Centro Urbano Benito Juárez
Encyclopedia
The Centro Urbano Benito Juárez, more commonly called the Multifamiliar Juárez, was a large apartment complex built on the southeast section of Colonia Roma
, Mexico City
in the late 1940s and early 1950s. It was one of several projects of this type by architect Mario Pani
, designed to be semi-autonomous and incorporate as much outdoors space as possible. It also featured one of the largest mural works of the 20th century by artist Carlos Mérida
. Most of the complex, and the mural work with it, were destroyed by the 1985 Mexico City earthquake
and the demolition of many of the damaged buildings. Only several of the original buildings still remain. Despite this, the Cuauhtémoc borough
in which it is located still lists it as a separate colonia
or neighborhood.
, Emilio Portes Gil
and Lázaro Cárdenas
all took their oaths of office here. The stadium as mostly abandoned by the end of the 1940s, as most of its functions moved to the Ciudad Deportiva. Pensiones Civiles, a government agency, acquired the land, which is bordered by Avenida Antonio M.Anza to the north, Avenida Huatabambo to the south, Avenido Cuauhtemoc to the east and Jalapa Street to the west, in an area known as Colonia Roma. This area also included the La Piedad city park, providing for already open space.
In the mid 20th century, the Mexican government was building "centros urbanos" or planned urban communities in various parts of the city. These communities contain their own administration, businesses, recreational areas, schools, as well as health and other services. These were planned to be semiautonomous units, usually located near a Metro
station. Architect Mario Pani was behind this complex and several others. Prior, he created the Centro Urbano Miguel Alemán (commonly called the Multifamiliar Alemán) in the late 1940s, as an experiment in providing low cost housing. Its success prompted the commission of the Centro Urbano Benito Juárez by Mexican President Miguel Alemán Valdés
to house government employees and their families. With this project, Pani and associate Enrique del Moral looked to improve upon the stark lines of the Alemán project. Pani’s work on this and other projects paralleled that of French architect Le Corbusier
, using the latter’s principles such as location, mobility, architectural aesthetics, history and more. These projects would make Pani the most important Mexican architect of the 20th century. The complex was inaugurated on 10 September 1952 on the day of President Alemán’s sixth report to Congress
.
The apartments were split into two levels, with the kitchen and living room on one floor and the bedrooms above or below. In this way, elevators only had to stop at every third floor. All apartment and elevator access is through open passages. Within the apartments, open space was created by eliminating walls between the living and dining rooms, which was popular in the United States starting in the 1950s and 1960s. Tenants disposed of garbage though chutes to the basement, a novel idea in Mexico at that time.
The Guatemala
n-born artist sculpted and painted images of pre-Hispanic legends from Mexico. However, the native depicted in these stories have decidedly European faces. This mixing of native dress with European faces reflects what is called “Mestizo Art” and reflects the then Mexican government’s social ideology of promoting the “mestizo” (mixed native European heritage) as Mexico’s identity.
One example of the integration of architecture and art were the panels of the “C” buildings. These panels were created when Pani decided to push the closets to outside of the main walls to save interior floor space This created protruding half boxes distributed over the exterior walls’ surfaces. Mérida used these as canvases to place images. Another example is the underpass walls along Orizaba Street. Mérida realized that motorists did not have time to contemplate peripheral images, so he placed elongated anthropomorphic figures which preceded and anticipated the forward motion of the cars.
The most intricate work was done on the taller “B” buildings, which had ten floors and 72 apartments each. Residents primarily used the interior elevators but outside staircases were placed and decorated with murals. On these staircases, Mérida depicted four central Mexican and one Mayan
legends, The Story of Texcoco, the Legend of the Fifth Sun
, the Sacrifice of Ixlolxóchitl, the Destruction of Tula and the Popol Vuh
. Each legend was depicted with a series of figures nearly eight feet tall each, which tell the story in frames as one ascends the stairs. The figures were chipped from the concrete in bas-relief then painted.
Pani’s and Mérida’s work received mixed reviews, which often reflected the rivalry “Contemporáneo”
school of art, and the more politicized Mexican traditional muralist movement
. There was also reluctance to accept Merida’s work as “Mexican” as he remained a Guatemalan citizen his entire life. One example of this mixed message was from Siqueiros
, who initially praised the “plastic integration” concept but then condemned both the art and the architecture as “bourgeois,” poorly done and representing a return to the pre Mexican Revolution
Porfiiran era .
While Siquieros criticized Mérida’s work as something attractive for tourists, in the following decades it would be Siquieros’ work at the Ciudad Universitaria that would draw tourists, leaving the work at the apartment complex forgotten.
The real destruction occurred during the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, thirty three years after the complex was finished. This earthquake severely damaged the Colonia Roma section of the city, leaving many buildings in ruins. Buildings A1, B2 and C3 of the Multifamiliar Juárez complex partially collapsed, and a number of residents died.
Many of the buildings could have been saved, but it proved uneconomical to do so. Pensiones Civiles erred when they created the rental contracts with tenants by neglecting to add a clause allowing them to raise rents. By 1985, there were tenants paying as little as 200 pesos a month for rent. ($25USD in 1950, $.10USD in 1985). For this reason, maintenance of the buildings and grounds suffered until it became impossible. The government decided that this was the time to condemn nearly all of the buildings, with only several still remaining. The earthquake essentially made the complex disappear.
The destruction of the buildings destroyed nearly all of the mural work. Evidence of these remain in photographs and the preliminary sketches, which Mérida donated to UNAM. One student of Mérida’s Alfonso Soto Soria, used some of the original designed to create a monument to the work done at the Juárez complex. This can be found at an apartment complex called Fuentes Brotantes.
Like other planned urban communities of the mid 20th century, what remains of the Comjunto Urbano Benito Juárez has continued to deteriorate. There are problems with lack of parking, crowded streets, abandoned units and crime. Much of the land on which the destroyed structures were built has not been redeveloped.
Colonia Roma
Colonia Roma is a colonia or neighborhood located in the Cuauhtémoc borough of Mexico City just west of the city’s historic center. The area was a very shallow part of Lake Texcoco, dotted with tiny islands and one small island village of Aztacalco during the pre-Hispanic period...
, Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
in the late 1940s and early 1950s. It was one of several projects of this type by architect Mario Pani
Mario Pani
Mario Pani Darqui was a Mexican architect and urbanist, one of the most active under the rule of president Miguel Alemán Valdés...
, designed to be semi-autonomous and incorporate as much outdoors space as possible. It also featured one of the largest mural works of the 20th century by artist Carlos Mérida
Carlos Merida
Carlos Mérida was a Guatemalan artist.-Early life:Mérida was born in Guatemala City to a family from Quetzaltenango, boasting a Maya and Zapotec heritage which was often an inspiration in his art. He began studying music but became hearing-impaired due to illness. He then changed to the visual arts...
. Most of the complex, and the mural work with it, were destroyed by the 1985 Mexico City earthquake
1985 Mexico City earthquake
The 1985 Mexico City earthquake, a magnitude 8.0 earthquake that struck Mexico City on the early morning of 19 September 1985 at around 7:19 AM , caused the deaths of at least 10,000 people and serious damage to the greater Mexico City Area. The complete seismic event...
and the demolition of many of the damaged buildings. Only several of the original buildings still remain. Despite this, the Cuauhtémoc borough
Cuauhtémoc, D.F.
Cuauhtémoc, named after the former Aztec leader, is one of the 16 boroughs of the Federal district of Mexico City. It consists of the oldest parts of the city, extending over what was the entire city in the 1920s. This area is the historic and culture center of the city, although it is not the...
in which it is located still lists it as a separate colonia
Colonia (Mexico)
In general, colonias are neighborhoods in Mexican cities, which have no jurisdictional autonomy or representation. It is plausible that the name, which literally means colony, arose in the late 19th, early 20th centuries, when one of the first urban developments outside Mexico City's core was...
or neighborhood.
Planning and construction
The land was the site of the former Estadio Nacional, which was built in 1924 to serve not only as a sports stadium but as a political venue as well. Presidents Plutarco Elias CallesPlutarco Elías Calles
Plutarco Elías Calles was a Mexican general and politician. He was president of Mexico from 1924 to 1928, but he continued to be the de facto ruler from 1928–1935, a period known as the maximato...
, Emilio Portes Gil
Emilio Portes Gil
Emilio Cándido Portes Gil was President of Mexico from 1928 to 1930.-Biography:Portes Gil was born in Ciudad Victoria, the capital of the state of Tamaulipas in northeast Mexico....
and Lázaro Cárdenas
Lázaro Cárdenas
Lázaro Cárdenas del Río was President of Mexico from 1934 to 1940.-Early life:Lázaro Cárdenas was born on May 21, 1895 in a lower-middle class family in the village of Jiquilpan, Michoacán. He supported his family from age 16 after the death of his father...
all took their oaths of office here. The stadium as mostly abandoned by the end of the 1940s, as most of its functions moved to the Ciudad Deportiva. Pensiones Civiles, a government agency, acquired the land, which is bordered by Avenida Antonio M.Anza to the north, Avenida Huatabambo to the south, Avenido Cuauhtemoc to the east and Jalapa Street to the west, in an area known as Colonia Roma. This area also included the La Piedad city park, providing for already open space.
In the mid 20th century, the Mexican government was building "centros urbanos" or planned urban communities in various parts of the city. These communities contain their own administration, businesses, recreational areas, schools, as well as health and other services. These were planned to be semiautonomous units, usually located near a Metro
Mexico City Metro
The Mexico City Metro , officially called Sistema de Transporte Colectivo, is a metro system that serves the metropolitan area of Mexico City...
station. Architect Mario Pani was behind this complex and several others. Prior, he created the Centro Urbano Miguel Alemán (commonly called the Multifamiliar Alemán) in the late 1940s, as an experiment in providing low cost housing. Its success prompted the commission of the Centro Urbano Benito Juárez by Mexican President Miguel Alemán Valdés
Miguel Alemán Valdés
Miguel Alemán Valdés served as the President of Mexico from 1946 to 1952.-Life:Alemán was born in Sayula in the state of Veracruz as the son of General Miguel Alemán González and Tomasa Valdés Ledezma...
to house government employees and their families. With this project, Pani and associate Enrique del Moral looked to improve upon the stark lines of the Alemán project. Pani’s work on this and other projects paralleled that of French architect Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier , was a Swiss-born French architect, designer, urbanist, writer and painter, famous for being one of the pioneers of what now is called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930...
, using the latter’s principles such as location, mobility, architectural aesthetics, history and more. These projects would make Pani the most important Mexican architect of the 20th century. The complex was inaugurated on 10 September 1952 on the day of President Alemán’s sixth report to Congress
Congress of Mexico
The Congress of the Union is the legislative branch of the Mexican government...
.
Description of the original complex
The original complex covered an area of 250,000m2. However, construction surface at the ground level only covered 16,000, leaving 80% of the grounds free for parks and sports areas. It contained nineteen buildings of varying heights, between three and nineteen floors. These buildings contains a total of 984 apartments of twelve different types to accommodate between 3,000 and 5,000 people. The buildings are of four types, labeled “A” (largest) “B”, “C” and “D,” with total apartment floor space at 700,000sq ft. At the Alemán complex, the buildings zigzag over the site, but in the Juarez complex, the buildings are placed at angles from each other to give a greater sense of privacy and to give apartment as much natural light as possible. There are no vehicular roads within the complex to allow pedestrians to walk around. All of the vehicular roads that enter terminate at a parking lot before one enters where the apartment buildings are.There is only one road that passes through the complex, Orizaba Street, but this road was lowered to below ground level, the first time this was done in Mexico City. Pani placed four of the “C” type buildings right alongside this underpass to free even more space between the buildings for park and recreational space. About 2,500 trees were planted at the site. These emphasis on space reduced Le Corbuier’s recommendation of 1,000 residents per hectare to 240, and would make this the least population dense of his apartment projects.The apartments were split into two levels, with the kitchen and living room on one floor and the bedrooms above or below. In this way, elevators only had to stop at every third floor. All apartment and elevator access is through open passages. Within the apartments, open space was created by eliminating walls between the living and dining rooms, which was popular in the United States starting in the 1950s and 1960s. Tenants disposed of garbage though chutes to the basement, a novel idea in Mexico at that time.
Integration of artwork
The complex was one of the largest projects in the world which integrates artwork into the architecture. Carlos Merida’s mural work here was the most important of his career and the largest mural project in Mexico in the 20th century. Merida received the commission in 1951, which took him three years. The murals covered an area of 4,000 m2. The goal of Mérida’s work was to fuse it into the building, rather than just use it as a canvas. The complex then became an example of “plastic integration” where the architecture and the art work with each other and neither detracts from the other. This project would become the most sophisticated realization of the concept in the post WWI period.The Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
n-born artist sculpted and painted images of pre-Hispanic legends from Mexico. However, the native depicted in these stories have decidedly European faces. This mixing of native dress with European faces reflects what is called “Mestizo Art” and reflects the then Mexican government’s social ideology of promoting the “mestizo” (mixed native European heritage) as Mexico’s identity.
One example of the integration of architecture and art were the panels of the “C” buildings. These panels were created when Pani decided to push the closets to outside of the main walls to save interior floor space This created protruding half boxes distributed over the exterior walls’ surfaces. Mérida used these as canvases to place images. Another example is the underpass walls along Orizaba Street. Mérida realized that motorists did not have time to contemplate peripheral images, so he placed elongated anthropomorphic figures which preceded and anticipated the forward motion of the cars.
The most intricate work was done on the taller “B” buildings, which had ten floors and 72 apartments each. Residents primarily used the interior elevators but outside staircases were placed and decorated with murals. On these staircases, Mérida depicted four central Mexican and one Mayan
Maya mythology
Mayan mythology is part of Mesoamerican mythology and comprises all of the Mayan tales in which personified forces of nature, deities, and the heroes interacting with these play the main roles...
legends, The Story of Texcoco, the Legend of the Fifth Sun
Five Suns
Five Suns is an album by progressive rock group Guapo released in 2003.- Track listing :#Five Suns, Pt. 1 #Five Suns, Pt. 2 #Five Suns, Pt. 3 #Five Suns, Pt. 4 #Five Suns, Pt...
, the Sacrifice of Ixlolxóchitl, the Destruction of Tula and the Popol Vuh
Popol Vuh
Popol Vuh is a corpus of mytho-historical narratives of the Post Classic Quiché kingdom in Guatemala's western highlands. The title translates as "Book of the Community," "Book of Counsel," or more literally as "Book of the People."...
. Each legend was depicted with a series of figures nearly eight feet tall each, which tell the story in frames as one ascends the stairs. The figures were chipped from the concrete in bas-relief then painted.
Pani’s and Mérida’s work received mixed reviews, which often reflected the rivalry “Contemporáneo”
Los Contemporáneos
Los Contemporáneos can refer to a Mexican modernist group, active in the late twenties and early thirties, as well as to the literary magazine which served as the group's mouthpiece and artistic vehicle from 1928 to 1931...
school of art, and the more politicized Mexican traditional muralist movement
Mexican Muralism
Mexican muralism is a Mexican art movement. The most important period of this movement took place primarily from the 1920s to the 1960s, though it exerted an influence on later generations of Mexican artists...
. There was also reluctance to accept Merida’s work as “Mexican” as he remained a Guatemalan citizen his entire life. One example of this mixed message was from Siqueiros
Siqueiros
Siqueiros is a Spanish surname and might refer to:People* Alejandro Siqueiros , Mexican freestyle swimmer* David Alfaro Siqueiros , Mexican painter...
, who initially praised the “plastic integration” concept but then condemned both the art and the architecture as “bourgeois,” poorly done and representing a return to the pre Mexican Revolution
Mexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution was a major armed struggle that started in 1910, with an uprising led by Francisco I. Madero against longtime autocrat Porfirio Díaz. The Revolution was characterized by several socialist, liberal, anarchist, populist, and agrarianist movements. Over time the Revolution...
Porfiiran era .
While Siquieros criticized Mérida’s work as something attractive for tourists, in the following decades it would be Siquieros’ work at the Ciudad Universitaria that would draw tourists, leaving the work at the apartment complex forgotten.
1985 earthquake
Before construction began, Pani had engineers test the ground, and it was declared solid. For this reason, the concrete structures of the complex were never reinforced. The building survived a number of major, but less severe quakes than the one in 1985, and little was known about how earthquakes affect superstructures in the 1950s. However, one earthquake, in 1957, did damage several buildings and led to their condemnation.The real destruction occurred during the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, thirty three years after the complex was finished. This earthquake severely damaged the Colonia Roma section of the city, leaving many buildings in ruins. Buildings A1, B2 and C3 of the Multifamiliar Juárez complex partially collapsed, and a number of residents died.
Many of the buildings could have been saved, but it proved uneconomical to do so. Pensiones Civiles erred when they created the rental contracts with tenants by neglecting to add a clause allowing them to raise rents. By 1985, there were tenants paying as little as 200 pesos a month for rent. ($25USD in 1950, $.10USD in 1985). For this reason, maintenance of the buildings and grounds suffered until it became impossible. The government decided that this was the time to condemn nearly all of the buildings, with only several still remaining. The earthquake essentially made the complex disappear.
The destruction of the buildings destroyed nearly all of the mural work. Evidence of these remain in photographs and the preliminary sketches, which Mérida donated to UNAM. One student of Mérida’s Alfonso Soto Soria, used some of the original designed to create a monument to the work done at the Juárez complex. This can be found at an apartment complex called Fuentes Brotantes.
Like other planned urban communities of the mid 20th century, what remains of the Comjunto Urbano Benito Juárez has continued to deteriorate. There are problems with lack of parking, crowded streets, abandoned units and crime. Much of the land on which the destroyed structures were built has not been redeveloped.