A returns with Vladimir Kaspa
Many years later, compared to the controversy in 2007 on the construction of a seventy-story tower in Chapultepec, I had to remember the evening when my father was to test the barbels. Part of his purpose was to see inside a building by his old teacher originally intended for private use, had just become a Basque restaurant. Almost always was fond of architecture , the bottom was, of course, the profession his father: as a child, I, who spent long hours at construction sites, recognizing as family the damp aroma of freshly cast concrete, coming up with ill-learned skill tables as makeshift stairs that often saved fright real clear, and until knew the meaning of words as a mixture or idler, formwork or frieze, telling anyone who would listen that big was going to be an architect like my father. But when it came to deciding race, although my publisher and literary vocation, do not hesitate and enrolled in the Faculty of Law .... 
I do not blame them, as I did for a time, the Marist a decision that was only mine, but certainly not as it should be encouraged vocations related to humanism and the arts. If in the case of my friend Sergio, the son of a notorious criminal, law school's decision was understandable, and from a certain point of view even desirable, not in mine could be other reasons for never, ever, go from the same origin and even earlier, in either sides of my family was never even a trace even of lawyers. The restaurant had just been conditioned in a family club, the Russian architect Vladimir Kasper (Harbin, Manchuria, 1910) was built in 1955 on the streets of Aristotle, in the Polanco neighborhood, so our visit was intended to ask a couple of great dishes cocochas in green sauce, and then successfully eaten and drunk, calmly assess inside the building. My father and I were taken by then to stop here and there to see works of architecture. Still earlier, in 1983, had accompanied him on an expedition one day by the state of Morelos organized by the architects of the generation 54 (hers, which was the CU opened) to a guided tour of some significant works of the century XVI. No exaggeration to say that day that shines in my I remember as one of the happiest days of my life. 
For the first time I admire, listening to some experts, ahead of some of the best examples possible, flat facades naked large atriums, open chapels and crenellated cornices, the chapels and buttresses characteristic of the century religious architecture of the Conquest, he must be noble enough to make it the seat of evangelization, but also sufficiently protected areas that could be conquered only represent a danger to its inhabitants. At the halfway mark we stopped for lunch in Yecapixtla, where I knew then, and if memory serves me correctly, was born Sor Juana's mother, and some time ago, just before the fall of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, had blood red rivers according to the story Gomara angered both Bernal. 
that day thirty years ago, back in Mexico City, home to confiscate his copy of the classic book sixteenth century Mexican architecture ( FCE, 1982) by George Kubler, with equal enthusiasm, by the way, that I have enjoyed these days the appearance of the monograph on the subject published Taurus luxury for bringing together the work of several decades of Juan Benito Artigas, an old acquaintance of my father. As Kasper knew myself to visit me and by my side, the building is his shot got me, for I was very useful to study devoted to his work Louise Noelle, Vladimir Kasper. Reflection and commitment (Universidad de La Salle, 1995). 
confess that I tried to woo a girl, of course without success, making the journey for some kaspianas works, and so parked on Homer Street, looking to the railroad tracks, spent a couple of hours in front of the beautiful view of the Liceo Franco Mexicano (1950-1958), which remains superb over half a century after it was built. More hand on the very square Uruguay, in the public park a few steps from the metro Polanco where I learned to walk, is another of his works, it is true that less fortunate, originally a physical education center currently houses the British Council. Another example is the apartment building on the corner of Plato and Dickens (1958), whose facade, seen from a certain angle, reveals the author's knowledge of music and seems to vibrate with dance moves ... 
Or on the corner of Miguel Angel de Quevedo and the University, where, at risk of losing their lives between passing cars and racing cars, a Saturday afternoon I watched from different angles of the building Roussel Laboratories Group (1962). Much of it more or less retouched, recent conditioning needs, in some cases ruined it ... My father remodeled a house of his former master in the Hills, but he was already badly damaged due to all sorts of modifications and today has been converted into a beauty salon. 
Perhaps
my favorite of all his family is the building where he lived until his death Kaspa and he had his studio in the Rue de Rubén Darío (1947-1949), a relatively early work that combines the lessons learned in Paris, shortly before migrate to Mexico in 1942 to escape Nazi Europe, and native materials to those who wisely adapted immediately. Since the controversy erupted in 2007, when the name of Kasper Salto to newspapers because they planned to tear down one of his works to put in place a seventy-story skyscraper in Chapultepec Park, it seemed incredible there was a building that did call Danhos "I can not read but" damage "- as if it were an evil organization out of a cartoon. 
Regardless of the nature of the controversy (if the small multifunctional complex called Super Service Lomas finished in 1952, which includes among other places a gas station and a party room (!) later converted into offices, is or is not a great work, if the perpetrator is a large or not our architecture, if it should considered part of the cultural heritage of the country and defend accordingly, etc.), to construct a building, almost any building, enormous as originally projected (see in some detail in the Wikipedia, http://bit.ly/hpiRwA ) or not as much as it finally allowed for the site, in a corner of the city rather than saturated, is madness to which we are accustomed. Unfortunately, the case Kaspa is an example of the excesses building in a city that lives wild corruption, we all suffer and that little or nothing is said. Seems impossible at this point trying to defend an architectural heritage that for centuries has only to lie down to get back up to ... be destroyed again. few weeks ago revived the controversy but I have not followed because I am pessimistic about the results. I read in the newspaper that the new project is involved Teodoro Gonzalez de Leon ... who for some time now I have the impression-perhaps wrongly-that is too aware of worldly glory, which does not seem to correspond to the wisdom of some part of their work and more than eighty years. I also read, which gives me an inexplicable sadness that the building will be done where Lomas was the Super Service, the museum plans to Kasper! And something incredible: that the work has stopped to find transportation options and listen to the neighborhood, which at this time, the licenses granted and work in progress, and at least partially debunked the building that caused so much noise, "it seems as a farce ... more perceptive readers Century in the breeze and have noticed that this melancholy post has no purpose to justify the publication of images of work that Vladimir Kasper I borrow my copy of the book by Louise Noelle, "and especially the Super Service Lomas, who has become emblem of both the work of a beloved teacher who left their mark on Mexico City as the triumph of greed over common interests (cultural and, yes, though some seem to write in Chinese). The photos are from the fifties, for the days when the building had just been built and are infinitely more eloquent than anything that I can say.
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Vladimir Kasper. Reflection and commitment of Louise Noelle was published by the Universidad La Salle in 1995. 's portrait of Alexander Kasper Stepl Mendlovic, the photos of work, if I understand the credit given in the book, William Zamora. All these images belong to the book of Mrs. Noelle.
On the history of Super Service Lomas, http://bit.ly/gWQm49 Kasper Wikipedia, http://bit.ly/hML5mL Sergio Vela The picture is from 1987 and took our mutual friend, the architect Jorge Hüfte. color image for the church and chapel Open Mani in Yucatan, where I was at the end of 2006.
Perhaps 
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