Urban Memory of Modernity: Guadalajara (México) Central Bus Station

Abstract

In the twentieth century, in the mid-fifties, the Mexican city of Guadalajara was conceived as a major city that intended to measure up to the national and international metropolises; a transformation of the city was pursued to show itself, through a new language, as a big city without social disparities, which had reached progress and modernity. As a part of the government plan to develop a new center for the city of Guadalajara, there was conceived a project that offered cultural and recreational activities, and it was intended to attract the tourism that arrived by bus to the area of the new Estación Central de Autotransportes de Guadalajara (Guadalajara Central Bus Station), which abruptly displayed the development achieved by the city. Inaugurated in 1955, it was the first central bus station in Mexico, which represented a challenge to the builder and the governments of the day. The materials and techniques were cutting-edge, and the spatial schemas allowed for the simultaneous operation of multiple bus lines. The big seven-level building broke the horizontal profile that, until then, the city had had, and it equally represented modernity and communication with the rest of the country. Central Bus Station as such defines this portion of the city, even nowadays. Although its use has been decreasing considerably because of the arrival of new stations and new means of transportation, its dynamic ambiance may still be perceived and has remained in the urban memory.