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RICE UNIVERSITY

Transpositions CU

Nathan Glenn Smith

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE

Master of Architecture

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HOUSTON, TEXAS

MAY2006 II ABSTRACT

Transpositions CU

Nathan Glenn Smith

The demarcations of territorial urban isms have not embedded within themselves with the potential to negotiate in the city-to-come. Transpositions CU considers the UNAM's Ciudad Universitaria (Mexico City) as a point of departure regarding the question of a delineated project's continuation within a city or larger national/political context. Do we abandon wholly past modalities or does our work operate, even if parasitically so, as an extension of present configurations and urban/infrastructural situations, anticipating the next move and abandoning the stabilization of histories and subject positions? III ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

this is submitted with special thanks to my committee

Nana Last

Dawn Finley

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and to

Luis Flores, Architect

Maria Gabriela Flores Kearns

Glenn and Ruthie Smith

and to the following residents of Mexico D. F. who generously welcomed all questions and requests:

Antonio Gallardo, Architect

Maria Vasquez Valdez

Jorge Fuentes

Rogelio Gamboa

Marco Antonio Flores Corona, architect, UNAM

Arturo Camilo Ayala Ochoa, editorial coordinator, UNAM IV TABLE OF CONTENTS

1-7 Situational and historic context of the CU.

8 Proposed extension to Metro-Bus I nsurgentes.

9-14 Drawings and models of proposed extension to the CU campus.

15-17 Rendered views of the extension. v LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1. CU, original master plan, 1954. 2. CU, aerial looking south along Avenida lnsurgentes, circa 1953. 3. Tenochtitlan, Valley of Mexico (present-day Mexico City), circa 1530. 4. Rectoria under construction ("progressive" multiplication of platforms). 5. Central Library under construction. 6. CU mural detail 7. CU mural details 8. CU buildings, 1954. 9. CU buildings, 2005. 10. CU roads, 1954. 11. CU roads, 2005. 12. Filosofia/Derecho building, circa 1953. 13. Filosofia/Derecho building, 2005. 14. Populations comparison, UNAM and Mexico City (1955-2005). 15. Mexico City metro system (extension to CU, 1983). 16. CU map with three zones of infrastructural connection. 17. View to CU from Copilco entry. 18. View from CU to Copilco entry. 19. Copilco entry locator diagram. 20. Metro Universidad connection to CU. 21. Metro Universidad locator diagram. 22. Map of CU in context with existing Metro-Bus lnsurgentes route in black. 23. View toward CU from last stop of Metro-Bus lnsurgentes. 24. Typical exchange, Metro-Bus lnsurgentes system. 25. CU icons as artistic monuments, La Reforma, summer 2005. 26. Mexico City postcard with Rectoria and Central Library. 27. CU in context with proposed extension to the Metro-Bus system. 28. CU plan with extension at lnsurgentes/central campus intersection 29. Central campus plan with new extension. 30. Diagrams showing manipulations to lnsurgentes at campus interface. 31. Physical model of extension proposal. 32. Physical model of extension proposal. 33. Drawings of extension proposal. 34. Physical model of extension proposal. 35. View of extension, looking from the campus central park, east to west. 36. View of extension over Avenida lnsurgentes. 37. View of extension bisection existing brick entry plaza. 38. Aerial view of extension looking east toward the central campus. 39. View of extension from underside at Avenida lnsurgentes. 1

The Ciudad Universitaria of the National Autonomous University of Mexico was inaugurated in 1954 in a then remote site of Mexico City to formulate an operative vision for an administration seeking fig. 1 Ciudad Universitaria, original master plan, 1954. precise ideas and models for the country's direction in a modern capitalist world, a vision shored up by a unifying view of its people in a problematic history.

The design of the CU in its initial conception was that of a figure in an open site lying 12km south of the city center. Sited on a volcanic ruin linked to the destruction of the pre-Aztec settlement of Cuicuilco, the CU's one existing connection fig. 2 CU, aerial looking south along Avenida to the infrastructure of Mexico lnsurgentes, circa 1953. City to the north is that of Avenida lnsurgentes, which bisects the campus' figure between the Olympic Stadium and the formal entry to the central campus (figs. 11 2).

This singular connection recalls this image ofTenochtitlan as found by the Spanish in the early 16th century for it's obvious relation to the historicizing aspects of the CU project (fig. 3). fig. 3 Tenochtitlan, Valley of Mexico, circa 1530. 2

fig . 5 Central Library under fig. 6 mural detail construction.

fig. 7 mural details

The architectural devices of the UNAM campus, as they were to attempt this vast reconciliation of historical contradictions, were to figure what would soon be, in light of the growing global forces and pressures, a new country of new Mexicans bound together in a common past and adopting modern notions of progress with a stabilized identity and nationalist edge. 3

( 0 I r t I D •

.. ~ ~· .....

fig . 8 CU buildings 1954 fig.9

In the same decade as the CU's inauguration, Mexico City began to explode into what we now know as one of the world's most sprawling and informal metropolises. As the city expanded to occupy UNAM's once privileged site-in-the-round, CU became a kind of formwork in the negative, its once unsuspect edges crystallizing into radical disjunctures, its figure being challenged in unforeseen ways (from the inside and out) that put into question its epistemic project. 4

fig. 12 Filosofia/Derecho building, circa 1953.

fig. 13 Filosofia/Derecho building, 2005.

280,000

260,000

240,000

220,000

200,000

180,000

160,000

140,000

120,000

100,000

80,000

60,000

40,000 li 20,000 1955 2004

POPULATIONS COMPARISON

UNAM STUDENTS •

MEXICO,D.F. I 100 II fig . 14 5

SISTemA DE: TRAnSPOAT£ COL£CTIVO R..t .WIIetro I

fig . 15

The CU's scripted relationship to its exterior was nullified by an extension of the expanding city's infrastructure, which populated the unsuspecting campus edges in 1983. This shift undid that specific campus/city separation.

Accumulation 1: Copilco Site fig . 17 fig . 18 fig. 19 figs. 17-18. Campus entry as it has developed near the Copilco metro stop. The campus deploys a wall to negotiate with the informal city pushing to its edge.

Accumulation 2: Metro Universidad Site fig.21 fig . 20 Metro Universidad: the back-door of CU, through an accumulation of tents and chain link. 6

fig . 22

fig . 23 fig.24 7

La dedaratoria excloye los edificios del circoito exterior

• Ftli Leal t\allhl cl ~ tatuc de rMnunwnto rt lico dd njunto arquiltd nM:o Ciudad Universitaria, entre los aportes mayores al arte mundial

fig . 25 fig . 26

The original campus design had as its sole connection to Mexico City the zone containing the Rectoria tower (administration) and the Central Library, the monumental core of the project most involved in positing the subject position sought by the national administration of the early 1950s. CU's original connection to the city is today fading into a passive iconic state. May the architecture be extended to meet the city-to-come? 8

METRO-BUS INSURGENTES -a.l'l1ll1t line: 19.4K -4lltimated use 238 000 ~ M-connedion will eubny ~

M Indios Verdes

Oeportivo 18 de Marzo

Euzllaro

M Potrero

M La Aeza

San81m6n

Manuel Gonztlez

M BuenaYtl1a

EIChopo

M Revolucl6n

Tabacalera

Refonna

Hamburvo

M l,.urgentes

[)uqngo

Alvaro Obreg6n

Soncn

Campeehe

M Chllpancingo

NuevoLe6n

La Piedad

Poliforum

Ntpoln

Coloma del va

Ciudad de los Depoltes

Parque HI.Wldido

Felix Cuevas

Rio Churubusco

Teatro ~nsurgentes

Jolt Marfa Velasco

Francia

Olivo

An.vt a

La Bombilll

I 1 UNAM Cludad Univerlitalia I

' I • Periferico fig. 27

The proposed extension of the Metro-Bus will reconnect the population with the epistemic core of the central campus. 9

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fig.28

The 7.3 km2 CU extended, bisected along lnsurgentes by the Metro-Bus extension and new programmatic interlay.

Existing Connection with Avenida lnsurgentes

Proposed Connection fig. 30

Reinstatement of the lnsurgentes site requires a rethinking of its positioning within the activity of exchange with the campus. The disconnect of the original configu ration and the concentration of all vehicular circulation exchanges at the "entry" is unfolded and dropped to ground level, where the street meets the campus and its new programmatic entities. 12

fig.32

Physical models were used to study ways to erode and populate the existing entry plaza adjoining lnsurgentes and the Rectoria tower, leading to a strategy that uses mediating surfaces to collect the site's disparities and create zones for the extension of the university (and city) program in a new in-between zone. 13

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Ll student ~room l2 studenlhoullng

I I I \ I I\ I I I I I )II I I I O=:J --- r----~---- c:1, ---~ -- -~--- =t =: r ~l~------~------~ ------IT 1t ,-- I - I I I o: I D 1-----, I I - _-=f @L - ~--- - ~1 r------f--- - ~ - - 1-- t -----r ~ - ---- I d -I I II II I I II : II It: I I / I \ II I I I I I

The programmatic make-up of the project negotiates between territories. The park space of the campus' interior extends to create a new slab of student housing , all accessed from the slightly ramping surface. At street level, the program oscillates between speculative spaces for diners and retail to new spaces for the UNAM bookstore and an extension to the M UCA gallery. 14 15 16 17

fig.38

fig. 39

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