Torre Latinoamericana: 50 years. Restoration of a witness

Abstract

This article takes up the methodology of cultural biography proposed by Arjun Appadurai to sketch the process of singularization of the Torre Latinoamericana in Mexico City, which was conceived initially as a commercial building constructed in 1956, until in 1997 it was declared part of Mexico’s Monumental Patrimony, which implied a consequent new set of practices. The paper aims to show how the work of renovation and remodeling which began in 2002 operates as a project of physical and historical restoration of the skyscraper in which a cultural discourse is constructed around—built up by episodes in the history of the city, the building and significants belonging to proper to the nationalist movement in Mexico—which contribute to generating and disseminating in the urban imaginary the notion of the Torre Latinoamericana as patrimony, in the form of a witness object.