There are a total six projects contained within the Tultitlán Cultural Masterplan, a program to add much needed infrastructure and services for an industrial municipality just north of Mexico City, Mexico. Last October, a new fire station was completed as part of the venture. Now, another of the six projects—the Elena Poniatowska Agora and Library—recently opened its doors to the public.
The new library is named after a French-Mexican journalist dubbed “the red princess” and “Mexico’s grande dame of letters.” Poniatowska is famous for her writings about las Zapatistas, the 1968 student protests in Mexico City, and other works.
The library and agora in Poniatowska’s name was designed by Departamento del Distrito, Oficina de Resiliencia Urbana (ORU), Ricardo G. Santander, and TALLER Architects—the same design team behind Tultitlán’s Felipe Ángeles Fire Station. The new buildings are wrapped in uniform corrugated metal, architects shared, taking cues from Tultitlán’s industrial character.
Occupying an existing superblock-sized urban parcel, the library is about 730 feet long. It consists of single-story buildings with sawtooth roofs centered along an attractive pedestrian axis flanked by spaces that connect people to healthcare options, arts, culture, and education. Gardens, seating, and lighting are peppered along the promenade demarcated with an expansive pergola.
The sawtooth roofs help regulate the region’s ample sunlight access, and the single-story buildings are based on a 16-foot by 16-foot structural grid. This scheme, architects noted, provided internal flexibility and can support future adaptations. To provide variety, each of the interior steel frames are expressed with different colors.
Green spaces, designers added, connote spaces where social and medical services are provided. The library and adjacent auditorium is expressed in orange, and spaces for arts and culture are light pink.
The ambitious project to provide infrastructure and improve quality of life throughout Mexico’s underserved communities started in 2019 under the tutelage of past Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). Today, this endeavor is being continued under now President Claudia Sheinbaum, one of AMLO’s closest proteges.
Construction on the library started in 2020. The other projects underway in Tultitlán are taking place just 15 miles from Mexico City’s newest airport, the Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA), another important piece of AMLO’s infrastructural legacy.
