How It all Started

Ciudad Universitaria 

How It All Started

The first time I remember seeing a building and thinking about the history and the possibilities behind it was when my Mom took me and my sister to play frisbee to Ciudad Universitaria (CU), which is the campus of Mexico’s National University (UNAM). This was 2001, I was just seven years old, and I don’t think I ever caught the frisbee, I was too distracted. I was looking around and all the buildings seemed to tell a story. I story I was too young and confused to understand.

 Before my Mom bailed on the whole frisbee fun and drove us back home, I asked her about the buildings. Why were these structures so different and unique? The two most recognizable buildings on campus were (and still are) the Main Library, whose exterior seemed to be a canvas for a Aztec-looking mural, and the Torre de Rectoria, which seemed to be like a traditional glass and steel building except one side was just a large concrete wall and a mural sticking out of its gut. These two fascinating buildings, along with rest of the campus’ atmosphere and architecture, have been stuck in my mind ever since.

Fast-forward 15 years to today. I am now able to understand these buildings and relate to their expressions. Turns out Ciudad Universitaria is heralded as a paradigm of modernism in Mexico. This to my was a complete shock. Modernism is an architectural style that breaks away from traditions and looks for efficiency, simplicity and cleanliness. With works such as the Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye or Mies Van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House as paradigms modernist architecture, you can understand my initial reaction. 

 However, if you look closely, you can start to see some similarities between both types of modernist styles. The Mexican architects that worked in CU’s planning, Mario Pani and Enrique del Moral, used the basic principles of European modernism and mixed them with Mexican motifs that go against the fundamentals of the style. In the Main Library, the structure is lifted by white pilots (or columns) just like in the Villa Savoye. Similarly, in the Torre de Rectoria, the use of glass and steel as materials along with a gridded system for efficient and modular construction, are reminiscing of the Farnsworth House. 

Villa Savoye

 But that’s all there is for similarities. Mexico doesn’t play by the rules. 

Farnsworth House

Once we have stablished the style the architects were adopting, we can better understand the meaning of their work. With modernism trying to break away from the past by using new materials and efficient techniques, Mexican architects saw it these advances as an opportunity to revive the past of the area. Ciudad Universitaria was built in a site close to the ancient historical town of Cuicuilco. The murals in both buildings are representative of both academia and the indigenous past. A fusion of the past and the furture. The area is also characterized for its lava layer six to eight meters thick which was deposited by the Xitle volcano 7,000 years ago. This volcanic rock can be seen utilized at the bottom of the main Library and on the side of the Torre de Rectorias. With these two precedents, Pani and del Moral used modernist motifs to bring back the area’s past and to remind everyone that in Mexico, the past is very much part of our present.  

Main Library

Torre de Rectoria