culiacán

This is lovely Culiacán Rosales, hometown of the Sinaloa Cartel and cradle of Mexican narquitectura.





But nothing encapsulates the taste for flare and the constant nearness to death that are distinguishing features of the local drug-trade culture like the town's funerary architecture:












This is the tomb of the famous slain banda singer, Valentín "El Gallo" Elizalde

luz del mundo

International Sanctuary of the Light of the World Church, Guadalajara, Mexico

Don't worry. You haven't typed "blogpsot" instead of "blogspot".

Alternative religiousness can be a scary. Think Waco or Heaven's Gate. Even when cult suicide isn't involved, modern sects can still be seriously unsettling. And fun to watch.



Temple in Honduras

As I've said before, the early nineties were crazy times for Mexico, with economic and political upheavals having a serious resonance in popular religiousness, with its range of urban and architectural imprints.



Temple in Córdoba, Veracruz, Mexico

We have our own corporate mega-sect to thank for giving us one of the country's wackiest home-grown architectural styles, ever. The Iglesia de Dios, Columna y Apoyo de la Verdad, Jesús La Luz del Mundo (Church of God, Column and Pillar of Truth, Jesus the Light of the World, or just Light of the World, for short) could be a Mexican equivalent of Scientology.



Temple in León, Guanajuato, Mexico

Founded in 1926 by a self-proclaimed apostle of Christ from Monterrey, Aarón Joaquín González, the cult has reportedly grown to have over 1.5 million followers in Mexico and another 3 or 4 million in the rest of Latin America and other countries.



Another shot of the International Sanctuary

Their main temple, the International Sanctuary in the Hermosa Provincia (Fair Province) neighborhood of Guadalajara (Mexico's second-largest city) seats 12,000 people, occupies 15,500 sqm, and has an 88m-high tower — and it's one of the more sober examples.

The sect is extremely controversial. Not only is it constantly being attacked by the zealous Mexican Catholic Church, but other grave accusations have also been made against it for all sorts of reasons: fraud, shady political activities and even narco-money laundering. Judging by the organization's taste in architecture, it makes perfect sense.

Photos found at the Luz del Mundo Skycrapercity thread. For more, visit the mañanarama tumblr

uruapan

This is Uruapan, a smallish town in the State of Michoacán. Same place where heads rolled (literally, on the dance floor of a dirty nightclub) in the little skit that just might mark the dawn of Narco-Statehood in Mexico.







For more of this ganster's paradise, see the Skyscrapercity thread "Uruapan. Paraíso Michoacano".