(4) PARQUE MEXICO, Enrique Aragón Echegaray, 1927-1938
archivable inkjet print on fine art paper, 26x31cm

Arquitectura Contemporanea
A collaboration of Heidrun Holzfeind and Christoph Draeger, 2005

Starting point of the project was the architectural guidebook Guía de arquitectura contemporánea de la Ciudad de México. (México, Banamex, 1993) which spans 20th century architecture in Mexico City from the 1920’s (such as Escuela Benito Juarez, Parque Mexico) to the end of the 1980’s (such as the Auditorio Nacional or the Palacio de Justicia). Our aim was to visit each of the 165 buildings listed in the guide, and reconstruct the viewpoint and angle of each photograph in the book as closely as possible. Contrary to the stark black and white photography of the originals printed in the guide book which often were photographed soon after the completion of the buildings, our photographs were taken with a digital camera, in color.

The outcome of this process of “architectural tourism” is a large (yet, compared to the book, still incomplete) number of photographs. They document the present condition – namely different stages of preservation, decay, destruction, disappearance or replacement - of these structures and their immediate environment, and reflect, more generally speaking, upon living urbanism, chronicling the change of a city over decades.

While today the visual access to many buildings is often shielded by vegetation, new buildings or huge billboards, other structures were altered, receiving new facades or annexes after suffering damages, for example in the 1985’s earthquake: i.e. the central composition of the Escuela Nacional de Maestros’ complex (1945) where the lake and collapsed tower were replaced by a parking lot and more school buildings; the Telefonos de Mexico building (1938) which lost its top (3rd) floor; two of the apartment towers of the Tlatelolco housing complex (1964) which collapsed during the earthquake; the Plaza Hotel (1945/46) which is currently reduced to its skeletal structure of steel beams, awaiting renovation etc.

The process of photographing buildings for this project was for us not only an exciting way of getting to know the city, it also allowed us a greater understanding of this particular period of modernist 20th century architecture in Mexico City, its wide range of differing approaches and voices of the individual architects and buildings, as well as the particular local context, history and geographic location that has shaped the city’s unique urban image.