Artifacts of revolution: Architecture, society and politics in Mexico City, 1920-1940

This dissertation encompasses evidence drawn from the built environment of Mexico City in order to assess the course of the Mexican Revolution during the formative years of regime consolidation from 1920 to 1940. The capital city is an artifact of the society which created it; a central hypothesis of this study is that changes in its built environment mirror changes in the national political system. Developments by both the private and public sectors are described and analyzed on several levels: styles employed and meanings embedded in or assigned to those styles, technical innovation and merit, illustrating changes in the approach to the field of architecture and the roles of architects in a revolutionary society and State, and ultimate use---the manner in which the building[s] functioned. Issues relating to public memory and the revision of national identity are also discussed at length.; This study is based on archival research conducted at the Archivo General de la Nacion, the Ex-Ayuntamiento de la Ciudad de Mexico, the Instituto Mexicano de Cemento y Concreto , the Palacio de Mineria, Infonavit, the Ryerson and Burnham libraries at the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Granger Engineering Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This research indicates that as governments pursued policies directed toward industrialization and modernization in the first two decades following the cessation of revolutionary war, they also attempted to fulfill. the revolutionary program as stipulated in the Constitution of 1917. The work determines that two "revolutions" existed contemporaneously, one directed toward social justice, the other toward capitalist development. Widening gaps among social classes and the inherent conflict between the simultaneous pursuit of social justice and capitalism are clearly illustrated in the city's built environment. In sum, the cityscape informs the observer that the movement of the Revolution as practiced away from goals of social justice occurred in the first two decades of its exercise.