An obelisk welcomes the historic city of Iguala

“Renacer de Iguala”, the obelisk and the roundabout that welcome the north of this city, are the architectural response of Alberto Kalach and Carlos Zedillo Velasco to the vision of the municipal president David Gama, who asked to broadcast there, where Vicente Guerrero and Agustín de Iturbide gave each other the “hug of Acatempan”, a feeling of security for this place that has played a leading role in the history of Mexico

“We were fortunate to meet with the team of mayor David Gama at a very early stage of his administration, to develop this space,” said Zedillo.

The architect maintained that he has spent years working on the transitions from natural space to access to cities by road.

In the new roundabout it was important to highlight the historical importance that Iguala has for our country in many periods and then emblematic situations such as the Trigarante Flag that José Magdaleno Ocampo designed in Iguala were crossed, explained the architect.

It was also necessary to talk about the Iguala Plan, the design of the current Mexican flag, the historical processes that influenced the gestation of this city and that influenced the direction of the nation, all of which had to be present in this work. .

In addition, he acknowledged, there is a recent and painful history, that of the youth of Ayotzinapa, about which much has been said and is the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of this place, it was a terrible episode that cannot be erase and another intention of the obelisk was to say that there is more to the future.

his conception

Carlos Zedillo explained that the three stars of the obelisk make up a geometry that connects and gives rise to the structure and that is when the monument tells you that you have arrived in Iguala.

“A square is also developed that is really public; because it is an accessible monument, open to all where you look at the sky and generates this reflection that you are in a clean place, with history, with possibilities, where the pedestrian enjoys the vegetation, the new truck stops and everything This is a small example of how you can continue working to plan the city in a more orderly manner”.

Budget restrictions have not allowed further progress in the mayor’s urban vision, but this was a first step that shows how planning can pay off and also makes it clear why it was important to have started the process, he said

The vegetation

The city lives in the center but urban growth is a bit contradictory, because residents and structures appear on both sides of the peripheral ring that surrounds the Historic Center and one of the concerns of urbanizations is to extend beyond those delimitations or rings.

“If you see the urbanization within the ring, it unfolds more in a formal grid that connects that of the historic center, but what happens is that the ring contributes to making a more formal urban outline.”

Zedillo and Kalach took road trips with experts in vegetative matter and that is how they opted for the flamboyán tree not only for its beauty but also for the practical reason that it grows very fast and provides a lot of shade.

In total, 500 flamboyan trees were planted; 11 thousand 250 tradescantias and eight thousand oleanders.

Many people know that the flamboyán is not native to Mexico, but to Madagascar, and that it arrived in Morelos; but today it is already present in many places and Mexicans are familiar with those beautiful flowers that are pigmented between orange and red.

The materials

The architects came to the decision that the main material would be concrete, both in the monument and in the fittings.

There they considered that the sand color would remove that industrial connotation from the gray concrete and the vegetation for its part was ordering a process of landscape development.

The Media Luna mine also made a donation of waste rocks, which came from the extraction of their gold excavations and then those gigantic stones were also part of the work.

This decision contributes to a process of sustainability and recovery of materials, large stones and in fact the three largest allude to the Trigarante theme.

Renacer de Iguala is the contribution of these two architects, at the beginning of a new stage for this city in the State of Guerrero.