Architecture and transformation in Mexico City’s UNAM University Campus

Abstract

<p>Architecture in permanent transformation is the starting point of this article, focused on the interaction between material and social aspects of a case study on modern Mexican housing, observing the building’s life in relation to its inhabitants. The Multifamily Apartment Building for Teachers (Multifamiliar para maestros), a faculty housing building at the UNAM campus, is a mid-twentieth-century experimental housing project, developed at the beginning of Mexico City´s densification. Today it is registered in UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites. The case study sheds some important insights into the transformations of a spatial modern utopia facing inhabitants' needs. Numerous differences were detected between the original idea behind the building’s architecture and the reality of its users today, revealing not only the ambiguous nature of the building but also problems derived from the country’s accelerated modernization. The results show contrasting approaches of the intermediate space between the building’s conception, and the constant process of becoming a home, where the scope of its habitability is negotiated. </p>

Architecture and Music: Morphological and Expresive Compositional Synergies and their Applicaitions in University Campuses

“…Founded in 1551, the institution undertook the planning of its large campus in the University City in 1946, on land located on the southern periphery of the metropolis. From its first compositional idea, the project was committed to roots in local cultural values, especially those inherited from pre-Columbian civilizations (Leal et al, 2021). This monumental campus was conceived as an expressive hallmark of the Institution, marking the purpose of claiming a set of secular values, to be transmitted through the organization and materialization of its built corpus.…”