A visit to a friend in Mexico City led us to discover its collection of Art Deco treasures

Last week Stew and I visited a friend in Mexico City who’s just starting the renovation of a 1929 Art Deco building, in the Roma Sur neighborhood, a project that’s both exciting and intimidating.

Restoration or renovation of an old building, or some other potentially beautiful object, strikes me as a really creative, almost godlike undertaking. You set out to revive—or as close to it as your energy, time and funds will permit—something that’s been neglected or derelict.

After visiting with my friend, who asked me not to use his name or the exact address of his property, we walked back to the hotel in the nearby Condesa neighborhood and discovered that this sliver of Mexico City is home to approximately 300 Art Deco buildings of all sizes and conditions.

Along some areas, such as Avenida Amsterdam, Art Deco buildings are clustered one next to another like paintings in a museum. Some are fussily restored, others in need of attention but still in use.

It’s surprising that so many of these buildings, most of which went up during a construction frenzy during the Roaring Twenties, are still standing after several earthquakes since then. The most recent, in 2017, was particularly strong in the Condesa area, and rendered several far more modern structures uninhabitable.

Stew and I have long been fascinated by Art Deco architecture and design perhaps because it’s so accessible to amateur architecture fans like us. There are no obscure twists and turns in design to leave us scratching our heads. The lines and artistry are obvious.

The Art Deco style, which originated in France before World War I, is literally straightforward, its intersecting lines and angles a sharp departure from the preceding Art Nouveau style of the late nineteenth century, with its curvaceous, “feminine” design.

The geometric lines of Art Deco show up particularly in the ironwork of doors and windows, and in the case of taller buildings, in equally geometric setbacks. Think of the Empire State and Chrysler buildings in New York; the Civic Opera House and the Board of Trade building in Chicago; and the dozens of colorful houses and small hotels in the South Beach area of Miami.

In Mexico City there are other Art Deco buildings outside of the Condesa/Roma neighborhoods, notably the split-personality Palacio de Bellas Artes, with its florid Art Nouveau exterior and the opulent but completely different Art Deco interior that includes huge works by famous Mexican muralists.

The dissonant design is the result of a nearly 20-year pause in construction, between 1913 and 1932 caused by design and engineering problems, and the funding shortfalls that often bedevil public projects in Mexico. The auditorium has a 24-ton, “curtain” that is a series of panels made of a million pieces of stained glass—the only one of its kind in the world—and was designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany. Stew and I have never been inside the auditorium; that’s on our list for the next visit to Mexico City.

Our friend’s project, which he has just begun, no doubt will be challenging. So far he has redone the wiring, and started plumbing work. It’s a good building with lots of details that need to be brought back to life, and other areas that might be replaced, such as some bathroom fixtures and kitchen cabinets. We are eager to see how it proceeds—even if its from a distance.

Below is an assortment of photos I took in the Condesa and Roma neighborhoods.

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