México 90's: A Contemporary Architecture

In Mexico, as in other places and often in other times, the identification of a way of working, a style, a "correct" attitude with a tradition, as a stimulus to nationalist identification, has tended to channel creativity in the direction of the stereotype and the devalued imitation of the model being imitated, frustrating the expression of a rich and complex country fully capable of assimilating the current globalization of this end of the millennium.The selection featured in this book, which like all those of this kind is somewhat subjective and arbitrary, sets out to attend exclusively to the quality of the architecture, irrespective of whatever movements or schools the individual architects may, openly or covertly, belong to. Accordingly, the selection features works by figures of established national and international prestige alongside young and relatively unknown architects. In stylistic and formal terms, too, both this book and the realities of Mexican architecture are marked by currents as diverse as the volumetric expressionism of Teodoro Gonzalez de Leon and the abstractions from vernacular elements of Ricardo Legorreta, in contrast to the work of Enrique Norten, close to the latest international movements.Typologically, this book ranges from conversions within historic urban centres, by way of private houses, to new buildings of various types.