Constructive discussions

Two visiting architects from Mexico talk about the shifting trends in their craft

In Joseph Stein's open verandahs at the India International Centre, with the Lodhi Gardens forming a screen of greens to one side, Mexican architects Bernado Gomez Pimenta and Miquel Adria are playing dodge with the sun.

For someone who has lost his baggage, mounted a video show of Mexican architecture at Delhi's Apeejay Media Gallery and then taken the presentation to Ahmedabad, Pimenta is amazingly relaxed. Adria, who curated the show, is just back from a similar workshop in Bangalore.

It's interesting to see them exchange notes, catch up with each other. They'll be off again that evening, but for now they're both teachers and students, telling Indian architects about Mexican architecture and soaking in their experience of Indian architecture. "Architects," explains Adria, "homogenise all aspects of a country's culture."

They've been having a tough time of it in Mexico though. For a while in the mid-20th century you couldn't think of modern architecture without whispering "Mexico" in the same breath.

The country had come out of a revolution, and the head of government was a man in civvies. "The political agenda of the time was to show that Mexico was a very modern city, and not going back in time," says Pimenta.

To get a sense of the influences at play, one must look to Mexico's most characteristic architecture of the time, which was the University City "" still its most radical experiment with form, and a very strong relationship between traditional and modern architecture.

Designed by very young architects, it took ahead the vocabulary that had been established by Mexico's most legendary architect, Luis Barragan.

Other influences were clearly of the radical painter Frida Kahlo and companion Diego Rivera, whose neighbouring home studios were extremely modern in style, "probably the first of their kind in America", suggests Pimenta. "By America," he adds amusedly, "one meant Brazil and Mexico; the US then was much too conservative."

Mexican architecture bridges large gaps in history, pretty much as in India, living simultaneously in different centuries.

Pre-modern architecture was defined as it is in India, with courtyards as enclosed volumes (something the Mexicans got from the Spanish, who got it from the Arabs), with porticos around the building (again, an Arab influence), the continuation and play of open spaces (which is pre-Hispanic) and a unique form of landscape architecture that was chiefly represented by its monumentality (something that comes from the Hispanic and colonial past).

The buildings were celebratory, with a high intensity of colours and ornamentation. "In popular construction, particularly in the small towns of the 17th century, the buildings were very colourful," explains Adria, "though sophisticated buildings did not use colour." And adds, "In India, the people are colourful but the modern buildings, they do not have colour."

The first bearings of the inherited legacy in modern architecture were seen in Luis Barragan's work. "Barragan's architecture is very difficult to capture," Adria says, "he had a very personal style."

Through the 1950s and 1960s, Mexican architecture was linked to the legacy of the monolithic massiveness of its Aztec past, as well as the playful painting of spaces with volumes by Ricardo Legorreta.

The influences of international architecture too seeped in, "but transported and adjusted to our Mexican perspective, to our weather, our topography, climate, context "" the way the sun hits a building..."

The architectural renaissance was, however, just a short burst. The government commissions of public buildings and highrise condominiums wound up by the end-60s. "Society and modern architecture died at the same time," explains Pimenta. "Post-1968, architects lost their identity. They didn't know where to go."

Over three decades later, with a revival of sorts, Mexican architecture is undergoing another metamorphosis.

"There's been a renaissance with increasing economic stability," says Adria, "but there are no more public commissions, no new hospitals or buildings. The government has no ideas, no programmes. The only activity is private buildings. The work is nice, but small."

The video installation on Mexican architecture has been shown in Spain, UK, Paris and Texas, and is now due to travel to Berlin. In their journeys, do they not see a disturbing trend of a globalisation of architecture that tends to reward sterility?

"The practice of the architect is becoming international," Pimenta nods, "and architects are concerned about it. But in architecture anywhere, whether traditional, modern or global, only some buildings are memorable, the rest are just buildings," he says.

And in Mexico? Are architects, their names once whispered reverentially, still accorded a high status in society? Pimenta's smile is wry. "No," he says, "though that is chiefly because architects have now become developers.

They are not thought of as skilled professionals but as businessmen, those who work in real estate."

Luis Barragan's legacy is clearly waiting for a third coming.