Urban-Architectural vision of aesthetic paradigm and commerce, Historic Center, Mexico-City

Abstract

The aim of the article is to show a current perspective of the historical center of Mexico City and its problems, such as the excessive trade in this space, which in some cases, damages the urban architectural heritage undermining the aesthetics. The challenge is to investigate this space in order to analyze the antagonistic way in which trade and aesthetics are articulated in it. Since this place is the city center and the center of the country, it is saturated with trade in its different forms, from shopping centers, arcades, markets, till street vendors, having all of them a negative impact on the Historical Center of Mexico City and contributing to the decline of urban and architectural esthetics of the space. The main contributions of this work reflect the different effects derived from trade at the expense of the aesthetic aspect, which should be evaluated such as depopulation, transformation of housing in cellars, informal trade saturation of public space and damage of historical monuments in the area. The utility of the project goes along with the management that public policies should take into account in order to preserve that heritage for the sake of the environmental, social and economic welfare in an equitable manner, strengthening the aesthetic appearance, which must be in itself one of the main features of the historical center, given your cultural and historical significance, by thinking of identity city marks, which can intertwine in a harmonic way trade and aesthetics with citizen participation.