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About the work
of Luis Sánchez Renero and Sánchez Arquitectos
HUMBERTO RICALDE
After Many Prolific Years
¨… they built
their best experimental lab in their offices and that´s
where they changed the direction of construction in the city...¨*
* Iñaqui Abalos
in reference to Olmest and Le Corbusier in ¨Atlas pintoresco
Vol. 1 El Observatorio¨Gustavo Gili, Barcelona 2005.
During the first
half of the sixties the Universidad Autoóma de México (UNAM)
trained a generation of architecs that has traveled into the
XXth century through many different paths. This generation,
dissciples of the masters of Mexican rationalism, begam its
architectural trade in the renovated School of Architecture
of the University. The school was conducted by prscticing
architecs such as Ramón Marcos, Jorge Gonzalez Reyna or
Ramón Torres, and many architecs of the time also attended
workshop and lectures.
During that
period Federico Marsical, José Villagrán García or Vicente
Mendiola were still the most seuccessful architecs, as well
as their colleagues Félix Candela, Javier Lascurain, Jaime
Ortíz Monasterio, Carlos Mijares or Ricardo Flores and young
architecs such as Enrique Vaca, Jorge Vera, Enrique Avila,
Alvaro Sánchez, Alfonso Nápoles, Noé Castro or Carlos
Alvarado.
To understand
the dedication and effort that the members of this
generation have applied in their professional trajectory, it
is important to emphasize that they learnt and reflected
along with the same architecs that were actually qorking on
the construction of México in the second half of the XX
century, such as Villagrán García, since their teaching was
not based on the so called doctrine that set out from books
ans cubicles, trying to indoctrinate architecture; but
rather it was based on the reflection of their trade and was
enforced by teh most outstanding main characters of the best
XX century Mexican architecture.
Still in the
memories of the lecture halls is Gonzalez reyna, who used to
send his students öut there, north of the University¨, to
see what was being built in the real city and learn about
architecture on-site or from tha actual trips. These tours,
for example, were led by Enrique vaca, to ¨dirty our boots
with construction mixture¨during the puoring of cement of
the housing development of Nonoalco Tlatelolco. They were
also sent to observe constructions such as the María Isabel
Hotel designed by Sorde Madaleno and Villagran García, or
the Jaysour Tower (on the corner of Reforma ans Praga) by
Augusto H. Alvarez. These academic and professional worshops
interacted with the training, whilst accepting the
challenged of studying and working in architecture 24 hours
a day¨ (Federico Mariscal dixit).
Both Luis and
Félix Sánchez Arquitectos y Asociados, Members of other
generations would subsequently join in : Gustavo López,
Feranado Mota, Raúl González, and in the early sicties they
formed a young and dynamic group which, as Inaqui Abalos
said, turned their office into an experimental lab where
architecture and the new cities of México were constantly
being reflected upon. This was a research and analysis that,
recalling Aldo Rossi when talking about the architectural
projection ¨must constitute a process of integral knowledge
about the cultural phenomenon that each generation of
architecs has to live with¨.
Alberto Robledo
and Alvaro Díaz together with a group of apprentices, whom
are now well-established architecs, also contributed
significantly to rhis group with their imaginative and
skillful approach. The days when Isaac Broid, Roberto
García, Agustín landa, Carlos Mac Gregor, José Luis Pérez,
Alejandro Rivadeneyra or Arturo Vázquez sat at the drawing
tables can be recalled, only ton ame a few of those that
collaborated and stand out in our memories. Yet the list is
short and unfair since the office ar Sánchez Arquitectos y
Asociados has trained many good professionals in the city.
It has always acted as a parallel school and remains similar
to the one in the sixties where we learnt to ¨study and work
on architecture 24 hours a day¨.
In order to
maintain the dymanics of this architectural board, has been
the secret of Sánchez Arquitectos y Asociados has been to
venture into many different areas of this field. From urban
planning to the careful search of a cozy corner in a patio,
or the passageway of intimate traditional memories, their
architectural work has included urban design ans landscape
architecture in a creative way. It has been based on
research, not an academic research, but a research based on
the social-urban phenomenon: low-income dwelling. These are
housing developments where, in a single action and without
any complicated technique, landscape, urban design and
architecture have been put togehter to create quality
housing that can still be evidenced, as well as being an
inspirational work for the almost extinct institutes of
public housing in the country.
It is necessary
to have an intefral view of their work in order to support
this affirmation. The only way to follow their architectural
path is from within the experimental office, which is why it
is necessary to create a compilation of their work, for
those interested in the trajectory of Mexican architecture
during the second half of the XX century. There for this
book will not only be another of those sought-after ¨coffee-table
books¨about the past thirty years of Sánchez Arquitectos y
Asociados, but it will be a unique reference book about an
entire generation, whose work set the pace through a course
of action that has been neglected by the hegemonic and
inefficiently neo-liberal Architecs Union and the
Institutions of this country.
From the cozy
corner of the traditinal patio to the low income housing
developments, right until they reached the efficiency and
enviromental quality of urban desing, their work takes us to
the complex of weekend homes called La Canoa (Valle de
Bravo, 1973).It was designed and built in collaboration wirh
Andrés Casillas. A sloping cobbled street gives the
ascending rhytm to the shadowed porticos settled on thick
flat walls. Each detail of these rustic and welcoming houses
underlines the will to discover, with a modern style, the
regional constructive proceedings and material. Thus, witout
trying to give a false impresion of ¨avant-guard¨modesty,
they create a dialogue with the climate and the landscape to
a dregree where architecture cannot be isolated from
landscape. Other houses in Valle de Bravo continue their
quest: the Peña Dos (1973), the Peña Cuatro (1976) and the
Peña Seis (1979) confirm this by highlighting the clarity of
their architectural plans, and the careful handling of the
open spaces with gardens complimented with terraces and
walls in the depth of their lots. Following these houses is
another called Las Moras house (1991), in San Miguel de
Allende, Guanajuato. In the latter, the discreet
cintemporary intervention underscores the quilities of the
small patio beyond the old double arcade. It limits with the
depth of the property, and continues with the spatial
sequence of the careful open fields, made up of platforms,
cobblestones, fences, steps and wild vegetation. The same
care is taken in Las Garzas (2004), a house also built in
San Miguel de Allende. The same spatial sequence is used,
together with the changes in height and zenithal light, but
with a more somber languaje in the use of mateials and color
palette, establishing a new concept of weekend houses built
by the group. The environmentally functional qualities
mentiones are also present in the houses by Sánchez
Aquitectos y Asociados in the city, sisters to the previuos
because they used the same materials, the same constructive
logic and the same imaginative functionality, and agree with
the conditions set by the limits of being urban plots of
land. This is the case of the Palmito house (1969), the
first to show this interaction of space at different levels,
providing fluency and independence to the social and
intimate areas of the house. This remains a constant in
their townhouses, a style that the group uses in urban lots
of great complexity, abd which can also be seen in the
houses
The main
research ofthis firm has been in the construction of urban
dwellings in series for the last 30 years. Sánchez
Arquitectos y Asociados have been the means of our trade,
and their experiencel example to the building offamily
houses since 1973. wheresign, the architecture and the
surroundings interact without limits. These experiences
start with the housing project for INFONAVIT El Rosario Dos
(1973) with a master plan for 25.6 acres and 2 thousand 200
dwellings, a project for a high density population. Also,
the housing project for FOVISSTE Unidad Latinoamericana
(1974), Copilco, México City, in collaboration with Héctor
Meza and Humberto Ricalde, where one thousand 640 houses are
built between gardens and elevated plazas to provide the
neces-sary parking spaces to the houses and a/so to rescue,
using their • imagination, the space occupied by the cars.
In this way, they achieved a very high density and plenty of
open space in a high costing lot to the south of México City.
The main building of this complex ¡s noteworthy: a
horizontal building of mere/y five levŽis that integrales
different socio-economic ranges, as required by the FOVISSTE.
This was achieved by integrating the parking lot on the
first level, whilst the parks and plazas were placed on top.
The upper apartments open out on to the cobbled áreas,
through which you can reach the detached houses, as well as
the houses built ¡n seríes, each provided with their own
parking space. Last century's sixties and eighties were the
most intense peri-ods of activity of the Sánchez Arquitectos
y Asociados group in the field of multifamily housing
projects. It marks a period when their arduous work is of
great encouragement, to the degree that it is the period
that most defines them in the evolution of Mexi-can
architecture for México City, as well as for many states of
the Republic. We only need to analyze the dimensión and
quality of the projects of urban design ¡n Conjunto Campeche
(1976) and Conjunto San Luis Potosí (1977), both for
FOVISSTE, as well as the master plans for Apetlachica (1976)
and for La Margarita (1977) both in Puebla, with the
collaboration of Francisco Treviño, Irma Cuevas and Humberto
Ricalde. But perhaps the best urban proj¬ect ofthe group is
the housíng project for BANOBRAS Centenario (1978) ¡n México
City, given the strict urban conditions of a single acre lot.
It succeeded in creating community spaces carefully
intertwined through rocky walls, platforms, embankments and
pavements; they created prívate patios for the houses on the
main floor and semi prívate accesses to the houses on the
upper floors. It is the architectural floor plan itself that
favors the space and synthesizes the research of the group
with regará to space ¡nteraction ¡n multi level buildings.
This was a/so achieved ¡n the building of Unidad
Latinoamericana, where they integrated, in a single unit, up
to three standards of houses on the ground floor with their
prívate gardens, the hi[ ments with two bedrooms and lobbies
in the middle that pn accesses, and the dúplex houses with
three bedrooms as a compositional crowning that is the a
special char-acteristic of the building. The main expression
lies in the careful combination of patterns created by the
ex-posed brick and the rhythm provided by the Windows, the
mezzanines and balconies of exposed concrete. lust as
important are the housing projects carried out by Sánchez
Arquitectos y Asociados after the earth-quake of 1985, when
a significant and unusual amount of living spaces were
required by the Renovación Hab¬itacional an official
organization created so/e/y to so/ve the shortage of
metropolitan housing as consequence of the earthquake. The
urban and aichitectural design firm was entrusted to project
housing typologies (street architecture) and they
coordinated, in just two years, four thousand 500 houses in
the new neighborhoods contemplated within the program of
fifty-five thousand housing deeds in México City. All the
projects mentioned until now would be enough to understand
the intense activity of a group that has been dedicated to
research and to project all the way into the nineties of
last century. However, to complete this profile, their field
work in public buildings still needs to be added: markets,
schools, bus terminals, public offices etc., as well as
hotels, tourist villages, executive offices, prívate clubs,
etc. All these, and more, integrate their extensive project
curricu¬lum, of which the Zaragoza Transfer Metro and Bus
Station (1991) and the Historical Archives of Tlaxcala State
(1998) stand out. Both of theses projects carry the
technical expression of the structure, which together with
the complexity of their architectural pro-grams, have been
clearly solved and are completely functional tectonic forces.
This can be appreciated in the great vessel of the Zaragoza
Sta-tion, where the transparency and vibration of a bold
tubular structure commemorates the railway stations and
industrial vessels ofthe XIX century; or in the proje-tion
skill with which the spaces of the archives have been
claímed from a hill in which the land literally eradles them
with the containment walls and the structural braces that
show the difficulty of the construction. We would have to
analyze, in detail, the polemic building for the Institute
of Engineering (2002) in Ciudad Uni¬versitaria, with its
sober, unpretentious volumetric composition; and the Post
Gradúate School (2003) for the Banking and Commercial School.
In the área of urban planning, plans such as the Director
Plan of Ur-ban Development for the city of Matamoros (1979)
the Partial Develop-ment Urban Plans of the Iztacalco and
Itztapalpa Delegations, México City (1980), the Urban
Development Plan of Jalapa, Veracruz (1980), the Regional
Plan ofthe Eastern Subsystem of México City (1982), etc.,
confirm their continuous activity in the field of research
and planning of this country. Unfortunately, in the last few
years, this vital aspect of a balanced development has been
neglected. No other group of architects, working during
these past three de¬cades, could list within their
curriculum this amount of such ampie and varied project
activity at all levéis. A list to which we must add their
most recent work and international collaborations, such as
the house in Tel Aviv (2002) with a post-modern accent, and
the museum in China (2004) of a radical deconstructive
expressionism, with its craterlike roof that resembles a
topographic explosion; as well as its counterpart in México:
the building for Monte Xanic (2001), that integrales into
the landscape suggesting the technical emerging building of
steel and glass between earthen greens that ascend,
obediently, to the hill of its sum-moning, flowing all the
way from the river until the access levels. The multiple
trends of the group, whether in planning, public build-ings,
social housing, prívate investment buildings or an intímate
home in the city or countryside, tell us about a group that
has achieved a /oí through their project activity, product
of an education based on the deep knowledge of their trade
which, for many years, has been at the service of the
community of México.
Sánchez Arquitectos web site
Author:
Álvaro Mutis
Author:
Jorge Tamés y Batta
Author:
Humberto Ricalde G.
Author:
Víctor Jiménez
Author:
Xavier Guzmán Urbiola
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