View from Mexico. (View).

Mexican architecture, that astonished the world in the mid twentieth century and then seemed to fall quiet, is reawakening.

The centenary of the birth of Luis Barragan, the most important figure in the history of Mexican architecture, offers a good occasion to reflect on his legacy, to confront the country's obsession with its own reality and to take a panoramic view of the architecture of the planet's most populous metropolis.

A product of the syncretism between modernity and Mexican idiosyncrasy, the work of Luis Barragan continues to represent an architectural manifesto for universal culture. His works are silent, sober dialogues between sunlight and blind walls. After Barragan, a preference for form, even form emptied of content, would be a given for the various currents of Mexican architecture: the ascendancy of the closed over the open, the representative over the functional, aesthetics over ethics.

At the end of the twentieth century, Mexican architecture wavered between the weighty, institutional work of Teodoro Gonzalez de Leon, the painted walls and metaphysical towers of Ricardo Legorreta, and those seeking a new vision.

While Gonzalez de Leon scattered landmarks over the formless, ritualized magma of Mexico City, expanding under the pressure of economic liberalism, demographic explosion and corruption, Ricardo Legorreta received the Gold Medal of the AIA in recognition of his career achievements, and TEN Arquitectos (Enrique Norten and Bernardo Gomez-Pimienta) were awarded the first Mies van der Rohe Prize for Latin America. Their Televisa building (AR November 1998) was conceived as an iconic object rising from the crowded and chaotic city centre to be identified with the well-known television station's logotype. The programme demanded the integration of functions (car parks, offices, banking services, cafeterias, dining areas and conference halls) under an elliptical metallic shell that defines a single continuous space. Gomez-Pimienta's furniture designs, blending an exquisite contemporary minimalism of stainless steel and glass with traditional Mexican crafts, have received some important awards.

Among emerging firms, those of Alberto Kalach, Adria+Broid+Rojkind and Sanchez-Higuera deserve mention. Perhaps Kalach's work is the most original and sculptural. His buildings are radical, from the geometry of their floor plans to the perforated walls that filter light into the interiors. The GGG house, which received recognition in 2000, is a mausoleum of concrete and light, full of spatial surprises, starting with the obligatory promenade architecturale.

Adria+Broid+Rojkind were awarded the Cemex Prize 2001 for a house erected on the edge of Mexico City's metropolitan area. A concrete box, embedded between two floors, contrasts the opacity and solidity of its volume with the transparency and lightness of the horizontal planes. The predominant use of concrete throughout the construction, and the highly plastic treatment of the material, allowed sensual, expressive solutions without the need for finishes.

Sanchez-Higuera have been weaving, piece by piece, the new texture of Mexico City's trendy Condesa neighbourhood. What began as the renovation of an existing corner construction has grown to include three other buildings. The idea of interrelating the projects and their context as construction progresses has allowed a redefinition of the urban texture. Adjoining walls need not be exposed, and a series of open landscape spaces has been incorporated into the block.

Two massive projects, on the borderline between reality and utopia, fill the future of Mexican architecture with hope. In Guadalajara, 12 distinguished architects will furnish a 300-hectare lot with auteur projects: a great open-air museum of contemporary architecture, headed by TEN. Carme Pinos of Barcelona will be responsible for the fairground; Morphosis (Thorn Mayne) of Los Angeles will construct the arena; Coop Himmclblau (Wolf Prix) of Vienna the shopping mall and cinemas; Daniel Libeskind of Berlin the school of architecture, education and political science; Tod Williams and Billie Tsien of New York the open-air amphitheatres; Toyo Ito of Tokyo the museum; Jean Nouvel the corporate offices; Teodoro Gonzalez de Leon the staff dining areas; and Philip Johnson the children's museum.

The proposal by TEN Arquitectos for the exhibition and convention centre is an oval, 240m long, all of whose parts are connected by the fluid interplay of elliptical perimetric ramps that enclose the central part of the exhibition hall and the ring of lobbies and services. A ribbed covering that sustains a translucent Teflon skin constitutes one of the most striking features of the new complex, which should act as a spark plug for the engine of future growth of Guadalajara.

In Mexico City, Alberto Kalach and Teodoro Gonzalez de Leon propose the recovery of the lakes of the valley of Mexico, and the reurbanization of their shores, with the location of the new international airport in the middle of one of the lakes. A return to the pre-Hispanic lacustrine city offers new hope to this immense metropolis that is sinking under the dehydration of its surface. The fundamental thesis of the project is simply that Mexico City was not only once an enormous lake, but continues to be so.

The twentieth century began for Mexican architecture with the assimilation of the austere and radical language of the Modern Movement; its finest moment was the syncretism of modernity and Mexican idiosyncrasy in Luis Barragan; our new century begins with these grand projects that manifest a respect for place and long-term economic sustainability.