The House of Augusto H. Álvarez in Mexico City: an Integral Architectural and Personal Project

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DOI:

https://doi.org/10.52200/64.A.G8WYS262

Keywords:

Modern Movement, Modern architecture, Modern housing

Abstract

In his 56 year professional career, Augusto H. Álvarez (1914-1995) built around thirty apartment buildings and over fifty houses. This article analyzes the emblematic house he built for his family between 1959 and 1961, which has been reinvented over time. It’s a work that faithfully reflects Álvarez’s appropriation and interpretation of the ideas of the Modern Movement, revealing a modulated, diaphanous, ordered and flexible space enclosed by a simple volume. It was an integral project because, aside from the structure, the architect also designed its furnishings and system of natural lighting, implementing materials that were hitherto-unused in a private residence

How to Cite

Cruz, L. (2021). The House of Augusto H. Álvarez in Mexico City: an Integral Architectural and Personal Project. Docomomo Journal, (64), 34–41. https://doi.org/10.52200/64.A.G8WYS262

Published

2021-04-01

Issue

No. 64 (2021): Modern Houses

Section

Essays

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Copyright (c) 2021 Lourdes Cruz

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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Author Biography

Lourdes Cruz, National Autonomous University of Mexico

Doctor of Architecture, researcher and coordinator of the Archive of Mexican Architects at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México’s (UNAM) Faculty of Architecture. Author of books, chapters and articles on the history of Mexican architecture in the 20th century, she is a founding member and the treasurer of docomomo Mexico and a member of International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) Mexico and the National Academy of Architecture.

References

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CRUZ Gonzáles Franco, Lourdes, Augusto H. Álvarez. Arquitecto de la Modernidad, Mexico City, Facultad de Arquitectura, UNAM, 2008.

CRUZ González Franco, Lourdes, “Augusto H. Álvarez. Pioneer and Innovator of Mexican Modernity,” in Theodore H. M. Prudon and Hélène Lipstadt (ed.), Proceedings – viiith International Conference. Import-Export: Postwar Modernism in an Expanding World, 1945-1975, New York, docomomo International, docomomo us, Columbia University, 2004, 79-85.

GARAY , Graciela de, Historia Oral de la ciudad de México: testimonios vivos de sus arquitectos (1940-1990). Augusto H. Álvarez, Mexico City, Instituto José María Luis Mora, 1994.

GARCÍA Salgado, Tomás, “Breve ensayo sobre Augusto H. Álvarez,” in Augusto H. Álvarez, discurso, reflexión, ensayo, obras, curriculum, Mexico City, Futura Editores, n.d., (paper prepared when Augusto H. Álvarez received the 1983 National Architecture Prize).

“La enseñanza del diseño: Mesa redonda,” in Cuadernos de arquitectura y docencia, No. 2, Mexico City, Facultad de Arquitectura, UNAM, October 1986.

NOELLE, Louise, Arquitectos Contemporáneos de México, Mexico City, Editorial Trillas, 1989.

SÁNCHEZ, Félix, “Augusto H. Álvarez” in Fernando González Gortázar (ed.), La Arquitectura Mexicana del Siglo xx, Mexico City, Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1994.

ÁLVAREZ, Augusto H., “Una obra, una postura,” Calli, No. 29, Mexico City, September-October 1967.