The Making of Mexican Modernist Architecture

"This book presents the making of Mexican modernist architecture mainly through five power structures namely: academic; social status; economic/political; gender; and post-colonial, and through interviews with thirteen key Mexican architects: Luis Barragán, José Villagrán García, Juan O'Gorman, Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, Agustín Hernández, Abraham Zabludovsky, Carlos Mijares, Ricardo Legorreta, Juan José Díaz Infante, Enrique Norten, Alberto Kalach, Javier Sordo Madaleno, and Clara de Buen. Although, these five power structures framed this architecture, the testimony of these key Mexican architects helped to recognize and discover within it subtleties and nuances. Their testimony shed light on what greatly contributed to make Mexican modernist architecture a unique architecture. Even if architects are not always aware of these power structures, they participated in marginalization, discrimination and subjugation. Therefore, the aim of this book is not only to understand the making of Mexican modernist architecture, but also to understand the manner in which architecture is framed to create both just and unjust spaces. By acknowledging this, it is also possible to contest the validity of these power structures in order to inspire architects to conceive a new architecture outside these boundaries and to create an architecture that would contribute to make this world a better place"--