Carlos Obregón Santacilia
Carlos Obregón Santacilia was a Mexican art déco architect. He trained at the Academy of San Carlos during the Mexican Revolution. He claimed a distinguished Mexican heritage, as great grandson of Benito Juárez and grand nephew of Alvaro Obregón.
, Mexico City
Obregón saw the new architecture following the violent and destructive Mexican Revolution as the government's impulse to be constructive. Among other works, Obregón Santacilia redesigned the building housing the Secretariat of Foreign Relations, at the request of Alberto J. Pani. The building went from a Louis XIV style structure to a neo-Colonial work, opened in 1924. Minister of Public Education in the Obregón government, José Vasconcelos asked Obregón Santacilia to design a large primary school in Mexico City, to be built in "new nationalist perspective." He also designed the new building for the Secretariat of Health and Welfare, later decorated with murals by Diego Rivera. He reworked the abandoned legislative palace of the Díaz era and transformed it to the Monumento a la Revolución, located in Mexico City.Publications
- El Maquinismo, la Vida y la Arquitectura/Machines, Life, and Architecture. Cleveland: J.H. Jansen 1939.
- Cincuenta Años de Arquitectura Mexicana . Mexico City: Editorial Patria 1952.
- El Monumento a la Revolución, Simbolismo e Historia. Mexico: Secretaria de Educación Pública, Departamento de Divulgación 1960.
