Jonathan Sa'adah

Category: Architecture

  • Damascus Unveiled: Why These Photographs Will Change How You See Syria – and Ourselves

    This is the fourth and final post in a series introducing my new photo book “Return to Damascus: A Personal Journey.” The book’s text is mainly about Christian immigration through my family’s experiences, examining how that history resonates from two perspectives: mine as a descendant and my father’s as an immigrant. But to me the photographs show more than that, revealing an other story concerning issues in urban society. The book is available at this link and will ship in the first week of November.

    Exploring Syria through Photography

    There’s one photograph in this collection that stops people in their tracks. It captures the main hallway of the Al-Hamidiya Souq, Damascus’s legendary covered market, where late afternoon light filters through corrugated metal roofing installed decades ago to protect the ancient stone walkways below. The light creates cathedral-like beams that illuminate an empty souk, stalls closed and people gone for Friday prayers.

    This photograph tells a story Western media has never bothered to share. It shows a place deeply embedded in community life – a place that is as normal to Damascenes as it is foreign to us as we rush through florescent lit grocery aisles. The textures leap from the frame weathered by decades of Damascus use, Arabic calligraphy painted directly onto shop front signs by local artisans, stone curbs and sidewalks worn smooth by millions of footsteps.

    This is Syria in 2000 – not the Syria of headlines, but the Syria of heartbeats. We are seeing Syria in the last moments of an era and to me it holds lessons that most of us in the West are only beginning to think about. These 88 photographs capture a view that most Western media has never invited its audience to witness: a complex, ancient civilization that had figured out some of what we’re still searching for.

    What Damascus Looked Like Under Unbiased Observation

    Step into the photographs in this collection and you’ll find yourself questioning what you thought you knew about Syria. Look past the obvious lack of material wealth. Here are bustling markets where vendors remember their customers’ names and children’s ages. Local businesses passed down through generations, their hand-painted signs faded but proud. Young people playing soccer in narrow streets between buildings that have sheltered families for centuries. Ethnic and religious diversity woven into daily life.

    The architectural layers tell Damascus’s story in stone and mortar: Roman foundations supporting Ottoman courtyards where contemporary Damascenes conduct their daily business, drink tea, and solve neighborhood problems. These aren’t museum pieces and often it’s messy and decrepit – but yet they’re living, breathing spaces where community life unfolds with a sophistication that puts many Western urban planning efforts to shame. Street photography in Damascus reveals something we’ve largely lost in North America: spontaneous community interaction as the default mode of urban existence.

    Look closely at these images and you’ll see the sophisticated values of a four millennium city in action. Shopkeepers who close during prayer times not out of religious obligation, but because the community rhythm expects it. Neighbors who share meals across religious and economic lines. Children who play freely in streets because everyone knows everyone, and community safety emerges naturally from social connection rather than surveillance systems.

    While we’ve known the stories of a dictator-ruled nation, which were true, these images show a people who never stopped building, creating, and trying to find a better future, even under difficult conditions. The Syria captured in these photographs challenges us in what we think about the Middle East, revealing a society that preserved what we’ve spent decades trying to rebuild: authentic community life.

    Community Architecture: What We in the West Lost That Damascus Kept

    The most striking contrast in these photographs isn’t between wealth and poverty – it’s between connection and isolation. Damascus in 2000 maintained urban design principles that Western cities abandoned in pursuit of efficiency and individual privacy. Together the images tell a story of community architecture: spaces designed for human relationship.

    Consider the Damascus public spaces, people gather for business and social reasons. Vendors, even bakeries, have little or no interior retail space, instead they face out towards the public space. The difference isn’t just aesthetic; it’s philosophical. Damascus is built to encourage social interaction; our spaces are built for independence.

    Street life in these photographs reveals vendor relationships that span decades. The baker knows not just what each family prefers, but whose daughter is getting married, whose son needs work, whose grandmother prefers a certain cookie. These aren’t transactions – they’re social connections that happen to include commerce. Contrast this with our anonymous grocery chains where self-checkout machines are replacing even minimal human interaction.

    The visual textures in these images tell stories of sustained craftsmanship: stones polished by generations of feet creating organic pathways through neighborhoods, hand-painted shop signs in Arabic calligraphy that announce not just businesses but family legacies, faces that show curiosity about strangers rather than the urban wariness we’ve normalized. In Damascus markets, haggling isn’t about getting the best price – it’s relationship-building, a dance of mutual respect that creates ongoing social bonds.

    Look at the light filtering through ancient souq ceilings, creating natural gathering spaces where people linger, children play, and business happens at human speed. These aren’t accident architectural features – they’re designed for community life. The intricate geometric patterns in everyday objects, from mosque balconies to door hardware, represent a design philosophy that values beauty in daily life over mass-produced efficiency. Most of the people are poor and struggling, but there is still awareness of community and looking beyond simple economic survival.

    The University of Damascus Streets

    The photographs in this collection underline community resilience in the face of adversity. These images capture neighborhoods that maintained social cohesion through economic challenges, political pressures, and cultural changes – lessons particularly relevant as Western communities struggle with atomization, mental health crises, and civic disengagement.

    Community Resilience While Western communities fracture under much lesser stresses – think of how rarely we know our neighbors’ names – Damascus neighborhoods in 2000 demonstrated social structures that automatically activated during difficulties. Extended families, religious communities, and neighborhood networks created overlapping safety nets that no government program could replicate.

    Cultural Preservation emerges in photographs of traditional crafts continuing alongside modern life. The optician whose family has served the neighborhood for generations, using techniques perfected over decades while adapting to modern lens technology. Traditional techniques surviving modernization not through museum preservation, but through continued relevance to community life.

    Western cities losing their cultural identities to globalization could learn from Damascus’s integration of old and new knowledge.

    Sustainable Living appears throughout these images: repair culture over disposal culture, walking cities over car dependence, local production over global supply chains. Damascus in 2000 was necessarily resource-conscious, but the visual evidence shows this creating stronger communities, not deprivation. Cobbler shops, tailors, mechanics – all embedded in neighborhood life, all contributing to local economic circulation.

    Damascus is an example of cultural evolution without cultural abandonment.

    Your Invitation to See Differently

    These 88 photographs aren’t asking you to visit Damascus – they’re asking you to question what you think you know about resilience, community, and cultural continuity. They’re asking you to see our own Western cities with fresh eyes: What did we lose in our pursuit of efficiency? What did we abandon in our quest for individual freedom? What can Damascus teach us about building communities that survive?

    This collection challenges comfortable assumptions about progress and development. Damascus in 2000 wasn’t primitive or backward – it was sophisticated in ways we’re only beginning to understand. While we’ve been perfecting individual liberty, they were perfecting community sustainability. While we’ve been optimizing economic efficiency, they were optimizing social connection.

    The lessons here aren’t nostalgic – they’re practical. Urban planners struggling with social isolation, community organizers trying to build civic engagement, anyone wondering why Western cities feel increasingly lonely despite unprecedented connectivity will find answers in these images. Damascus demonstrates that community life isn’t about returning to the past; it’s about integrating human-scale values with contemporary possibilities.

    This book should appeal to anyone interested in urban planning and community design that prioritizes human flourishing over economic optimization. For cultural preservation and revival strategies that keep traditions alive through relevance, not museums. For understanding the Middle East beyond headlines and finding hope and practical wisdom for Western urban challenges.

    This is Syria in 2000 – not the Syria you see typically portrayed, but the Syria that has lessons for us all.

  • The Irresistible Pull of Gritty Cities

    ▲ Catania Fish Market The star of this market is the swordfish, but even the sardines are unusual. It’s true that plastic crates and digital scales abound, but still there’s a feeling of the market being enmeshed in long-running traditions, which gets reflected in the city’s approach to urban planning as well.

    The Irresistible Pull of Gritty Cities: Understanding Why We Love What We’re Missing
    Part II

    One of the most striking features of these older cities is their incredible diversity of housing types and price points, often within the same neighbourhood. In Damascus, you might find a restored 17th-century merchant’s house next to modest apartments that house working families, with both sharing the same narrow street and the same access to local amenities. Palermo’s neighbourhoods mix recently built condos (often retaining traditional facades) with affordable housing apartments, creating the kind of economic integration that many newer developments actively prevent. To give Montreal credit, some neighbourhoods share this diversity, but it’s often frowned on as “gentrification”.

    ▲ No problem with gentrification here This street was founded by Greek colonists in Agrigento, on the southern coast of Sicily, probably around 580 BCE. I would surmise that the Greeks used slaves to haul the blocks used in the construction.

    This mixing isn’t just socially beneficial – to me it’s economically essential for urban vitality. It’s what helps create a local economy with non-chain, locally owned businesses. Diverse housing types create diverse local economies, supporting the small-scale entrepreneurship that makes a neighbourhood interesting and economically resilient.

    The housing diversity in these cities also reflects their adaptability over time. Buildings that were constructed as grand single-family homes can be subdivided into apartments when economic conditions deteriorate, or combined back into larger units when gentrification pressures increase. We’re often critical of this, but it ‘s a flexibility built into the architectural DNA of older cities that allows them to respond to changing demographics and economic conditions without wholesale demolition and reconstruction.

    ▲ Even in ancient neighbourhoods like this one in the Sicilian hill town of Piazza Armerina you can differentiate the renovated houses by window style and roofing.

    The Art of Adaptation and Resilience

    Perhaps the most remarkable quality of these beloved gritty cities is their capacity to adapt and evolve while maintaining their essential character. They’ve survived empires, wars, economic collapses, and social upheavals not by standing still, but by continuously adapting their built environment to new needs while preserving the underlying urban logic that makes them work.

    Damascus offers perhaps the most dramatic example of this adaptability. The old city has continuously evolved over millennia, with Roman columns supporting Islamic arches, Byzantine churches converted to mosques, Ottoman palaces repurposed as museums, and traditional courtyard houses transformed into restaurants and cultural centres. Each layer of history adds to rather than erases the previous ones, creating the rich texture that makes the city so compelling.

    ▲ Damascus is probably the best example of a living city, with Roman, Ottoman, and “contemporary” structures all sharing space in this photo.

    The Integration That Creates Magic

    What makes these cities truly special isn’t any single characteristic but how all these elements work together to create something greater than the sum of their parts. The human scale enables walkability, which supports diverse public spaces, which creates markets for diverse housing types, which generates the economic activity that supports adaptation and renewal. It’s a virtuous cycle that has been refined over centuries of urban living.

    What We’re Missing at Home

    Standing in my ordered, well-regulated neighbourhood in Montreal, I often think about what we’ve traded away in our pursuit of efficient, predictable urban environments. Our streets are wider and cleaner, our building codes more rigorous, our public spaces more carefully maintained. These aren’t bad things – they reflect genuine improvements in public health, safety, and accessibility.

    ▲ The Montreal Plateau is relatively flat as its name implies, with spikes of church spires and an occasional out-of-place apartment tower. The visually boring cookie-cutter buildings in the foreground enforce a visual style, but their predictability saps vitality.

    But in our effort to eliminate the inefficiencies and unpredictabilities of older urban forms, we may have eliminated some of their essential vitality as well. Our zoning codes separate uses that these older cities mix naturally. Our building standards favor large-scale development over the small-scale, incremental growth that creates diverse, affordable neighbourhoods. Our traffic engineering prioritizes movement over lingering, getting through rather than being in.

    ▲ Exceding all predictions The Décarie autoroute as it was designed in the early 1960’s was supposed to max out at 90,000 cars per day. It now handles an average of almost double that.

    The question isn’t whether we should abandon our standards and return to some romanticized past, but whether we can learn from what these older cities do well while maintaining the genuine improvements of contemporary urban planning. Montreal offers some lessons in this direction. The city’s pedestrianization of portions of Ste-Catherine Street shows how even established cities can evolve toward more human-centred design.

    Living in the Tension

    Perhaps what I’m really drawn to in these places isn’t their grittiness per se, but their willingness to live in productive tension between competing values. They’re not trying to optimize for a single goal but rather to balance multiple, sometimes contradictory objectives: old and new, local and global, efficient and experiential, ordered and spontaneous.

    The cities I love aren’t perfect, and I certainly wouldn’t want to eliminate building codes or return to pre-modern public health standards. But they offer something that our more regulated urban environments often lack: they feel like places where humans have lived, adapted, and created something together over time. They feel like home not because they’re comfortable or convenient, but because they’re complex and alive.

    The narrow streets of Damascus, the piazzas of Palermo, the pedestrian rhythms of Thessaloniki – these aren’t just tourist attractions or nostalgic throwbacks. They’re working examples of urban principles that we ignore at our peril. As cities around the world grapple with climate change, housing affordability, and social isolation, these older urban forms offer tested strategies for creating places that are not just efficient but truly livable. The question is whether we’re wise enough to learn from them.

    ▲ A couple in a Piaggio Ape, a vehicle nimble enough to navigate easily through town, and displaying the icons of their traditions. Piazza Armerina, Sicily.

    The Damascus photograph in this post is taken from a book I’m just finishing (Return to Damascus: A Personal Journey) on the experience I had in returning to where my father had been born.

  • The Irresistible Pull of Gritty Cities | Part 1 of 2

    ▲ Catania Open Market I envy the Sicilians and their abundant produce, even at the end of November. Their markets are noisy and colorful. The produce feels close to the farm, which it is.

    The Irresistible Pull of Gritty Cities: Understanding Why We Love What We’re Missing

    I’ve always found myself drawn to certain cities with an almost magnetic pull – places that feel lived-in, weathered, and wonderfully imperfect. From the narrow stone alleys of Damascus to the chaotic vitality of Mexico City, from Palermo’s winding streets to the crumbling decadence of Thessaloniki, these are cities that seem to embrace their contradictions. They’re places where modernity coexists awkwardly but beautifully with centuries of accumulated history, where every street corner tells multiple stories, and where the urban fabric feels genuinely human in scale.

    ▲ Thessaloniki Old City We drove our car through these streets and it was definitely a social experience, since traffic was both directions and each encounter was a negotiation. The stairs on the right definitely would not satisfy Montreal’s setback regulations.

    As someone who calls Montreal home – a city that sits comfortably between order and character – I often wonder what it is about these grittier places that captivates me so deeply. Is it simply the allure of the tourist’s gaze, romanticizing what locals might find frustrating? Or is there something more fundamental about how these cities are designed and how they’ve evolved that creates genuinely superior urban experiences?

    I believe it’s the latter. These cities embody qualities that many of our more regulated, sanitized urban environments have systematically designed out – and in doing so, we’ve lost something essential about what makes a city truly livable.

    ▲ Jean-Talon Market Montreal Our winter markets are abundant but everything is quite orderly, and (sadly!) imported from afar, especially when compared to Catania.

    The Human Scale That We’ve Forgotten

    Walk through the old quarters of Damascus or wander the residential streets of Palermo, and you’re immediately struck by how perfectly sized everything feels for human beings. Buildings rise to four or five stories – tall enough to create urban passageways but low enough that you can still make eye contact with someone leaning out a third-floor window. Streets are narrow enough that neighbours can converse across them but wide enough for the essential choreography of urban life: children playing, vendors selling, neighbours meeting, deliveries being made, life happening.

    ▲ Damascus Street Football Other than there not being any women in this photograph, a lot is happening on the street. This was in the Old City.

    This isn’t accidental. It’s the result of centuries of organic development where buildings were constructed at the pace and scale that individual families and small communities could manage. In Thessaloniki, the traditional urban fabric prioritizes pedestrian comfort over vehicular efficiency. The narrow streets that might frustrate a traffic planner become perfect corridors for social interaction, where the pace naturally slows and encounters become inevitable.

    ▲ Palermo’s streets pick up on the city’s ancient layout, with automobiles present but taking a backseat.

    Contrast this with our modern approach to urban development, where efficiency and standardization trump human experience. Even in Montreal, our newer developments tend towards what we define as modern experience – wider streets, taller buildings, larger blocks that prioritize movement over lingering. We’ve optimized for cars and commerce rather than for the casual encounters and spontaneous connections that actually make urban life rich.

    ▲ Looking north in Montreal from Côte-des-neiges at residential and commercial buildings in one of the fastest expanding parts of the city.

    The smaller scale of these older cities creates what seems to me the conditions necessary for urban vitality. Even though they may look to be museum pieces, they aren’t. They are living examples of urban design that puts human experience first.

    Public Spaces as the City’s Living Rooms

    Perhaps nothing distinguishes these gritty, beloved cities more than the quality and accessibility of their public spaces. Not just parks or grand plazas, but the everyday spaces where public life unfolds: the stepped streets of Damascus that become impromptu gathering places, the piazzas of Palermo that serve as outdoor living rooms for entire neighbourhoods, the casual sidewalk life of Mexico City where sidewalks and public spaces encourage people to meet and relax”.

    These cities understand something fundamental: public space isn’t just about recreation, it’s about democracy. It’s where different social classes, ages, and backgrounds encounter each other naturally. When public space works well, it becomes the foundation for social cohesion and civic engagement.

    ▲ Preparation for Women’s Day March International Women’s Day has been commemorated in Mexico City since the 1930s, but the massive street mobilizations began gaining momentum in more recent decades as a response to Mexico’s epidemic of gender-based violence.

    Mexico City is often dismissed as sprawling and car-dependent, but alongside that reality I see a lot more going on. The city’s downtown areas have spacious parks and sidewalks, accommodating an unending ballet of commuters, tourists, and street vendors. On Sundays, major arteries like Paseo de la Reforma are closed to cars and opened to pedestrians and cyclists, temporarily transforming the large parts of the city into one enormous public space.

    ▲ Mexico City’s less romantic side The city government has tried different approaches at reducing car traffic, all with little success. Nevertheless, there is an inexpensive and well-used public transport system used by 14 million people a day. The open lane is a reverse direction lane for buses.

    What these cities understand is that public space isn’t a luxury – it’s infrastructure. Just as essential as water pipes or electrical grids, public space is the network that allows urban society to function, providing the venues for the informal encounters and casual sociability that bind communities together.

    Walkability as a Way of Life

    In these cities, walking isn’t exercise or a lifestyle choice – it’s simply how you get around. This creates a fundamentally different relationship between residents and their urban environment. When you walk regularly, you notice things: the quality of surfaces, the presence or absence of shade, the rhythm of street life, the small businesses tucked into ground floors.

    ▲ Damascus Old City Bakery Man carries away hot bread purchased from a small bakery.

    Thessaloniki, despite its challenges with broken pavements and sidewalks, illegally parked cars and motorcycles, kiosks and coffee tables, has a vibrant street culture. I look forward to going back soon to see how the city has adapted to its newly-opened metro system, which hopefully will reduce the perpetual gridlock many of its streets experience during the day. Hopefully the ongoing integration of walking and public transit has created an even more layered urban experience.

    Mexico City exemplifies this integration beautifully. Despite its size and complexity, the city maintains an impressive pedestrian culture. Under the leadership of mayor Claudia Sheinbaum (who has a background in environmental engineering) the city dramatically expanded its network of public transit, bolstering its generous public spaces with wide sidewalks and creative public squares.

    ▲ Mexico City’s Metrobus System provides rapid transit with a two dedicated lane system. Multi-unit buses (some all electric) load in stations much like a metro line. Claudi Sheinbaum was instrumental in launching the system as Secretary of the Environment (2000-2006) under then-mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who went on to be President, as she has too.

    Next week: Housing.
    The Damascus photographs in this post are taken from a book I’m just finishing on an experience I had with my father, returning to where he was born.

  • Watching the Aldred | Montreal Unfiltered

    The Art Deco Aldred building is a 94 year-old office tower on Place d’Armes’. It’s Montreal’s own “little Empire State”, completed in the same year as the New York building (1931) but of considerably smaller stature. Ironically, though, it’s the one that hasn’t been dwarfed by surrounding buildings and still stands proudly. That’s not to say that it doesn’t have problems. It’s suffering from the same disease many downtown office towers have contracted since the pandemic – a lot of empty space and the listing by brokers who represent owners eager to get out of the market.

    A Living Landmark

    It wasn’t always that way. When it was built it was a proud, if misplaced, statement of financial-district confidence. Architect Ernest Isbell Barott masterminded the setbacks that characterize its stepped shape in order to take advantage of an 1929 Montreal by-law allowing extra height if sunlight reached the square. The move allowed the building enough height to express its modern ambition. From street level you see limestone that mirrors older façades. The building’s massing feels almost ecclesiastical, yet it projects a kind confidence that was probably in short supply during the Depression.

    ▲ The view looking south on St-Urbain.

    Stitching Into Montreal’s Economic Fabric

    When the tower opened in the teeth of the Great Depression, its $2.85-million price tag signaled bullish faith in Montreal as Canada’s financial hub. Aldred & Company, a New York finance firm, anchored the top floors; local banks soon clustered nearby. Even today, in its diminished state, real-estate brokers list the address as commanding premium leases. Yet vacancy hovers near 30 percent and it’s touted as an opportunity for residential or boutique-hotel conversion.

    That tension mirrors Montreal’s broader economy as the city navigates a post-pandemic recovery. Tourist visits were up 7 percent in 2024 and projected higher for 2025 – but older offices struggle to meet post-pandemic hybrid demands. The Aldred thus sits at the crossroads of heritage preservation and economic reinvention, with no clear plan of where it will go.

    ▲ Notre-Dame Basilica doesn’t quite match its height. The architect was able to take advantage of a by-law allowing stepped buildings extra height.

    Past and Future in the Same Gaze

    There’s never a lack of discussion about what to do. Preservationists argue for light-touch retrofits, citing UNESCO principles that balance cultural value with economic use. Urbanists argue for adaptive reuse to keep the historic city core alive. But in any case, the building seems perfectly at ease with being photographed and appreciated.

    An Unmistakable Part of Montreal

    For me, I’m lucky – I don’t have to worry about its elevator systems or quirky partitions, or any of the many other worries that haunt building owners. For me The Aldred is a 96-metre miniature gem we can honor in its Art Deco glory while still debating office-to-housing policy. I appreciate its confident limestone ribs and see it as being an unmistakable part of Montreal.

  • The impossible miracle of Biblioteca Vasconcelos

    Anyone who has moved boxes of books around knows how heavy they are. To have 600,000 volumes suspended in space is close to a miracle! Biblioteca Vasconcelos in Mexico City achieves this remarkable feat, extending the creative practice of Mexico City architecture by floating its stacks in the air. This unique architectural marvel not only serves as a library but also as a cultural hub, attracting visitors who are eager to experience its stunning design.

    Biblioteca Vasconcelos Mexico City Architecture at its best!
    Architect Alberto Kalach made a significant contribution to Mexico City architecture with his daring design – suspending the stacks from the ceiling of the building.

    The architectural design of Biblioteca Vasconcelos is an example of modern creative ingenuity. The building’s side windows allow natural light to flood the interior, creating a serene reading environment that inspires contemplation and study. The stacks, suspended from the ceiling, give the impression of books floating in mid-air, challenging conventional library design and offering a visually striking experience. This innovative concept encourages visitors to engage with the space in a more dynamic way, as they navigate through the airy layout.

    I’ve always photographed in libraries. I enjoy books and the spaces designed for their use. This time there was a problem though. A woman in a semi-official uniform approached me, informing me in Spanish that photography was not allowed. To be honest, it seemed quite permitted, given the number of people snapping pictures on their phones. Unfortunately, a “Real Camera” is viewed differently. There was a loophole: I could apply for a permit at a specific office, allowing me to capture the stunning Mexico City architecture within. I was determined to document this unique space, since to me its beauty and functionality was worth sharing with a wider audience.

    As I filled out the form for the photography permit, I couldn’t help but admire the intricate details of the library’s design. The open spaces were filled with the soft sounds of pages turning and quiet whispers. The atmosphere felt filled warmed by the shared love of literature, making it an inspiring environment for both photographers and bibliophiles alike!

    The office I had been directed to was in the back of the library. I faced another woman, this one sitting at a crowded L-shaped desk near one of the doors that opened out onto the gardens. I asked if I could take pictures and was given a form to fill out. That, coupled with a Quebec driver’s license, and soon I received a plastic tag on a lanyard which gave me Official Status. Hooray, okay to use a camera!

    Visitors reacting to the reworked white whale skeleton by Mexican-born artist Gabriel Orozco at Biblioteca Vasconcelos.
    Visitors reacting to the reworked white whale skeleton by Mexican-born artist Gabriel Orozco, which adds a unique artistic element to the library’s ambiance.

    Mexico City’s Biblioteca Vasconcelos is such an unusual space – one can see the surprise and glee on the faces of people entering for the first time. Any resident can use the library, and many people do. The manner in which the stacks are suspended in mid-air creates a faceted and irregular space, playing with light and transparency. It’s a brilliantly imaginative way to design a library, and brave too in a city prone to powerful earthquakes. The library not only serves its primary purpose but also acts as a community gathering space, hosting events, workshops, and exhibitions that engage the public and foster a love for reading and learning. I don’t know if perhaps a part of what I was sensing was the public pride in the hard-fought win to break away from the book-banning controls of the Catholic Church – but it seems possible that this space embodies some of that pride too.

    The library opened in May of 2006, designed by the architect Alberto Kalach and built next to the old Buenavista railway station, north of the city center. Housing a collection of 600,000 books (using the Dewey Decimal System!), it also features the hanging skeleton of a large gray whale decorated by the artist Gabriel Orozco called “Matrix Móvil”. I saw a retrospective of Orozco’s work in the Museo Jumex (March, 2025) which I’ll describe in a later post. The whale creation is well traveled, having been shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2009.

    Biblioteca Vasconcelos stands as a beacon of modern architecture and culture in Mexico City. Its unique design honors the communities, reading public, artists, and scholars that use it. The library exemplifies how architecture can inspire a love for literature and create a sense of belonging among its visitors. Whether you are an avid reader, a photography enthusiast, or simply curious about innovative design, a visit to Biblioteca Vasconcelos is sure to leave a lasting impression. If you are in Mexico City it’s a must. It’s a short Metrobus ride north of the city center, and there’s a metro stop (Buenavista) nearby. The combination of literature, art, and innovative design makes Biblioteca Vasconcelos an essential stop for anyone visiting the city.