House in El Pedregal (1951). Photo by Eliot Elisofon

Despite the historical persistence and consistency of critiques such as these, mocking uniformity, sneering at shoddy construction, and decrying the absence of taste (or worse), a substantive history of suburban aesthetics—the criteria according to which society has judged the design and appearance of suburban dwellings and landscapes—remains to be written.

John Archer, "Suburban Aesthetics is Not an Oxymoron"

I like John Berger's synthesis of the role of the PRI in the history of twentieth-century Mexico:

And so I come to the point. The ravine between the vast field of broken promises and the popular expectations of more justice had somehow to be filled in, and the main political parties, beginning with the PRI (Party of the Institution of Revolution!), have carried this out for seventy years by making rubble of what had once been a political language. Broken promises, broken premises, broken propositions, broken laws. Every principle — except that of self-interest — was emptied of meaning.

Dear all:

Real life has kept me terribly busy for the past couple of months. I apologize for the lack of posts here. I do hope to make a slow yet steady comeback.

Stay tuned.

Mario Pani, Sketch for the Plaza de las Tres Culturas (Plaza of the Three Cultures) project

Tlatelolco, Mexico City (ca. 1961)

I often wonder about the relationship between modernization and distortion.

Contemporary participatory urbanism in Mexico City.



I can only think of Heriberto Yepez's affirmation:

"Mexico, a culture that now floats on nothing."