entre el pasado y el presente de Nogales. Tijuana, BC: Centro de Investigaciones Históricas UNAM-UABC, 1985. Puerto Peñasco, Son. Barrios, Joseph. “Tucson’s Beach Is Booming: Puerto Peñasco Keeps Growing by the Day; Here Are Some of the Latest Developments.” Arizona Daily Star (Tucson, AZ), February 11, 2007. Vernacular Architecture in Sonora Fay, George E. An Indian-Mexican House Type in Sonora, Mexico. Greeley: Colorado State College, Museum of Anthropology, 1969. Tamaulipas General Alarcón Cantú, Eduardo. Arquitectura histórica en un espacio de encuentro: Ciudades fronterizas del bajo río Bravo. Tijuana, BC: Colegio de la Frontera Norte, 2004. Franco Carrasco, Jesús. El nuevo Santander y su arquitectura. Cuadernos de Historia del Arte 48. Mexico City: UNAM, IIE, 1991.

Tamez Tejeda, Antonio. De piedra, adobe y barreta: Arquitectura noresteña. Ciudad Victoria, Tamps.: Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas, 2004. Bagdad, Tamps. Benavides, Jaime. “Behind the Cancel: News from Bagdad.” Mexicana: The Journal of the México-Elmhurst Philatelic Society 57, no. 4 (October 2008). Matamoros, Tamps. Fox, Stephen. “Creole Influence along the Border: Craftsmen from New Orleans Left Their Mark in Brownsville and Matamoros.” Texas Architect (Jan./Feb. 2008): 29. Nuevo Laredo, Tamps. Garza González, Fernando. Historia de Nuevo Laredo: Reflexiones y recuerdos, 1849–1998, 150 aniversario. Nuevo Laredo, Tamps./ San Antonio, TX: Borderlands Bookstore, 1998. Melgar Adalid, Mario, and José Rogelio Álvarez Noguera. 6 años de arquitectura en México. Mexico City: UNAM, 1994 (restored Maritime Customs building in Tampico). Ocasio Meléndez, Marcial E. Capitalism and Development: Tampico, Mexico: 1876–1924. New York: P. Lang, 1998. Vázquez Soriano, Mario A. Patrimonio arquitectónico y urbano de Nuevo Laredo. Ciudad Victoria, Tamps.: Consejo Estatal para la Cultura y las Artes, 1997. Vernacular Architecture in Tamaulipas Catálogo nacional, monumentos históricos inmuebles: Tamaulipas. Mexico City: SEP, INAH, Programa Cultural de las Fronteras, 1986.

Index  309

index

a10studio + lab07, 218 Abaroa, Enrique, 60, 78 Aburto, Álvaro, 251 Academia de San Carlos, 14–15 acequias, 12, 129, 187 Aceros Corey, 179 Acosta, José M., 251 adobe construction, 105 aduanas: in Baja California Norte and Sur, 220, 253; in Chihuahua, 130; in Coahuila, 97; in Sonora, 182, 184, 185; in Tamaulipas, 28, 48 AHMSA, 101 air conditioning, 21, 24, 68 Agostini, Jorge, 79 Aguilar, Gustavo, 193 Aguirre Puente, Macario J., 277 airport: facility, 36; terminal, 109 alamedas, 15, 65, 115, 120 Albuerne, Jorge, 76 Alemán, Miguel, 21 Alexander, Christopher, 252, 277 Almada y Almada, Rafael, 210 Almaraz, Salvador, 118 Alvarado, Pedro, 158 Alvarado, Vladimir, 109 Álvarez Fuentes, Augusto F., 277 Álvarez García, Augusto H., 78, 277 Amérigo Rubier, Federico (Amerigo Rouvier, Federico), 157–158, 277 Ando, Tadao, 67 Angostura, Battle of, 117 Anguiano, Papias, 15, 56 Anteneo de la Juventud, 124 Apache and Comanche Wars, 13, 128 aqueducts, 115, 141, 160 archs, monumental, 62–63, 199, 248 arenas: gymnasium, 42; jai alai, 243 Arguelles, Joseph R., 154

Argüello, Santiago, 241 Armijo, Modesto, 50 Arquitectura 911SC, 87 Arroyo, Salvador, 151 art deco: as architectural vocabulary, 20; in Baja California Norte and Sur, 242; in Chihuahua, 132; in Coahuila, 123– 124; in Nuevo León, 65, 66; in Sinaloa, 214; in Tamaulipas, 41 Artigas, Francisco, 215 ASARCO, 100, 168, 169 Asplund Gunnar, influence of, 46 Asúnsolo, Ignacio, 144, 154, 278 automobiles: and sprawl, 22, 272–273; and suburbs, 21–22, 69, 109; use of, 20 autopistas, 22, 126 Ayapin, rebellion of, 211 Azuela, Mariano, 144 Babinsky, Matías, 143 bakeries, 257 Balarezo, Manuel, 264 Ballina, Jorge, 109, 278 bandereas monumentales, 22 banks: in Baja California Norte and Sur, 251; in Coahuila, 106; in Chihuahua, 132, 142; in Durango, 176; in Nuevo León, 61–62; in Sinaloa, 207, 227; in Sonora, 191, 193, 195, 196, 197; in Tamaulipas, 28, 40 Barragán Delgado, Rodolfo M., 94, 278 Barragán Morfín, Luis, 76, 79, 273, 278 Barragán Schwarz, Rodolfo, 71, 72, 73, 74, 76, 278 bars (cantinas): for tourists, 181, 242, 253; for yuppies, 56 Beaux-Arts: architecture, 15, 18, 63, 64, 234, 237, 243; urban design, 241 Belden, Santiago, 65, 273

Belden Gutiérrez, Eduardo, 38, 65, 66, 69, 278 Belden Ortero, Francisco, 64, 65, 278 Belle Époque, 18, 146, 147, 182, 190 bell towers, 31, 56, 117, 209, 260 Beltrán, Lola, 237 Beltrán Otero, Francisco, 64, 65 Benítez Cevada, Germán, 215, 287 Bermúdez, Antonio, 22, 133 Best, Fernando, 215 big-box stores, 43 Bilbao, Tatiana, 218, 279 Biossi, César, 132 Bird, William A., 143 Blake, Carlos G., 156 Blas Cortina, Abel, 107 Boari, Adamo, influence of, 158 body experience, primacy of, 272–273 Bonet, Francisco, 220 Bonillas, Ignacio, 182 Bonillas and Herbert, 181 border: complexity of, 272; fence, 184, 247; Hollywood celebrities visiting, 244; as intrinsically liberating, 275; tourism, 242 border immigration and customs facility (Puertas de México), 22, 29, 36, 130, 184 Bosh y Miraflores, Manuel, 40 Botero, Fernando, 78 Bracho, José, 107, 109 Bradbury, Lewis, 228 Brancusi, Constantin, influence of, 72 brick construction: in Baja California Norte and Sur, 265; in Chihuahua, 130; in Coahuila, 105, 111, 113; as facing for adobe buildings, 18; and globalized hybrids, 24; in Nuevo León, 59, 92; in Tamaulipas, 48

310  Index bridges, railroad, 27, 97, 159–160 bridges, vehicular and pedestrian: in Chihuahua, 131, 159–160; in Coahuila, 96, 97, 105; in Durango, 163, 179; in Nuevo León, 62; in Tamaulipas, 27, 50–52 British naval occupation, 222 Bueno Leal, Plácido, 70 Buenz, J. Fred, 28, 279 Bulnes Valero, Óscar, 76, 78, 279 bullrings, 18, 135, 241 bus travel, 20 cactus sanctuary, 285 cafés (restaurants), 50, 96, 242 Calderon L., G., 152 California Gold Rush, closest routes to, 220 Calles, Plutarco Elías, 54 Calvo, José Joaquín, 161 Camargo Hijar, José Angel (“Tito”), 74, 279 Campos, Mauricio M., 193 Canales González, Fernanda, 87, 279 canals: and irrigation, 78, 205, 214; restoration and development of, 52 Cananea Mine Strike, 186 Candela Outeriño, Félix: architecture of, 68, 71, 216, 279; influence of, 135 Cañedo, Gen. Francisco, 211–213 Canseco, Enrique L., 39, 44, 279 Cantú, Col. Esteban, 254 Cárdenas, Lázaro: outlawed gambling, 254; and reforms, 20 carnival, 223, 265 Carranza, Venustiano, 102, 103, 149, 151 Casa Montaña, SA, 132, 193, 280 casas cartones, 21–22, 245, 247 Casas Gracía, Juan, 67, 280 casinos, 63, 91, 106, 117, 144, 214 Caso, Antonio, 124 cast and wrought iron construction, 18, 103, 144, 158, 188, 220. See also gazebos Castro, Ricardo, 175 catedrales (cathedrals): in Baja California Norte and Sur, 241, 250, 262; in Chihuahua, 128, 138; in Coahuila, 101, 117; in Durango, 164, 171; in Nuevo León, 56, 91; in Sinaloa, 211, 226, 237; in Sonora, 189, 200; in Tamaulipas, 33 Cavaillé-Col, Aristide, 226 cemeteries, 15, 50, 168, 237 CEMEX, 65 Central Mutualista de Zaragoza, 245

cervecerías, 18, 59, 227, 250, 252 Chanel, Louis, 106 Chao, Manuel Gen., 151 Chapultepec Hills, 255 Charpenel, Patrick, 218 Chávez Amparán, Arturo, 133 Chávez & Vigil Arquitectos, 80 Chichemeca War, 12 Chinese immigrants: building railroads, 250; massacre of, in Torreón, Coah., 107 churches (basílicas, capillas, iglesias, misiónes, paroquias, sanctuarios, templos): in Baja California Norte and Sur, 254, 258, 259, 260, 265, 266, 269; in Chihuahua, 128, 129, 131, 132, 135, 136, 137, 138, 141, 145, 156, 157, 160, 161; in Coahuila, 96, 97, 99, 100, 101, 103, 106, 109, 113, 115, 118, 122; in Durango, 163, 168, 169, 173; in Nuevo Léon, 54, 56, 57, 61, 68, 71, 74–75, 90, 91, 93, 94; in Sinaloa, 207, 209, 210, 213, 214, 216, 217, 218, 219, 222, 233, 234, 235, 237; in Sonora, 183, 191, 195, 199, 201; in Tamaulipas, 28, 29, 31, 33, 38, 39, 42, 44 Cia. Comercial de BC, 243 cinemas, 69, 92, 132, 152 clinics, 193, 200 clock towers, 28, 115, 167, 199, 210 Coahuila y Tejas, 100 Coate, Roland, Jr., 231, 280 colonial era, in Northern Mexico, 11–13 colonias (barrios): adaptive reuse of, 56, 118; development of, 65, 69 COMEC Ingenieros, 50 commercial and office buildings: in Baja California Norte and Sur; 242, 251, 269; in Chihuahua; 152–153; in Coahuila, 109, 114, 125; in Durango, 176; in Nuevo León, 63, 70, 72, 73, 80, 85, 90, 91, 92; in Sinaloa, 210, 215, 223, 227, 232; in Sonora, 194; in Tamaulipas, 46, 49 communal colony, 205 Comte, Auguste, 124 concrete construction, 68, 109 Congresos del estado, 155, 216 Constructores Mexicanos, 49 Contreras, Jesús F., 121 convention centers, 50, 61, 134–135 cooperatives, 41, 102, 251 Copper Canyon, 208 Corral de Villa, Luz, 151

Corredor Latorre, Julio, 131, 146–149, 154, 280 Cortina, “Chato,” 123, 280 Cortina, Gen. Juan N., 34 Cotera, Vicente, 135 Council, Lucile, 294. See also Yoch, Florence country clubs (campestres), 71, 165 courtyard buildings, as type, 12, 16, 19 Creel, Enrique, 131, 142, 160 Creixel, José L., 109, 280 Cristero rebellion, 97, 183, 200 CRIT, 52, 166 Cross, Meliton H., 35 Crousset, Juan, 67 CRS (Caudill Rowlett, Scott), 71, 280 Crussét, Jean, 101 Cruz, Teddy, 249 Cuilty, Carolina, 149 curio stores, 185, 241, 245 Dalton, Juan, 31 dams (presas), 31, 42, 96, 138, 146, 192, 214 Decanini Flores, Paolino, 280 Decanini Galli, Antonio, 65 de Irigoyen, Pedro I., 143, 144, 284 de la Fuente, Antonio, 124 de la Garza, Fernando, 67 de la Hidalga, Lorenzo, 15, 44, 284 de la Mora y Palomar, Enrique, 33, 68, 69, 71, 200, 280 de la Peña, Ignacio, 31 de la Peña, Raúl, 159 de la Vega, Gustavo R., 281 de la Vega Echavarría, Eduardo, 216 del Campo, Mariano M., 143 del Moral, Enrique, 200, 273, 281 de los Santos, Simón, 157 department stores, 176, 210, 227, 264 de Pérez, Mariano, 143 de Yturbe Bernal, José, 267 Díaz, Porfirio (and porfiriato): and appointments of governors, 57, 181, 212; architectural characteristics of, 48, 176; and land grants to foreign companies, 241; opposition to, 124; previously named for, 120; and railroads and industrialization, 16–19; stayed in these buildings, 142, 158 Díaz Morales, Ignacio, 20, 197, 254 DIF, 44, 125 diligencia (stagecoach), 16, 164, 211 docks (wharves, muelles), 265

Index  311 Doheny, Edward L., 44 Domínguez, Héctor, 61 Domínguez, Ing., 222 Domínguez, Zeferino, 108, 121, 122, 123 Duany Plater-Zyberk and Co., 262, 281 Eames, Charles, influence of, 71, 72 ecological: centers, 194; preserves, 265; restoration, 25, 102, 113, 249, 270, 274 Eiffel, Gustave, 258, 265, 281 El Boleo Copper Company, 257 Elizalde, Jorge, 33 Elizondo, Gabino, 57 Ellwood, Craig, influence of, 72 Elosúa, Antonio, 74 El Progreso Mining Co., 265 epidemics, 13, 19 Escala del Norte, 155 España, Salvador, 252 Esparza, Armando, 153 Esperón, Enrique, 143 Esperón, Henry, 154 Espino, Carlos, 154, 281 Espinosa, Fermín, 122 Estrada, Andrés, 154 Fabrés, Antonio, 118 Faver, Milton, 137 Fernández Escamilla, Franklin, 102, 281 Ferrera, Raúl, 76, 79 filmmaking, 178 Flores Calderón, Eduardo, 78 Flores Magon, Ricardo, 242 FONART, 134 FONATUR, 22, 187, 261 Ford, O’Neil, 21 forts: casamatas, 34; cuarteles, 130, 136, 222, 241 Freeman Rojo, Guillermo, 229, 282 FyUSA, 20, 65, 67 GAAT, 22 Galguera, Hilario, 36 galleries, art, 107 Gameros, Manuel, 146–149 García, Luis, 133 García Ramos, Domingo, 36 García Zurita, Ramón, 39 gardens: botanical, 218; in courtyard, 12; plant material in, 19; private, 206–207; public, 169 Garfio, Manuel, 130 Garita, Gonzalo, 28, 193, 282 Garza, Eliseo, 59

Garza, Nicolás, 36 Garza de León, Aldegundo, 119 Garza Leonard, Rocío, 56 Garza T., Izmael, 72 Garza Treviño, Fernando, 74 gateways (monumental), 65 gazebos, 201, 220 gentrification, 203 Giles, Alfred: biography of, 282; in Chihuahua, 142, 146; in Coahuila, 117, 119, 123; in Nuevo León, 61–63; in Tamaulipas, 28 Gill, Irving, 254 Gladding, McBean, 245 Gochicoa, Juan, 44 Goeritz, Mathias, 72 Golden Zone, 231 Gómez, Marte R., 28, 42 Gómez Domínguez, Francisco, 133 Gómez Palacio Bracho, Carlos, 106, 109, 282 Gómez-Pimienta, Bernardo, 88 Gómez Rubleda, Jerónimo, 109, 273, 282 González, Ceferino, 200 González, Cosmé, 109 González, Miguel, 242 González, Pioquinto, 105 González, Romualdo, 151 González Arquieta, Andrés, 74, 282 González Camarena, Jorge, 68, 69, 109, 118, 282 González de León, Teodoro, 49, 282 González Gallardo, Alfonso, 251 González Mendoza, Guillermo, 283 González Montaña, Rubén, 113 González Reyna, Jorge, 109, 283 González Vírgen, Miguel, 87, 283 Gonzalo, Carrasco, Padre, 119 gothic revival (neogothic), 63, 92, 119, 163–164, 173, 191, 226–227 Govela, Alfonso, 48 government building types, 19th c., 14, 18 Gracia, Jorge (Gracia Studio), 249, 256, 283 Green, Herbert, 66 Greene, William C., 186 Griffin, William, 128 Grimshaw, Nicholas, 85, 283 Gropius, Walter A., 109, 283 Grupo Aridex, 78 Grupo México, 187 Guadalupe Díaz, José, 129 Guajardo Amador, Ricardo, 69, 72, 283 Guerra Fierro, Gen. Donato, 166

Guerrero Galván, Jesús, 68 Guerrero Herrera, Sergio, 113, 283 Guggenheim, mining, 19, 168 Guindon, Henri E. M., 120, 122, 283 Guinesi, Lorenzo, 69 Gurria, Ángela, 75 haciendas: as a type, 12–13; in Chihuahua, 138, 151, 155, 156, 159, 160; in Coahuila, 102, 103, 115; in Durango, 163, 164, 168, 169, 171, 178, 179; in Nuevo León, 54, 55, 93; in Sinaloa, 219, 234; in Sonora, 199; in Tamaulipas, 43 Harris, Steven, 268, 283 Hayworth, Rita, 244 Haza, Constantino, 214 Hearst, William Randolph, 19 Heinsbergen, Anthony, 245 Henry Clark Construction Co., 251 Hermanos Muguerza, 91 Hernandez Medina Co., 226 Herrera, Rubén, 118 Herrería Gabelich, 132 Herry International, 155 Herzog and de Meuron, 135, 218, 270, 284 Hidalgo, Miguel, 143, 157 Hildenbrand, Wilhelm, 163, 284 Hinojosa, Bernardo, 72 HKS Architects, 113–114 Hogan, E. B., 183 horses: culture of, 100; racetracks for, 132, 242 hospitals: in Chihuahua, 135, 151, 154, 156, 159; in Coahuila, 106, 109; in Durango, 176; in Nuevo León, 66, 70; in Sinaloa, 229; in Sonora, 193, 200; in Tamaulipas, 35, 50 hotels: in Baja California Norte and Sur, 245, 253, 254, 256, 257, 266, 270; in Chihuahua, 132, 135, 153, 157; in Coahuila, 97, 101, 104, 108, 109, 113, 115, 123; in Durango, 178; in Nuevo León, 64, 65, 80; in Sinaloa, 209, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232; in Sonora, 184, 195; in Tamaulipas, 38, 46. See also resort hotels and developments housing: apartments, 69; blocks, 24, 71, 83, 85, 87, 88, 90; condominiums, 22, 72, 98, 187, 266; low-cost, 22, 165; mixed-use, 69, 83, 84, 88, 90; social, 23, 246, 251; towers, 24, 90, 187; townhouse courtyard, 87; workers, 102 Huerta, Elena, 122 Huller, Luis, 253

312  Index Hunt, Myron, 228, 284 Hurtado, Alfonso, 29 hybridity, 273–274 Ibarra, Aurelio, 209 ICOCULT, 120 IDINSA, 179 Imaña, Federico, 223 IMSS, 21, 70, 109 independence from Spain, 13 industrialization: factories after WWII, 20–21, 67; manufacturing in 19th c., 15, 92; in Monterrey, 59, 68, 80. See also manufacturing facilities information technology and Internet, impact of, 24 institute, scientific and literary, 151–152 International Company of México, 253 Italian Rationalists, influence of, 194, 217 ITESM, Monterrey campus and other campuses in Northern Mexico, 69 Janssen, Ernst C., 59, 284 Johnston, Benjamin, 205–207 Juárez, Benito: and buildings occupied during retreat north, 118, 128, 138, 141, 222; and Laws of Reform, 14, 226 Kahn, Louis, influence of, 178, 197 Kalach, Alberto (TAX), 159, 249, 255, 257, 271, 273, 284 Karam, Herb, 101 King, George, E., 130, 144, 151, 284 Kinsey Owen, Albert, 204 kiosks (bandstands), 15, 103, 138, 166, 188 Koenig, Pierre, influence of, 72 Koolhaas, Rem, influence of, 232 Laceras, Manuel, 79 Lacoutre and Siqueros, 146–149 Lacouture, Felipe, 128 La Forgue, Sra., 257 Lamadrid Rodríguez, Ramón, 72, 285 Landa, García, Landa Arquitectos, 80, 83–84, 285 Landa Ruiloba, Agustín, 88, 285 Landa Verdugo, Agustín, 154, 156, 285 Landa Verdugo, Enrique, 154, 156, 285 Landa Vértiz, Agustín: architecture of, 80, 83–84, 90, 285; influence of, 80 landscape urbanism, 274–275. See also urban design Larios, Fray Juan, 100 Laroche, E. R., 28

Lavín, Santiago, 163 Law of Colonization, 18 Laws of the Indies, 12 Leaton, Ben, 137 Legorreta + Legorreta Arquitectos, 80, 285 Legorreta Vilchis, Ricardo: architecture, 77, 165, 266, 286; influence of, 113, 165, 267 Lenoir Nicoulaz, Alexandre, 84, 286 León Astengo, D. Santiago, 224 León de la Barra, Enrique de, 38 León Loya, Juan José, 224 leyvazo, 207 Librado Tapia, Navidad, 224, 286 libraries: public, 39, 50, 101–102, 165, 201, 257, 264; university, 80, 123–124, 193 lighthouses, 222 Lira Filloy, Miguel Ángel Lobeira Castro, Juan, 67, 286 Long, Baron, 243 López, Jesús, 232 López Bancalari, Ignacio, 36 López-Guerra, Francisco, 125, 286 López Mateos, Adolfo, 22 López Oreano, Gilberto, 133 Lozano Arrambide, Adán, 84, 286 MacGregor Krieger, Luis, 36 Madero, Francisco I., 115, 119, 129, 150 malecónes, 227, 229, 264 Malverde, Jesús, 214 mansions (palacios, urban estates): in Chihuahua, 146–149, 157–158; in Coahuila, 100, 121, 123; in Durango, 168, 171, 175; emergence of, 18; in Sinaloa; 209, 210, 226; in Sonora, 199. See also quintas manufacturing facilities: automobile assembly, 126, 165; cigar, 184; CocaCola, 49; e-business, 80; electronics, 155; soap, 164; steel foundry and mill, 60–61 maquiladoras, 21, 24, 33 Marcor, Hirom, 201 Marriot, John M., 28 Marroquín y Rivera, Manuel, 146 Martínez, Ceferino, 201 Martínez, Heberto, 201 Martínez, Óscar, 59 Martínez Abrego, Enrique, 69 Martínez Arteche, Hector, 201 Martínez Negrete, Francisco, 231

Marván Arquitectos, 42 Mauro Belden, Santiago, 27 mausoleums, 151 Maximillian, 14, 194, 222 Mayer and Holler Inc., 251 Mayeux, James, 79, 80, 290 Mayo and Yaqui Wars, 181 Mayora, Miguel, 286 McAllister, Corinne, 20, 67, 243, 286 McAllister, Wayne, 20, 67, 243, 286 McLane, Louis, 231 medical buildings, 246 Meléndez, Javier, 74, 286 Melville, Herman, 220 Mendelsohn, Erich, influence of, 70 Méndez-Vigatá, Antonio, 107, 110–113, 123, 125, 165, 287 Mendiola Quezada, Vicente, 287 Mennonites, 141, 155, 179, 219 mercado, 36, 97, 107, 120, 132, 195, 227 meteorology facility, 222 Met-Mex, 106 METRORREY, 79 Mexican-American War: and loss of national territory and creation of border, 13, 241; occupied cities during, 117, 222; sieges during, 269 Mexican Land Colonization Co., 253 Mexican Revolution: buildings used as headquarters during, 148–149; and hospital trains, 21; and Northern Mexico, 19–20; and oil production, 26; sites of battles during, 164, 168, 183, 185, 192, 197, 203, 228 Mezta, Gen. Manuel, 264 Mier, Maiz, 69 Mijares, José Ángel, 269 Mijares, Rafael, 74, 133, 290 Mijares Bracho, Carlos, 49, 197, 287 milagro mexicano, 21 military facilties: barracks, 67, 192, 253; base, 67 Mills, Anson, 129 Milmo O’Dowd, Patricio, 35 Minguín, Santiago, 163 mining: chimneys, 265; coal, 97, 100; copper, lead, zinc, 9, 168, 257; discovery of caves during, 156; gold and silver, 8–9, 12, 19, 96, 114, 127, 129, 130, 156– 158, 160–161, 163, 168–169, 180, 185– 187, 201, 209, 218, 220, 234–235, 241, 253, 265; iron, 171; payroll office, 100; smelter, 186 mints, 161

Index  313 Mirbaud Bank, 257 Moctezuma Díaz Infante, Pedro, 135, 246, 265, 287 Molina, Antonio, 107 Molina Montes, Jorge, 216, 287 Molinar, Enrique, 134 Molina Rodríguez, Luis F., 209, 212–214, 287 Molins, Fernando, 232 Mondini, Juan, 223 Montenegro, Roberto, 67 Montoya, Benignio, 173, 175, 287 Montoya de la Cruz, Francisco, 164 monuments (sculpture): Anthony Quinn, 154; battle between liberal and conservative factions, 154; Carranza, 121; civic, 27, 36, 76, 109, 121, 154, 165, 229; commercial, 131; División del Norte, 154; Felipe Angeles, 154; Hidalgo, 102, 121, 143; Juárez, 131–132, 138, 163; Mexican mother, 168; Mexican Revolution, 154; to the nation, 49; Obregón, 201; religious, 109; Villa, 164. See also archs, monumental Morackis, Alberto, 184 Morales, Arturo, 155 MORPHOSIS, 246, 247, 288 Muguerza, José F., 66, 288 Müller, Enrique (Henrique, Heinrich), 151, 288 museums: agriculture, 218; art, 38, 39, 61, 77, 78, 199, 226, 271; cinema, 61; cultural and regional, 34, 50, 98, 100–101, 118, 120, 122, 123, 133, 137, 141, 151, 159, 163, 169, 187, 193, 194, 203, 207, 237, 246, 260; ecological, 125, 194; industrial, 100, 168; Mexican Revolution, 104, 106, 176; mineral, 237; mining, 106, 218, 257; natural history, 42, 119, 125, 156; steel, 85; science and technology, 74 Muybridge, Edward, 224 nacho (snack), birthplace of, 99 NAFTA, 22 Native Americans: Chibcha, 220; Cochimi, 239; globalization, 11; indigenous groups, 11; Seri, 187, 194; Tarahumara, 159; Tehueco, 209; Tepehuán, 161, 169, 178; Tlaxcalan settlers in the north, 116, 118; Totorame, 220; Yaqui, 180, 200; Yuman, 239; Zuaque, 209 Navarro, Abel, 18, 46 Navarro, Catarino, 166

neoclassicism: as architectural vocabulary, 15; in Baja California Norte and Sur, 264, 265; in Chihuahua, 153; in Coahuila, 115, 117; in Durango, 173, 175, 177; in Nuevo León, 57; in Sinaloa, 226, 234, 237; in Sonora, 181; in Tamaulipas, 42, 46 Nepomuceno Flores, Juan, 171 Nepomuceno Machado, Juan, 223 Neutra, Richard, influence of, 68 nightclubs, 184, 185 Niño Fidencio, 54 Norten, Enrique (TEN Arquitectos): architecture, 268, 288; influence of, 248 Northern Mexico: cultural legitimacy of, 11; geography of, 8–10; historical overview of, 11–24; opportunities for future architectural investigations of, 275 Obregón, Alvaro, 179, 181, 200, 201 Ochoa, Pablo and Simon, 141 O’Gorman, Juan, 49, 288 Ordóñez, Ezequial, 44 O’Reilly, Manuel, 128 Orozco, Pascual, 151 Orozco, Ricardo, 241 Ortega, Salvador, 72, 192, 193, 288 Ortega, Toribio, 128 Ortega Flores, Felipe N., 193, 200, 288 Ortega Flores, Guillermo, 288 Ortiz Flores, Guillermo, 288 Ortiz Monasterio, Manuel, 152, 176, 289 Padilla, Eduardo, 69, 289 Padilla, Ricardo, 80, 289 Padilla Martínez Negrete, Eduardo, 21 Pagaza Urtundua, Juan, 141 painted burros, 242 Palacios Arzobispado, 56, 173 Palacios de Gobierno (state): in Baja California Norte and Sur, 251, 263, 265; in Chihuahua, 142, 160; in Coahuila, 118; in Durango, 171, 176; in Nuevo León, 64, 90; in Sinaloa, 214, 216; in Sonora, 188. See also Congresos del estado Palacios de Justicia, 52, 76, 102, 211 Palacios Federales, 29, 38, 56, 143 Palacios Municipales (ayuntamientos, presidencias municipales, city halls): in Baja California Norte and Sur, 251, 257, 263, 266, 269; in Chihuahua, 129, 132, 138, 142, 156, 157; in Coahuila, 97, 102, 103, 115; in Durango, 166, 168, 169; in Nuevo León, 56, 76, 91, 93, 94;

in Sinaloa, 209, 234, 237; in Sonora, 181, 182, 185, 195, 199, 201; in Tamaulipas, 31, 33, 40, 44, 52 Palafox Muñoz, Leopoldo, 20, 192, 193, 289 PAN, 24 Panama Exhibition, 242 Pani, Mario: architecture of, 36, 71, 72, 97, 134, 155, 184, 273, 289; influence of, 201; and urban design, 21, 197 Pape, Harold R., 101 Paredes Rangel, Sergio, 36 parks (paseos), 41–42, 50, 60–61, 100, 102, 135, 149, 152, 168, 194. See also alamedas Passement, Bártolo, 33, 289 Passement, Mateo, 33, 289 Peeler, Henry A., 35 Pellandini, G., 64 PEMEX, 20, 22 Peña, Lisanadro, 57, 69 Peralta, Angela, 226 peso devaluation, 22–24 pharmacy, 46, 91, 181, 223 Piña Mora, Aarón, 143 PLADIS, 289 plazas (placitas, plazuelas): in Baja California Norte and Sur, 250, 262, 269; in Chihuahua, 128, 136, 138, 157; in Coahuila, 96, 98, 102, 116, 117, 118, 120, 122; in Durango, 166, 171; in Nuevo León, 58, 64, 76, 78, 84, 91, 92, 94; in Sinaloa, 207, 209, 211, 223, 226, 235; in Sonora, 188, 191, 199; in Tamaulipas, 27, 28, 33, 37, 39, 44, 45–46 poder judiciales, 149 police facilities, 155 pollution, 24 Ponzaneli, Ricardo, 290 population of cities in Northern Mexico in 19th c., 17 Porsen, Rena, 65 Portschelller, Heinrich, 30–31 post offices, 46, 98, 132, 251, 266 prefabrication: and cast iron, 46, 48, 258; and components for social housing, 248–250 presidios, 13 PRI, 24, 181 prisons (jails, penitentiaries): in Baja California Norte and Sur, 256, 260; in Chihuahua, 130, 146; in Durango, 178; in Sinaloa, 219, 235; in Sonora, 182, 185, 187, 191, 196, 203

314  Index PRODUCTORA, 155, 290 Programa de Industrialización Fronteriza, 21 PRONAF, 22, 97, 134 Pruneda, Sergio, 231, 290 public services, for education and health, 20–21 Puga, Anastacio, 75 Purcell, Guillermo, 119 Quijano, Alejandro, 66 Quinn, Anthony, 154 Quintanar, Guillermo, 70 quintas (rural estates), 144, 145, 146–150, 151 racetracks, automobile, 61 radio stations, 96 railroad buildings: roundhouse, 144; stations, 28, 29, 31, 48, 58, 121, 138, 153, 156, 162, 163, 176, 183, 201, 250; warehouse, 169 railroads: as barrier from U.S. invasion, 13; bypassed by, 137; in Copper Canyon, 155, 159–160; development of, 16–17, 28, 58, 104, 137, 158, 162, 164, 169, 176, 181, 183, 199, 205 Ramírez, Cristobál, 31 Ramírez Vázquez, Pedro, 67, 74, 99, 133, 246, 290 Rangel, Cecilia, 79, 80, 290 Raoussett-Boulbon, Comte Gaston de, 194 Ravizé, Armando, 109, 290 Reed, John, 143 Reform Wars, 14 refrigeration (importing ice from San Francisco, CA), 222, 227 Rendón, Gabriela, and Robles-Durán, Miguel, 290 República de la Sierra Grande, 26 República del Rio Grande, 26 Requena, Jose Luis (Requena Art Nouveau Furniture Collection), 148 research facilities, bio-technology, 218 residences, single-family: in Baja California Norte and Sur, 249, 253, 264, 268; in Chihuahua, 133, 142, 144, 155, 160; in Coahuila, 103, 106, 111–113, 118, 119; in Nuevo León, 65, 69, 71, 72, 74, 79, 80, 84, 85, 87, 88; in Sinaloa, 209, 213, 215, 223; in Sonora, 186, 200, 203; in Tamaulipas, 29, 31, 35–36, 40, 43. See also mansions

resort hotels and developments: in Baja California Norte and Sur, 243–245, 250, 254, 256, 257, 261–262, 267, 270, 271; first generation of, 20; in Nuevo León, 67; second generation of, 22; in Sinaloa, 219, 229–232; in Sonora, 187; speculative, 23. See also hotels Reyes, Agustín, 36 Reyes, Gen. Bernardo, 57, 59 Reyes, Refugio, 2, 57, 290 Rigalt, Fransisci, 132 Rivera Quiroga, Gabriel, 49 road systems: autopistas, 22, 126; and development of highways, 68, 181, 194, 241, 261; poor condition of, in 19th c., 12, 13; Transpeninsular Highway, 261 Rocha, Mauricio, 257, 290 Rockefeller, John D., 19 Rodríguez, Gen. Abelardo L., 192, 243 Rodríguez, Gilberto, 29, 87, 291 Rodríguez, Herón, 133 Rodríguez, Marco A., 109 Rodríguez and Guerra Arquitectos, 43, 291 Rodríguez de Sela, Gen. Manuel, 34 Rodríguez Ravizé, Armando, 68 Rodríguez Tenorio, Padre, 109 Rojkind, Michel (Rojkind Arquitectos), 88, 291 Rojo, Margen, 125 romanesque revival (neoromanesque), 164 Romero, Carlos, 143 Rosales C., Jorge, 40 Rosas, Alberto, 128 Rosen, Manuel, 246 Rossi, Aldo, influence of, 217 Rothschild family, 257 Rovalo, Fernando, 109, 291 RTKL Architects, 78 Rudolph, Paul, influence of, 49 Rufo Santa Cruz, Antonio, 264 Ruiz Camino, Martín, 135 Ruiz Gaza, Francisco, 44 Saarinen, Eero, influence of, 248 Saavedra Reyes, Roberto, 214 Salas, Antonio, 56 Salido, Felipe, 189, 201, 291 Salinas, Edmundo, 79 Salinas de Gotari, Carlos, economic boom and crash, 22–24 Saltillo Academy of Painting, 118 Saltillo tile, 126

San Antonio, TX, architects from, 61 Sánchez, Elisa R., 67 Sánchez, Javier (JSa), 90, 270, 271, 291 Sánchez Cordero, Óscar, 128 Sánchez García, Javier, 291 Sanguino, Luis, 78 Santa Anna, Antonio López de, 13, 161 Santos, Alberto, Manuel, and Ignacio, 69 Sarrabia, Col. Francisco, 168 Sava, Antonino, 70, 291 Scarpa, Carlo, influence of, 59 Schjetnan Guarduño, Mario, 52, 98, 137, 273, 292 schools: agricultural, 131; industrial, 66, 94; kindergarten, 40; law, 49, 121; normal, 38, 121; primary and secondary, 31, 36, 49, 71, 93, 106, 110–111, 119, 121, 132, 183, 214, 243, 245, 251, 266; technical, 122; university building and campus, 67, 69, 72, 80, 87–88, 94, 109, 123–124, 152, 154, 156, 192, 210, 265 Schott, Otto, 109, 292 Scully, Vincent, 274 Sebastián, 22, 36, 109, 154, 292 Segura, Juan, 214, 292 Serrato, Antonio, 70 Sheppard, Alexander, 160 Siller, José María, 59, 292 Sisson, George H., 253 Slonecki, Estanislao V., 175, 292 Sordo Madeleno Bringas, Javier, 23, 52, 165, 267, 292 Soriano, Juan, 77, 265 Spanish colonial revival (neocolonial), 40, 65, 132–133, 153, 165, 183, 197, 244, 251 Springall + Lira, 85, 113, 292 stadiums (estadios), 69, 108, 165 Stephens, Richard J., 253 Sterling, Enrique H., 167 steel: construction, 71–72; production, 101 St. Louis, MO, architects from, 61 streetcars (tramways), 28, 48, 105, 130, 158, 223 street trees, 15, 107, 142, 208 suburbs: for elite, 18, 22; for masses, 22. See also automobiles Szekely, Edmund and Deborah, 250 Szymanski, José Juan, 44 Taft, William H., 142 Talamantes, Juan Luis, 59, 292 Talamás Murra, Mario A., 114 Tamayo, Rufino, 74, 76 Tarazona, Salvador, 118

Index  315 Tarriba Rodil, Jorge, 230, 292 Taylor, Isaac S., 58, 293 Terragni, Giuseppe, influence of, 102 Terrazas, Eduardo, 39, 50, 60, 76, 293 Terrazas, Javier, 131 Terrazas, Luis, 128, 142, 149–151 Texas War of Independence, 13, 100 theatres (teatros): in Baja California Norte and Sur, 245, 263; in Chihuahua, 130, 144, 152, 157, 159; in Coahuila, 99, 107, 120; in Durango, 174, 175; in Sinaloa, 213, 224; in Sonora, 201; in Tamaulipas, 35, 50 Tiffany glass, 148 TOA, 218 Toca Fernández, Antonio, 216, 293 Tolsá, Manuel, 15 Torres, Leopoldo, 44 Tradeco Infraestructura, 179 Trad Jacob, Miguel, 167 trailer parks, 230 Tresguerras, Francisco Eduardo, 13, 293 Trujillo, Eduardo, 251 Tyrell, Henry G., 163, 293 United Sugar Company, 205–206 Unzeta, Vicenta, 224 urban design: and barrios, 15; in colonial era, 12; and demolition of urban fabric, 272–273; after independence, 14; lack of concern for, 24; Laws of the Indies, 12; memorable qualities of, 273; New Urbanist, 262; and pedestrian experience, 273; during porfiriato, 18; and spatial connectivity, 273. See also automobiles; landscape urbanism urban plans, 26, 28, 36, 71, 104, 156, 181, 192, 197, 210, 245, 253 Urdapilleta, Manuel, 108, 109, 293 U.S. Civil War: blockades, 14, 53–54, 57; attempt to establish slave colony during, 222 U.S. Prohibition, 132 utility infrastructure: electric, 17, 19, 27; hydroelectric, 160; sanitation, 19; telephone, 28. See also water Vazquez del Mercado, Gínes, 171 Vega, Santos, 151, 293 Verger, Bishop Rafael José, 56 Verlarde, Rodrigo, 102, 293 vernacular architecture: Native American, 159; from recycled industrial materials, 21, 247, 248; reinterpretation of,

21, 49, 278; in response to local conditions, 16 Vidaurri, Santiago, 53 Villa, Pancho: and battles for cities, 106, 151; buildings given to, 157, 159; building used by, during Revolution, 144, 149; and building where armistice was signed, 100. See also monuments (sculpture) Villagrán García, José, 124, 293 Villarreal, Carlos, 118 Vives, Edmund, 263 Volpi, Augusto, 132 Volstead Act, 242 VSL México, 179 Wahrenberger and Beckmann, 97, 294 Walker, William, 181, 194, 241 Waller, M. L., 36 Warner B., Jaimie, 135 Wars of Intervention, 13–16 water: access to, 11; canals, 214; dams, 214; and flood control, 22; and irrigation control building, 104; municipal supply of, 12, 14, 177, 185; treatment of, 185, 270. See also aqueducts; utility infrastructure White, John, 142 Wolfman Jack, 96 wood frame construction, 37, 49 World War II: and economic growth, 20–21, 67; and tourism, 22, 245 Wright, Frank Lloyd, influence of, 36, 52, 102, 194, 250 Wrotnowski, Arthur F., 191, 196 Wulff Olivarri, Federico, 17, 104, 294 Yáñez de la Fuente, Enrique, 50, 109, 135, 229, 294 Yoch, Florence, 206, 294 York, John, 72 Zambrano, Juan José, 171 Zambrano Gutiérrez, Lorenzo, 65, 69, 273 Zarraga, Ángel, 56 Zedillo, Ernesto, 181 Zorro, legend of, 210 Zuloaga, Leonardo, 104 Zúñiga, Francisco, 250