José López Portillo and the Mexican architects
The Architectural Guild, which since years before showed interest in the planning of the cities and concern for the indiscriminate form of its growth, celebrated the arrival to the presidency of José López Portillo and deposited his hopes in the new president Then he would be in charge of re-routing the course taken. Here we share part of this political-architectural history of an important period and instructive.
By the end of 1976, practically the whole country looked forward to the six-year respite, the days were counted for the change of President to be carried out and perhaps like never before, the traditional "blur and new account" was yearned for, as by magic , restarted the country and disappeared all the ills that afflicted it. Luis Echeverría left Mexico on the brink of the abyss. Both in his speeches and in his actions, an official was perceived to be on the verge of mental collapse.
During its tenure, the external debt amounted to 20 billion dollars; Government payrolls were crammed with more than a million bureaucrats, most of whom were completely expendable. With the devaluation of the peso, decreed three months before its departure and its incoherent verbiage, the eagerness to leave its position were widespread. In the last of the cases, the new president "could not go out worse than Echeverría", was used to listen in the talks of the moment.
And everything was painted so that José López Portillo became the "Savior" of Mexico. With his inauguration speech, he achieved the Prodigy of Transmute the uneasiness into enthusiasm. The audience was thrilled and garnered applause. All his words were received with euphoria. He claimed that he would be given time, that he could not do miracles, and the apotheosis came when, in tears, he apologized to the dispossessed and the marginalized for the bad experiences of the previous administration. His conciliatory and appropriate discourse to the various social sectors made political leaders, authorities, parties and even the entrepreneurs and their organizations in a somewhat naïve way to give him their vote of confidence. At that time no one imagined the hecatomb to come.
But it was in these first moments of the administration, when everything was optimism and confidence, that the Architectural Guild joined the general enthusiasm for the newcomer. A few months before the inauguration, they enciphered their hopes in the President-elect as they considered that for the first time in the history of Mexico, an expert in urban planning was elected President of the Republic. The great experience that the architects argued was based on the positions that the then new President had acquired in various positions during his career as an officer. In fact, López Portillo entered the public service in 1960 through the National Heritage Secretariat as advisor to the senior officer and then as general manager of federal materials improvement boards. Then, from 1962 to 1965, he coordinated the Urban Development Committee.
It was during that time that priority was given to the elaboration of the regulatory plans of the port and border cities, and in collaboration with the national border Programme, the COMONDUF was founded by the National Commission for Urban and Border development. Apparently, by then, the regulatory plans — not just the frontier — that already existed, were filed in offices of governors, municipal presidents, and other officials, and were not used for the purposes for which they had been created. For this reason, others were elaborated and rescued with the intention of giving priority to the planning of the cities throughout the Mexican Republic.
This made the Architectural Guild, which since years before showed interest in city planning, and concern for the indiscriminate form of its growth, deposit its trust and hope in the new President and, like other sectors, believed In the possibility of re-routing the course taken. It was so shortly before the end of the year of 1976, took place the national meeting of professionals of the architecture, a meeting between Lopez Portillo and more than a thousand architects, in the facilities of the Polyforum Cultural Siqueiros.
Its organizers, the architects Pedro Ramírez Vázquez and Gabriel Gutiérrez Trujillo, gathered around 250 works that were analyzed and presented in tables of work, of which it was the so-called "letter of The professionals" making use of these and Supplementing with new studies. In this way, we could distinguish certain areas that needed special attention, making essential the question of housing, rationalization of land use, the scope and productivity of care facilities, the preparation Technician-Humanist of the architect among some others.
José López Portillo took this meeting as a sign of the political commitment of the Architectural Guild and to the professionals gathered in the Polyforum, uttered a simple speech, bombastic and with little content. Possessor of the rhetoric PRI, he left pleased the architects thanking his contributions and his particular vision of the Mexican society that expressed through the works delivered, to what he added: "Expressions of justice and joy of freedom are in the Trade of you, gentlemen architects, expressions of something as human as space, space that is made housing, space that is made light and color, that is made health and that can and must be made joy of living. "
The optimistic vision of that year of 1976 was apparently shared by all Mexicans. Some with more bewilderment than others, saw that only a few years later, the discourse of hope would be radically transformed to expose the lower resources of the presidential and authoritarian machinery of then, which cut from Tajo With the illusion of improvement that a whole country had put in the then President-elect, including that of the architects.
by Paulina Martínez Figueroa