Student Work
Title
The Ruin of the Modern
Project Description
Tlatelolco is a site of continuous ruination, originally inhabited by the Aztecs, then the Spaniards, and currently by the modernist Mario Pani housing blocks. Today, the housing complex is in a state of decay mainly as a result of the student massacre of 1968 and the earthquake of 1985. A continued lack of maintenance further adds to the site’s decline. I began to speculate far into the future, imagining a scenario where these monumental blocks reach a state of ruin so severe that they become uninhabitable. What my project does is propose the new phase of Tlatelolco’s history, where the pastoral begins to make its way back into the machine. I posed this speculative scenario as a narrative, with a character, Silvia, telling the story of Tlatelolco through her eyes as she moves through different moments in the site.