Ambivalences of the 68: the Hotel Camino Real. Part 1
It has been 50 years since Mexico City dressed of Olympics and mourning. Much has been said of those hectic times, where it was considered that the prospects were unbeatable for the modernization of the country and to give the world an image of prosperity, although the reality was different. Here we share the history of an emblematic building that also this year celebrates half a century of being a benchmark for the World Hotel architecture.
It was the month of August 1968. Mexico City was mobilized, he defended himself, stirred… but in a corner apparently far from the city and simulatedly oblivious to it, the most select of the Mexican political and economic elite was reunited and lived happily clashing their glasses. The reason: The inauguration of the Camino Real Hotel in Mexico City, the largest, most modern and luxurious of all Latin America.
The table of Honor was headed by the then President of the country, Gustavo Díaz Ordaz and Mr. Agustín Legorreta López Guerrero, president also, but of the National Bank of Mexico, company that was behind the construction of the new building. Visibly moved in his inaugural speech, Legorreta qualified the Camino Real as the result of a patriotic task and as an important chapter in contemporary history. As he opened his doors, he said, Camino Real opened a much larger path towards the world, tourism, and coexistence among all men.
The project of construction of the Camino Real Mexico City was carried out framed by a context perhaps of economic opportunity but of clear social conflict. The idea of its construction began to gestate from 1964 with a view to satisfying the demand for accommodation generated by the Olympic Games to be held in Mexico in 1968. It was considered, then, that the prospects were unbeatable, for that year our country would receive the attendees to the Olympic Festival, so the primary objective was to organize and modernize the hotel structure with the best techniques to create Functional and comfortable facilities.
José Brockman Obregón, owner of the first Camino Real hotel in Guadalajara, was the one who raised the possibility of building a larger hotel in Mexico City and when he came to Agustín Legorreta, chairman of the Board of Directors and General Director of the National Bank of Mexico, who accepted the proposal and offered shareholder participation to some clients and partners such as Gastón Azcárraga, José María Basagoite, among other characters in the industry and business. Even for further information we know that the President of Mexico, Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, participated in the business as shareholder. However, due to the magnitude of the project and obviously, due to the amount of the investment, the bank conditioned the project to the participation of a professional and international hotel operator to administer and operate the hotel.
The chosen operator was Western International Hotels based in Seattle, Washington, who at first did not pay much attention to the proposal. His then-President Edward E. Carlson passed casually through Mexico City on one of his business trips and it was when he remembered the insistence of Mexican businessmen who wanted to partner for a hotel company. Of the deals and negotiations was the creation of Western International hotels, chain to which was added the hotel Alameda and then the Hotel Camino Real of Guadalajara and the hotels Majestic, Francis and of Cortés of Mexico City.
That's how it started. When we found the first mention of this hotel project in the books of minutes of the board of Directors of Banamex, in August 1966, it had already been two years since the first proposal had been submitted and that it had been studied. It was until that time that the project was presented to the members of the Council, even though it was not entirely concluded. However, certain things were already safe as the number of rooms, which would oscillate between 650 and 700, which would have parking area for 600 cars, banquet facilities with a quota of 1.700 people, and would also have a center Commercial.
It was then counted with a capital of 250 million pesos and with a space of thirty thousand square meters to create the best hotel of Latin America. The task would not be simple, so Banamex and its shareholders preferred to leave someone from home that responsibility. With good sense, the architect Ricardo Legorreta Vilchis, nephew of Agustín Legorreta López Guerrero, was appointed the coordination of the work, which proved to be, to say of the connoisseurs of the subject, an unprecedented work in the Mexican architecture.
To carry out the Magna Obra, Legorreta put into practice some ideas that were developed on the importance of teamwork, that is, that the architect did not do only the whole work, but rather it was a kind of "conductor" which would allow The collaboration of other types of elements that complement the project, depending on the type of work involved. This would also involve the participation of national and international professionals "putting aside a misunderstood nationalism and taking advantage of the advantages and experiences of other countries."
It was decided then that the hotel was somewhat different from the idea of a place of accommodation characteristic of the big cities. Until then, the idea of modernity and also the lack of space had left the architects to build the hotels up, that is to say, vertical way. The case of the Camino Real and its 30.000 square meters of land allowed that, in a capital of 6 million inhabitants, with the daily bustle, with road problems and transport, will be counted on a space apparently separated from all that bustle: a set of Low buildings, among gardens, patios, terraces, swimming pools, tennis courts and at the same time, had all the necessary services for the daily movement of a contemporary hotel. The hotel turned horizontal.
(will continue…)
by Paulina Martínez Figueroa