IPS-English ARCHITECTURE-MEXICO: Skyscraper Has Feet of Clay Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2007 15:39:44 -0700 ARCHITECTURE-MEXICO: Skyscraper Has Feet of Clay Diego Cevallos MEXICO CITY, Sep 3 (IPS) - The Mexican capital's leftwing government wishes to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the country's independence by sponsoring the building of the tallest skyscraper in Latin America, on prime residential land beside the emblematic Chapultepec Park, to house the offices of wealthy corporations. The 70-storey tower, nearly 300 metres high, described by some as resembling a coffin turned on its head, will be built by a firm headed by former officials and friends of the city government, and will owe its planning permission to the ”flexibilisation” of urban regulations, as Mayor Marcelo Ebrard himself admits. The idea is to inaugurate the building on Sept. 16, 2010, which marks the bicentennial of the beginning of the war of independence against Spain, and the 100th anniversary of the start of the Mexican Revolution which gave birth to the Republic of Mexico. But according to observers, the plan breaches ethical and transparency standards that the city government claims to uphold. It has met with opposition from local residents, architects and cultural authorities, who also point out that the project involves demolishing a 1940s building that is part of the city's cultural heritage, and that it will occupy an area of 3,800 square metres. Ebrard, of the leftwing Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), says that opposition to the building is basically political. ”The lack of any interest in seeing it built is because it will bring prestige to the city and its (municipal) government,” he said. The Bicentennial Tower, as it is known, will be located in Lomas de Chapultepec, an upmarket residential area on the northwest side of the city. With regard to the legal regulations against building a 300-metre tower in the area and destroying a heritage building, Ebrard said the rules could be made more flexible or changed. Placards reading ”Works Suspended” surround the facade of the old triangular building, only nine metres high, that is marked for demolition. They were put up by the Borough of Miguel Hidalgo which administers this part of the city and is in the hands of the conservative governing National Action Party (PAN). The petrol station, shops, car repair shop, restaurant, offices and nightclub that operated in the building have closed their doors. In the crowded and noisy urban space around it, with residential buildings, office buildings and a public children's hospital, placards can be seen that read ”No Mega-Tower Here!” Others say: ”Mr. Mayor, obey the law. Listen to the citizens. Build a sustainable city.” In the narrow street running alongside the doomed building, designed by Russian-born architect Vladimir Kaspe, passersby voice their complaints. ”How can it be right to build a tower here? It'll create traffic chaos,” says Aníbal González, a pharmacist, while secretary Elena Lara declares that the project is ”crazy.” The decision whether or not to allow the tower to go ahead has been in the hands of Mexico City judges and legislators since early August. The judges have to rule on an injunction sought by the building companies in the light of the borough's opposition, and lawmakers must amend certain regulations to allow such a tall building to be built. ”Many aspects of this whole thing smell bad, look bad, and run counter to efforts to promote transparency. Step after step, announcement after announcement, the project is gradually revealing all of these facets that make it liable to criticism,” said political scientist Denise Dresser, a columnist for the leftwing weekly Proceso and the newspaper Reforma. The project is sponsored ”by a government which claims to be revolutionary but suggests, as much by the site chosen as by the questionable procedures used to obtain it, that it still has no concept of what that is,” she wrote. ”Seventy storeys of distortions, 300 metres of manipulations, 6,500 parking spaces of contradictions. A trap for the city, for the PRD city government, and for the citizens who live in it,” said Dresser. The National Institute of Fine Arts (INBA), which is opposed to the construction of the skyscraper, listed the building scheduled for demolition as having ”artistic value” in 1990. Meanwhile, the Danhos Group which is promoting the skyscraper and has worked in the city for 30 years, is defending the project tooth and nail. It argues that it is sustainable, will use cutting edge technology and represents an investment of 600 million dollars that will create 4,400 direct jobs and 13,200 indirect jobs during the construction phase and 600 permanent jobs. The Bicentennial Tower will ”contribute to urban modernisation in our country,” the Group argues. It will also be ”the tallest, most modern and best equipped building in Latin America and a landmark in the city.” Mexico City already possesses the tallest building in Latin America: the Torre Mayor, 225 metres tall, which was completed in 2003. The Danhos Group project is headed by Jorge Gamboa de Buen, who was minister of urban development for Mexico City in the early 1990s, when Mayor Ebrard was interior minister for the city government. The present minister of urban development, Arturo Aispuro Coronel, was a close associate of Gamboa de Buen in the city government. The private Danhos Group has promoted its buildings in the capital city with ponchos carrying the logo of the city government as well as its own, although there is no formal connection between them. This has generated even more suspicion among opponents of the skyscraper. ”There seems to be a conspiracy to favour a private company, and an odd attitude within the city government, which plans to celebrate the bicentennial with a building in an area that is already saturated, and which will ultimately be occupied by only a few very wealthy firms,” architect Fernando Montes told IPS. To provide enough parking spaces for the Bicentennial Tower, the city government signed an agreement with the Danhos Group, permitting it to build a 30,000 square metre underground car park in Chapultepec Park, a major green area next to the building site, and a popular recreation area for the city's people. Ebrard has repeatedly stated his full support for the new building. However, the Danhos Group has so far failed to deliver the environmental and urban impact studies required by the city government for such proposals. The mayor ”poses as a representative of a new left, but his behaviour regarding the tower indicates that the more things change, the more they stay the same. The same arbitrariness, the same lack of transparency, the same way of governing the capital which takes it backwards instead of forwards,” Dresser said. The borough, local residents and the INBA all say that they will do everything in their power to prevent the construction of the building. In recent weeks, Danhos Group representatives held talks with opponents of the skyscraper in an attempt to bring them round. But instead of coming closer to an understanding, their positions are now more polarised than ever. The architect who designed the high-rise and will supervise the building works is Rem Koolhaas of the Netherlands, who won the Pritzker prize (regarded as the Nobel Prize for architecture) in 2000, and teaches design at Harvard. If it is built, the skyscraper containing dozens of offices, three restaurants, 10 shopping malls, a gym, a business centre and even a museum, will immediately take over as the largest and most modern building in Latin America. Space in the building will cost thousand of dollars a month to rent. ***** + ENVIRONMENT-MEXICO: Green Plan to Cut Smog (http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39090) + ENVIRONMENT: Towards Alternative Cities, the Green-Friendly Way - 2004 (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=26353) + Torre Bicentenario - in Spanish (http://www.torrebicentenario.com) + Vecinos opositores - in Spanish (http://www.vecinos.com/miguelhidalgo) (END/IPS/LA CR AE IF IP CV SU/TRASP-VD-SW/DC/DM/07) = 09031804 ORP008 NNNN