Seeking Restored Vitality: Colonias of the Porfiriato Have Varying Success

Perambulating through the various colonias, neighborhoods, initiated at the culmination of the Porfiriato epoch at the end of the 19th century, we have observed a process of architectural evolution that reflects the changes in Mexican upper-class values across the 20th century. In our last post, we revisited these changing "dreams of the city", or at least, dreams of what its prosperous enclaves should be.

In our walks, we have also seen—in well-worn, even abandoned buildings on one hand, and repurposed and restored ones on the other—how these once-imagined neighborhoods have experienced and now reflect the realities of a century of time, the impacts of economic ups and downs, with the resulting fluctuations in the income levels of their residents over the last century.

They share in common having a significant number of late 19th and early 20th century buildings in distinctive Euopean styles that give one the sense of being in some Continental city, but with tropical vegetation and plenty of sun. Thus, each colonia has the potential for, and manifests efforts to be restored, integrating its historic batiburrillo, hodgepodge, into a vital, architecturally rich, contemporary neighborhood.  However, they evidence different degrees of success in this process of rebirth and integration.

Seeking Renewed Life and Identity

Santa Maria la Ribera, the most northerly of the group, appears to be struggling with the greatest difficulty to restore the faded beauties of its Porfirian beginnings while integrating them with post-World War II Functionalist buildings and adding the modern buildings of urban renewal.

Partially rehabilitated Neoclassic building in Santa Maria la Ribera

San Rafael, the next colonia to the south along Insurgentes Avenue, seems further along in its resurgence and integration of styles. While there are still abandoned French Empire and Neocolonial buildings, others are restored into upscale condominiums that sit next to well maintained Post War Functionalist apartment buildings or across the street from contemporary, glass cube office buildings.

Both Cuauhtémoc and Benito Juárez, dominated as they inescapably are by the architectonic thrust of Paseo de la Reforma [Boulevard], seem to have found their individual equilibria in balancing contemporary vitality with restoration of and continuity with the past. Cuauhtémoc is more a quiet, yuppie neighborhood with a good number of California colonial homes mixed with modern apartment buildings. Sometimes, the two are literally married.

Modern Apartments Built Behind California Colonial in Cuauhtémoc

In Benito Juárez there is a dynamic, rhythmic counterpoint between Zona Rosa nightlife and quiet streets named Londres and Praha, with their Neoclassic, French and California colonial houses.   

Restaurant Occupies Neocolonial mansion in Benito Juárez

Roma Norte is probably the architectually richest of these colonias, with many well-preserved Neoclassic and Neocolonial mansions and some Second French Empire examples, To that are added the contrast of—and even combination with—the latest in glass and steel. All this is centered around Avenida Álvaro Obregon, with its enticing fusion of tranquil 19th century European promenade and bustling hip cafes. It appears to have "arrived" at a fairly well defined and vital identity that integrates its historic foundations with the contemporary style of upscale urban life.

Contemporay Glass Pavilion atop Neo-classic Base
in Roma Norte

What Makes Revival Possible? 

"Location, Location, Location"

Two factors basic to all real estate value seem to contribute to the varying levels of revival and achievement of a sense of integration across these colonias that share a common ancestry and similar raw materials. First, as they say in the real estate business, "location, location, location".

In this case, closeness to the economic and cultural power of Paseo de la Reforma is critical.

Paseo de la Reforma,
Where 19th Century Tradition and
 21st Century Globalism Meet

Insurgentes Avenue, the north-south axis connecting all the colonias, is less dramatic but increasingly potent economically, especially south of Reforma.

New Skyscraper Going Up
at Intersection of Insurgentes and Chapúltepec Aves,
where Colonias Benito Juárez and Roma Norte meet

Santa Maria la Ribera is far from Reforma and separated from its southern neighbors by Ribera San Cosme, a wide, heavily-trafficked commercial avenue catering to lower middle class and working class customers. San Rafael is south of San Cosme, closer to Reforma, and its southern end is now under "development". 

Cuauhtémoc's and Benito Juárez's more up-scale development is inextricably tied to their eje central, central axis, Reforma. While Roma Norte is farther south of the grand boulevard, it isn't far away, across narrow Benito Juárez and, like its northern neighbors, it is close to Chapultepec Woods, so it can feed from their attractions to add to its own potential.

"Good Bones"

The second factor that drives Roma Norte's attractiveness for restoration and development lies within itself. In addition to its large number of historic homes, it has Avenida Álvaro Obregon, with its spacious, shaded camellón, promenade, and the north-south axis of tree-lined Calle Orizaba, with plazas near each end.

Promenade on Álvaro Obregon

Plaza Río Janeiro near nothern end of Orizaba

             

Plaza Luis Cabrera near southern end of Orizaba

These two streets, which invite people to walk, sit and relax, establish the colonia's core "X" or "skeleton". As real estate agents say of an older, somewhat neglected but still solid house: "it has good bones." Around these communal bones of streets and plazas—and the many homes with "good bones" on or near them—the body of a vital neighborhood has been reborn.

In comparison, Santa Maria la Ribera has the spacious, tranquil Alameda Park at its center, with its Romantic Moorish Revival pavillion. But while this attracts people and has drawn, in turn, a few small cafes and triggered the restoration of some buildings around it, it has not developed enough weight to drive sustained renewal. The architectually interesting Neoclassic Geology Institute on one side of the Alameda has potential, but it seems under-used and semi-forgotten. It is no Casa Lamm or Casa del Libro.

Moorish Pavilion in the Alameda of Santa Maria la Ribera

San Rafael lacks any park or boulevard to serve as a center of attraction for people traffic and provide a core around which to build a sense of coherent identity, but its proximity to Reforma seems to transmit to it both commercial and residential vitality.

The Colonia That Has It All

So Roma Norte seems to "have it all" for attracting the people and money that produce restoration and renewed vitality: a large number of handsome historic buildings with "good bones", proximity to major urban axes, Reforma and Insurgentes, and, an internal "skeleton" of inviting public spaces for gathering and enjoying what the neighborhood has to offer: a revitalized and reimagined "dream of the city".

Modern Art "dreams"
in the Courtyard of Casa Lamm

                 

Delegación Cuauhtémoc

The "Porfirian" colonias line the west side of Delegación Cuauhtémoc
From north to south they are:
Santa Maria la Ribera (violet)
San Rafael (medium pink)
Cuauhtémoc, (medium blue triangle)

South of Paseo de la Reforma
Benito Juárez (horizontal triangle with three adjacent pink sections)
Roma Norte (light blue) (Doctores is a separate colonia)
Roma Sur (darker blue)

And to the southwest (lower left):
Condesa (medium pink)
Condesa Hípódromo (dark pink)
Hípódromo (pale pink)

Centro, and its five sub-divisions (Historico, north, east, south, west)
 is to the right center (almost white)

Other Posts on the Porfiriato Era

• The Porfiriato: French Culture Conquers Mexico City
• The Grandeza of Porfirio Díaz
• Inside Porfirio's Palace
• Centro Historico Porfiriato - Late Nineteenth Century Mexico City
• Colonia Santa María la Ribera: Early Twentieth Century Century Popurrí
• Colonia San Rafael: Decay, Renewal and Restoration
• Colonia Benito Juárez: Where History Lives in the Shadows
• Colonia Cuauhtémoc: The First Decades of the 20th Century Marry the First Decades of the 21st
• Colonia Roma Norte Part I: Houses—and a Culture—That Survived a Revolution
• Colonia Roma Norte - Part II: Dreams in Stone and Glass...and Paint
• Colonia Condesa and Its Sisters - From Past to Present, Part I - Transition to the 1920's

Colonia Cuauhtémoc: Where the First Decades of the 20th Century Marry the First Decades of the 21st

Colonia Cuauhtémoc, like its sister colonias designed toward the end of the Porfiriato period, Santa Maria la Ribera, San Rafael, Benito Juárez, Roma and Condesa, embodies a set of contrasts between turn-of-the-19th to 20th century esthetics and values, and later 20th century culture and contemporary manifestations of 21st century, global postmodern life.

These contrasts are, pehaps, even greater in Cuauhtémoc because, like its virtual twin just to its south, Benito Juárez, its face to the city and the world is that grand avenue of Mexico City, Paseo de la Reforma, studded with monumental statues, and now, the rascacielos, skyscrapers of globalized Mexico.

Neoclassic Goddess of Victory, Nike,
or Angel of Independence
Erected in 1910 by Porfiro Díaz 
to commemorate 100th Anniversary 
of Mexican Independence

Art Deco
Fountain of Diana,
Roman Goddess of the Hunt
1942

At the intersection of Paseo de la Reforma and Avenida Insurgentes rises another grand statue that seeks to embody a world and culture very different from Classical Greece and Rome. It harks back to the cataclysmic transformation of Mexico City from being the center of the Aztec Empire to the center of New Spain. It memorializes four Aztec tlatoanis (spokesmen) or chiefs of city-states around Lake Texcoco at the time of the Spanish Conquest.

     

Tlatloani Statue 
on Paseo de la Refoma
at Insurgentes.

One of these, Cuauhtémoc, was ruler of Tenochtitlán for a brief time (1520 to 1521) after the deaths of both Moctezuma II and his successor, Cuitlahuac, until Hernán Cortés completed the Spanish victory. The statue was commissoned by President Porfirio Díaz as part of his efforts to make Mexico City into a capital city comparable to those in Europe and erected in 1887. Colonia Cuauhtémoc, which lies immediately southwest of the statue, is, like the Delegación within which it sits, named after the Aztec ruler. 

Today, along the Reforma side of the colonia stand even grander monuments, the steel and glass towers of global capitalism, manifestations of the latest conquest of Mexico. Their upward thrust and universal functional sleekness dominate the former expressions of a desire to connect Mexican culture and values to either classical European ones or idealized indigenous ones.

HSBC, 
Hong Kong, Singapore British Bank

Torre Mayor,
a play on name, Templo Mayor,
Great Temple of Aztec Tenochtitlán

     

On Cuautémoc's Reforma frontier is also a well-guarded, modern fortress representing what some Mexicans see as a symbol of the dominance of yet another Empire, the U.S. Embassy (no photos allowed "for security reasons").

United States Embassy
(picture snapped from far side of Reforma)

However, when you leave Reforma and amble into the streets within the colonia, you enter a world from another era or two, or at least significant remnants thereof.

A grand and gracious Neo-colonial mansion a couple blocks from the U.S. Embassy is perhaps most indicative of the contrast. It is the very civilized Embassy of the United Kingdom.

Embassy of the United Kingdom, in a Neo-classic mansion

The Embassy sits on Lerma Street. On the same street, a couple of blocks east, is another elegant turn-of-the-century mansion, built in 1908 by the architect, Manuel Estampa, for his own family.

With the onset of the Mexican Revolution to overthrow Díaz, the Estampa family left town and the house was occupied by various military forces. The family returned after the victory of Venustiano Carranza over populist rivals Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata in 1915. In 1919, they rented the house to Carranza, who, after promulgation of the Constitution of 1917, had become president for a term 1917 to 1920. 

In 1920 Carranza had to flee the house and Mexico City when Álvaro Obregón, his leading general in the Revolution, turned against him for not designating him as the preferred candidate for the presidency. On May 21, while on his way to the port of Veracruz, Carranza was killed in the mountains of the state of Puebla. The house is now a museum to the revolutionary leader and first president of post-revolutionary Mexico. 

Venustiano Carranza,
portrait in entrance hall of Carranza House Museum

The mansion, itself, is very typical of the Porfiriato era—Neo-classic with Art Nouveau touches.

Note the very French decor.
Portrait is of Carranza wearing presidential sash.

The streets of the colonia are a lesson in geography. They are all named after rivers. The short streets running north from Reforma carry the names of great rivers of the world: Amazonia, Rhin, Tigris, Danubio, Po, Nilo, Ganges, Sena, Niagra, Misisipi. The longer streets running east to west length are named after rivers of Mexico: Lerma (west-central to the Pacific), Pánuco (Valley of Mexico to Gulf of Mexico), Nazas (north-central), Balsas (south-central to Pacific) and Grijalva (southeast to Gulf of Mexico).  

Walking these streets from the Carranza House west toward the Chapultepec Woods, you encounter the architectural mixture seen in other Porfiriato colonias, but fewer Second Empire French and Neo-classical mansions.

Apartment building in French Second Empire style with Neo-classic elements

English-style brick Neo-classic, ivy included.

Restored French Second Empire

What you do encounter are many California Colonial-style houses built in the post-revolutionary period of the 1920's and 1930's.

California Colonial is the Mexican adoption and adaptation of what in the United States was called Spanish Colonial Revival architecture, which became popular in Florida and California in the first decades of the 20th century. It was based on the Spanish Colonial architecture of Latin America. The 1915 Panama-California Exposition in San Diego gave the style national exposure. It enjoyed its greatest popularity between 1915 and 1931 and returned to its roots in Mexico as California Colonial.

California colonial 

Moorish Revival, with azulejos, blue tiles,
also popular in the U.S. and Europe at 
turn of the 19th-20th centuries

California colonial

In the midst of the relative simplicity of California Colonial, this would better be described as Neo Baroque-colonial.
It is an elaborate reproduction of Moorish-influenced Spanish colonial architecture.

This California colonial has had a modern apartment building annexed behind.

Very modern restoration of California Colonial,
with apartment tower added

With these restorations and adaptations of Neo-classic, French and California Colonial architecture, alongside the construction of glass box apartment buildings, Colonia Cuauhtémoc seems to have found a dynamic, vital—if perhaps, conflicted—way to marry its early 20th century past with the very postmodern early 21st century.

"Cosmopolitan, Dynamic, Contemporary:
Your Space in the Middle of One of the
Most Vibrant Cites of the World"
On-site sign for new apartment building

Colonia Cuauhtémoc is a triangle, bounded on
the northeast by James Sullivan Street
the northwest by Circuito Interior
the southeast by Paseo de la Reforma
Ave. Insurgentes touches its northeast corner.
Colonia San Rafael is to its north
Colonia Benito Juarez is to its south.
Chapultepec Woods is to the west.
CLICK to enlarge

Other Posts on the Porfiriato Era

• The Porfiriato: French Culture Conquers Mexico City
• The Grandeza of Porfirio Díaz
• Inside Porfirio's Palace
• Centro Historico Porfiriato - Late Nineteenth Century Mexico City
• Colonia Santa María la Ribera: Early Twentieth Century Century Popurrí
• Colonia San Rafael: Decay, Renewal and Restoration
• Colonia Benito Juárez: Where History Lives in the Shadows
• Colonia Roma Norte Part I: Houses—and a Culture—That Survived a Revolution
• Colonia Roma Norte - Part II: Dreams in Stone and Glass...and Paint
• Seeking Restored Vitality: Colonias of the Porfiriato Have Varying Success
• Colonia Condesa and Its Sisters - From Past to Present, Part I - Transition to the 1920's

Delegación Cuauhtémoc

The "Porfirian" colonias line the west side of Delegación Cuauhtémoc
From north to south they are:
Santa Maria la Ribera (violet)
San Rafael (medium pink)
Cuauhtémoc, (medium blue triangle)

South of Paseo de la Reforma
Benito Juárez (horizontal triangle of three adjacent pink sections)
Roma Norte (light blue) (Doctores, to the east, is a separate colonia)
Roma Sur (darker blue)

And to the southwest (lower left):
Condesa (medium pink)
Condesa Hípódromo (dark pink)
Hípódromo (pale pink)

Centro, and its five sub-divisions (Historico, north, east, south, west)
 is to the right center (almost white)