What do the logo of the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games, the National Museum of Anthropology and History and the Azteca Stadium have in common? They were all (at least partly) designed by Mexican architect Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, the man responsible for modernizing Mexico.
Originally from Mexico City, Vázquez designed many of Mexico’s most iconic Modernist monuments during the 1960s and 1970s. His influence in modern Mexico went beyond his role as an architect — he also served as an urban planner and government official, playing a significant part in the country’s transition toward modernity.
“To think of him as somebody who designed buildings is not to take account of all the roles he played,” Luis Castañeda, a professor of art history at Syracuse University, told the New York Times in a 2012 interview. “He wasn’t the one constructing the models or sketching the drawings; he was the one securing the commission from the president.”
Who was Pedro Ramírez Vázquez?
Ramírez was born on April 16, 1919, in the dying months of the Mexican Revolution. After graduating from architecture at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in 1943, he became a professor of urban design and planning at the Faculty of Architecture.
When Ramírez’s mentor, the politician and intellectual Jaime Torres Bodet became Minister of Education, Ramírez was selected to help develop a low-cost, prefabricated prototype for classrooms and teacher housing. This prototype was used for decades at thousands of rural school sites.
He then held various teaching and public service positions throughout Mexico and was the founder and first rector of the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM). Ramírez also served as Minister of Human Settlements and Public Works from 1976 to 1982 during the government of José López Portillo.
What did Pedro Ramírez Vázquez design?
In 1962, Ramírez completed his masterpiece: the National Museum of Anthropology and History, commissioned by President Adolfo López Mateos. The museum is renowned for its large water feature in the center of its esplanade, a suspended concrete cover, and the lattices that control shades of light into the interior facades of the rooms.
Over six decades, Ramírez built other notable landmarks like the Legislative Palace of San Lázaro, the Basilica of Guadalupe — Mexico’s largest pilgrimage site — and the national headquarters of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (which ruled Mexico from 1929 through 2000), and the Museum of the Templo Mayor, among others in Mexico City.
He also designed the logo for Televisa, Mexico’s largest telecommunications corporation.
Outside of Mexico, he designed the International Olympic Committee Headquarters building in Lausanne, Switzerland, Mexican pavilions at several World’s Fairs, the Nubian Museum in Egypt and the Chapel of Our Lady of Guadalupe inside St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City, among others.
His most personal project would be his own house and studio, built in 1958 in the affluent Mexico City neighborhood of El Pedregal. Located south of Mexico City, the neighborhood sits over a solidified lava field and was developed by renowned architect Luis Barragán. It remains one of the capital’s most desirable areas to this day.
With simple geometric buildings featuring flat roofs and natural materials, El Pedregal seemed like a natural place for Ramírez to build his residence. On one side of the property he built his studio, currently filled with books, pre-Columbian figures, and a yarn painting of his 1968 Olympic logo. On the other side he built his house, where he died on his 94th birthday, on April 16, 2013.
His participation as the head of Mexico’s Olympic Committee
Ramírez led the creation of the largest and most effective graphic and advertising campaign ever developed in Mexico during his time as head of the organizing committee of the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City.
“We had to show that we had a graphic language of contemporary communication and Mexican cultural expression,” he said in an interview with Código Magazine in 2008. “We knew that language was not enough. We had to show [Mexico’s image as a modern country] with facts.”
However, despite the enormous success of the design campaign, Ramirez’s image was marred after he defended Mexico’s government over the events of the Tlatelolco student massacre of 1968, which he claimed had been exaggerated by the press.
Reagardless of scandal in his nature country though, Ramírez continued to receive various major accolades, such as the National Art Prize in Mexico (1973) and the Olimpiat Prize, awarded by the International Olympic Committee in Atlanta (1996), and the Life and Work Award by Obras Cemex (2003).
He was also named Doctor Honoris Causa by several universities including the UNAM.
Gabriela Solis is a Mexican lawyer turned full-time writer. She was born and raised in Guadalajara and covers business, culture, lifestyle and travel for Mexico News Daily. You can follow her lifestyle blog Dunas y Palmeras.
