Mario Bautista O'Farril Arquitecto

Mario Bautista O'Farril (Puebla 1930) became a benchmark of modernity in a highly conservative poblano context, where architecture had to submit to the guidelines of the past. Some clients saw in their work an architecture similar to the one they were developing in El Pedregal de San Ángel in Mexico City, architects such as Francisco Artigas, the Californian Case Study Houses and, evidently, the radicality of Mies an der Rohe steel and glass boxes. His houses were located in suburban areas since the center of Puebla was always controlled by the National Institute of Anthropology and History.Founder of the Faculty of Architecture of the BUAP, he made many projects recognized nationally and internationally. Among his most outstanding works are the Lastra Building, a mixed building - a residential building with a supermarket on the ground floor - very successful. In fact it was the first modern building that was built in Puebla, with elevators, Venetian mosaics, aluminum shutters and large glass from side to side. In 1968, he was appointed general director of the National Housing Institute, which would be the predecessor of Infonavit, and with a good group of professionals made a study of Housing in the Federal District. At that time it was calculated that the population was going to quintuple in a few years and it was true. At that time they carried out a visionary project that protected the first square of the pre-Cortesian era where the old values ??that are still being investigated are located, and proposed a series of projects to protect it.