NONO INSPIRATION: MARIO PANI
INSPIRATION
House designed by Mario Pani, circa 1947-1950. Esther McCoy Papers. Photo from the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.
The name of Mario Pani resonates internationally as the Mexican architect and urban planner that installed the principles of functionalism and the ideas of Le Corbusier combined with his own characteristic style into many of the city's symbolic buildings. Private homes, schools, hospitals, airports, commercial buildings, offices and hotels, bear his stamp. He was a pioneer in the design of infrastructures such as multi-family housing and luxury condominiums. At the same time, he participated in the great urban plans for Ciudad Satélite, the Hotel Plaza or the Paseo de la Reforma Condominium.
Borned in a wealthy family, being his father a consul in different countries, enabled Mario Pani to complete his elementary studies in Italy and Paris. Being so closely associated with architecture and engineering as a child seemed naturally to choose architecture as a vocation. He studied at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris and in June 1934 he obtained his degree, validated that same year by the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
Besides of his visionary solutions for the problem of urban sprawl, he was founder of the Colegio de Arquitectos de México (1946) and of the magazine 'Arquitectura', later called 'Arquitectura México' (1948), which published the work of recognized architects such as Augusto H. Álvarez, Juan O'Gorman, José Villagrán García, Vladimir Kaspé and Mathias Goeritz. The magazine was published for more than forty years, in 119 issues and had an enormous influence on Mexican architecture of the 20th century.