Modernist Sensibility: The Transformation of Space in Mexico City Through the Torre Latinoamericana

Abstract

In this essay I examine how the Torre Latinoamericana, constructed between 1948 and 1956, was represented through a modern-historic discourse, how it transformed urban space in Mexico City, and what forms of technology were used in the construction. I demonstrate how the Torre Latinoamericana was both material evidence of progress (modernity) and a metaphor for Mexican aspirations of modernity. I use the “modernist sensibility” of the Mexican Miracle as a lens through which the architecture and technology of the Torre Latinoamericana may be seen as part of the modernist project prevalent in Mexico during the 1950s. “Modernist sensibility” refers to framing the building within cultural history that concerns itself with the creation and registration of affect within the Mexican modernist discourse. I examine the Torre Latinoamericana through various forms of media – newspapers, photographs, film, tourist pamphlets and engineering journals—which generated the discursive construction of the highway and justified its material existence. This study explores how the building's sophisticated construction materials represented abstract concepts such as modernity, progress, and technology. This study shows how the Torre Latinoamericana served as a sign of progress, and a discourse of progress, thus projecting a vision as to where Mexico was headed as a nation and society in the 1950s–60s. By showing that the Torre Latinoamericana was transformed into a symbol of national pride and identity, this research highlights the importance of investigating material culture, in this case architecture, and the affects of such in the production of national discourse.