Redalyc.Geography and History in the Museo De La Ciudad De México

Investigaciones Geográficas (Mx) ISSN: 0188-4611 [email protected] Instituto de Geografía México

Walker, Louise E. Geography and History in the Museo de la Ciudad de México Investigaciones Geográficas (Mx), núm. 55, diciembre, 2004, pp. 178-180 Instituto de Geografía Distrito Federal, México

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How would you describe, explain or exper- had everything stacked against them from the ience Mexico City, in its physical entirety and beginning, from volcano eruptions to earth- with all its history? This was the challenge quakes. It also depicts important people and facing the group of scholars and artists who events that shaped the city, such as the floods designed the new exhibit at the Museo de la of 1629 and the invasions by the conquis- Ciudad de México (Pino Suárez 30 y Repú- tadores, the French army, the revolutionary blica de El Salvador). A sociologist, an artist, a factions and so on. The use of space in this geographer and a historian sat down and room is fairly standard and conservative; the talked about how to bring together the flesh most innovative design is a large map on and the stone, past and present, of Mexico the floor in which a sixteenth century map of City for a wide audience; and for the first time the city is superimposed on a modern one, in ten years the museum opened a permanent emphasising the difference in size and urban exhibit, “Todo Cabe en una Cuen- patterns. ca” (Everything fits into a Basin), to the public The exhibit comes alive in the third room, in November (2004). “La ciudad que nunca duerme” (The City Throughout the five rooms of the exhibit which Never Sleeps): here daily urban life there is a remarkable balance between the erupts into the historical and geographical human lives and the physical spaces of narratives of the previous room. It begins with the city. The first room screens two movies, a panorama of one day, starting with the first recounts the history of the Valley construction workers eating breakfast at dawn of Mexico from before the founding of the and moves almost minute-by-minute through Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán through Mexi- the day, catching glimpses of different people can independence. The second is a film of and spaces of the city. The viewer also sees images that flow quickly into one another on how history asserts itself in the city’s streets three screens, capturing the fragmentary na- and avenues, in their changing names and ture of Mexico City today: peaceful oases, physical layout, through maps, blueprints and traffic jams, workers in the service industries, photographs. The trades and tools of the past, tourists, lovers, markets, amusement parks, like a shoemaker’s hammer or a household graffiti, garbage pickers, the sewer system. servant’s flatiron, are complimented with a The curator, Marcos Límenes, said there are present-day statistical breakdown of employ- two more movies planned for this room, one ment and unemployment in Mexico City. about the history of the Valley from inde- Alongside these every-day urban lives cen- pendence through the revolution and another tered on work, a collage depicts some of the on its contemporary history. most important figures of the city’s cultural The second room, “Con los pies en el and recreational life, from Sor Juana de la Cruz Valle” (With Feet in the Valley): covers the to el Santo, the lucha libre hero. standard history and geography of the Valley In the fourth room, “México en el ombligo from the mid-fourteenth century through the de la Luna” (Mexico, the Navel of the Moon): early-twentieth century and is the most tra- the unit of analysis shifts from daily life to ditional in design. In this room we see that the movements for social change. What is the re- cities of Tenochtitlán and Mexico City have lationship between the physical city and its

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Geography and History in the Museo de la Ciudad de México social movements? This room proposes the explains the system and the problems it is street as a gauge for social unrest in the city, facing. These two elements pick up the over- with the Zócalo at the heart of protest and view of the geography population movements demand, from the Motín de Indios in 1692 of the Valley in the first room, though here the to the EZLN protests in 1994. A circular presentation is more dynamic. The wall facing photograph of the Zócalo hangs from the the entrance is a collection of up-to-date ceiling in the middle of the room, which numbers that click by at an almost dizzying allows the visitor to feel as if he or she is rate on digital counters, tracking the number standing in the heart of the city. In photo- of people who, since January 2005, are born, graphs, text and slides the room chronicles emigrate, arrive and use the metro in Mexico some of the social movements that have City. The final counter tracks the number of occupied the city including the 1920s workers women and children who have been abused in and muralist movements that literally pain-ted the city this year; the frightening pace at which themselves onto the city, the 1968 stu-dents this number grows adds a sombre and reflec- who were massacred in the streets, the 1985 tive tone to the room, which compliments the earthquake that destroyed many buil-dings playful organisation of the material. and left so many sleeping in the Zócalo, Following the exhibit like a discourse from through the movement for demo-cracy in one room to the next, a dynamic relationship urban protests and electoral politics. between history and geography emerges. Dreamers have often cast their eyes on the Each room explores the ways history and moon, and Mexico City –here, the navel of the human choice have shaped the city, from the moon– holds the hopes and frustrations for draining of lake Texcoco in the seventeenth social change in its public places, in its bricks century to the massive public work projects of and mortar. the past 100 years. And as the exhibit explores In the fifth and final room, “46 veces” (46 these historical changes, they show how the Times): the focus moves from social move- city itself has played an active role within ments to some of the most pressing problems them. Public spaces like the Plaza de Tla- facing Mexico City: water and people. “46 telolco, the defective skyscrapers that col- veces” stands for the 46 times Mexico City lapsed in the 1985 earthquake and the sewage- grew in population during the twentieth chocked rivers and streams that run beneath century. Along the right-hand wall of the room the city’s bridges have all played leading roles is a timeline that chronicles the changes in in the city’s history and in the lives of its population during that century, conside-ring residents. migration, education and age, among other Indeed, Marcos Límenes told me that factors. A large aerial view of the city, made the interconnection between history and geo- from hundreds of digital photographs taken graphy was one of the basic organising prin- by the Instituto de Geografía at the UNAM, ciples of the exhibit. This is perhaps most reminds the viewer of the physical space that clearly and powerfully presented in the fourth changed alongside these demographic shifts. room, which links social movements and The entire left-hand wall is a representation of urban spaces. Here, the city’s spaces are inscri- the city’s water infrastructure, complete with bed with attempts at social change (bullets, water running through clear tubes, which murals, massacres); they also give shape to

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Louise E. Walker these movements (where will a protest take There are plans to add two more rooms to place, where will a tent be pitched?). In other the exhibit this year and possible themes rooms history and geography tend to be include: travellers to and within the city; presented side-by-side, hinting at –instead of impossible projects for the city; and a child’s arguing for– a critical dynamic. An alternative view of the city. A consultation room with design for the museum suggests how this computers offers in-depth exploration of the dynamic might have been sustained throu- themes in the exhibit and there is bookstore ghout the exhibit. According to Límenes, one with many titles on the city. Finally, the earlier possibility was to start from the body of museum hosts a library designed for resear- a resident and move, room by room through chers and specialists that houses approxi- larger units of analysis: the house; the street mately 10,000 volumes; though it emphasises and neighbourhood; sections of the city; and the nineteenth century, it will likely offer so- the entire city and its relationships with mething of interest to most researchers. neighbours, close and far. This design strategy The title of the exhibit “Todo Cabe en una might have underscored the ways in which Cuenca” is a play on the Spanish expression physical spaces and the meanings attached to todo cabe en un jarrito, sabiendolo acomodar them can function as historical actors. (Every things fits in a little jar, if you know This minor quibble aside, the exhibit will how to organize it). Over the centuries much interest scholars –in particular historians and has squeezed itself into the Valley of Mexico; geographers who are concerned with the inter- this exhibit offers us a glimpse at some of the connections between their fields of study– in different ways it settled into place. how it conceptualises this relation-ship. It is a refreshing take on the city and its history in a public venue and strikes a nice balance bet- Louise E. Walker ween being informative and experiential. Yale University

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