Benjamín Romano’s Torre Reforma is the most visible sign of the construction boom in Mexico City. An unconventional building that relies on load-bearing walls – and in this way adds a new facet to the face of the megacity.
It can easily be said that since Le Corbusier developed the “Maison Dom-ino” construction system in 1914, no other construction concept has had a comparable influence on our spatial-architectural thinking. With the implementation of this new construction system, Le Corbusier not only put an end to the wall as a traditional supporting element, but also freed architecture from a tight corset. In this way, the architectural space and the façade freed themselves from their almost symbiotic relationship with the supporting structure. The first concept of free floor plan design in modernism was born.
Even a century later, this system, based on pillars or pilotis and foundation slabs, has not lost its validity. If you take a look at the buildings on the outskirts of Mexico City and other metropolitan areas in Latin America, the influence of this construction method on the understanding of architecture becomes evident. However, despite the popularity of pillars and concrete slabs, another principle has been making a remarkable comeback in recent years – the load-bearing wall. In contemporary Mexico, the load-bearing wall can be found in various projects, such as those by Mauricio Rocha and Gabriela Carrillo, but also by Alberto Kalach. However, none of these architects apply it with the consistency that Benjamín Romano does with his office “LBR & A”.
Romano has dedicated a large part of his work to the study and realization of load-bearing structures in which the wall, rather than the pillar, plays the central role. The most recent and most important result of this work is the “Torre Reforma” in the center of Mexico City. It bears the name of the avenue on which it stands, the “Paseo de la Reforma”, which is probably the city’s most important axis for geographical and historical reasons.
Both from the outside and the inside, the Torre Reforma is one of the more unconventional high-rise towers of our time, and not just in Mexico City. Its uniqueness lies in the element that both characterizes its appearance and significantly supports the building: the two load-bearing concrete walls, each 246 meters high. The two walls, which form two of the three sides of the building, meet at the rear corner of the site, creating a supporting structure that faces the Paseo de la Reforma like an open book. The two monumental, 57-storey-high surfaces therefore not only form the façade of the building, but also support it. They also extend far beyond the nine basement storeys into the depths as foundations. This makes the building one of the rare projects in which the shell, supporting structure and foundations are made from one and the same element.
Designing with Tetris
The scale of the concrete walls and therefore the entire building is difficult to grasp with the naked eye. But you are still impressed. The sheer dimensions of the walls create an almost disconcerting monumentality, an effect that is further enhanced by the many openings in the surface. This perforation is aesthetically reminiscent of the legendary 1980s computer game “Tetris”. It was created using parametric design software, which allowed aspects such as earthquake coefficient and material resistance to be taken into account.
The perforation of windows not only marks the individual storeys, but also bundles units of four storeys each, which are organized like 14 individual small buildings within the tower. These windows also prevent the building from turning and collapsing in the event of earthquakes, storms or other forces of nature. The striking horizontal lines on the concrete façade are also striking. Their composition aims to create a uniform image of the concrete. The lines result from the almost ritualized process of daily monolithic concrete casting, each 70 centimetres high. This regularity enables the construction of a complete floor within a week – and resulted in the completion of the entire height of the tower within 57 weeks. In addition to speed and efficiency, this casting process reproduces changing material colors in the concrete and creates a striking surface.
Aesthetics of the zipper
The third façade side of the building faces the “Bosque de Chapultepec”, the largest city park in the western hemisphere. The façade design is based on a simple static function: the tension cables literally “stitch” the two load-bearing walls together and support the individual storeys, which are suspended from the two load-bearing walls. This aesthetic is reminiscent of a zipper.
The exterior surfaces of the Torre Reforma have an enormous appeal with their solid concrete walls, the dual function of the façade perforations, the construction principle of the load-bearing walls and the metallic structure of the tension cables. Its impact on the cityscape and the skyline of Mexico City is considerable, especially due to the central location of the tower and its interaction with its unequal high-rise neighbor, the “Torre Mayor”. Nevertheless, it is probably the interior of the building that exerts the greatest fascination.
Free interior design
The lack of a load-bearing system of pillars and slabs creates floors that can be designed completely freely. This is not atypical of Romano’s practice. If there is one thing that characterizes him, it is his preoccupation with flexibility and the maximum utilization of interior spaces. For the Torre Reforma, which mainly houses offices, this approach is fundamental, as it allows maximum economic use of the available space. To understand Romano’s architectural thinking, it helps to take a look at the key stages of his career. Little of his classical architectural studies in Mexico City can be seen in his buildings. His studies of prefabrication in construction in Israel and his 24-year collaboration with the engineer Heberto Castillo – an iconic figure both in building design and in national politics – are decisive for his work. It is above all Castillo’s spatial conception and his supporting structures that have a considerable influence on Romano’s architectural language. Castillo had set himself the task of freeing his projects from anything that added unnecessary weight or had little structural relevance.
This principle is applied in Romano’s spatial concepts and supporting structures – by making the wall the central element. In Romano’s practice, the wall is the only load-bearing element; it is both the dividing and the wrapping element. And it allows absolute freedom of interior space. In conclusion, one could even say that Romano, with clear reference to Castillo’s ideals, takes Le Corbusier’s free floor plan design to new dimensions with the Torre Reforma.
Within a hundred years, the role of the architectural element of the wall has changed from “obstructive” to “desirable”.
This text is taken from our special issue “Mexico – Between new bloom and new walls”.
