Modern architecture, a narrow concept 20th century modern architectures in Mexico, their differences and similarities

Abstract

The text aims to explain why the largely held idea of understanding Modern architecture in Mexico as a single architecture is a narrow concept that doesn´t explain thoroughly the complexity of the historical phenomenon. Furthermore, this belief, doesn’t ‘benefit it´s characterization as an architectural heritage, hindering its future preservation capacities. It’s vital to think of it as heritage, and to achieve this it´s essential to recognize it as an architecture of the recent past and increase our knowledge of its characteristics through research. Understanding it in plural, as many different architectures, nonetheless conceptually close, and thus acknowledging, in historiographical terms, that there was no unified theory and practice behind what has subsequently been called Modern architecture in Mexico. For the purposes of this article, however, we will focus on the architectures of the modern movement and of functionalist and rationalist character.