Abstract

CHIQUETE BELTRAN, José Daniel  and  BARRIOS BUSTAMANTE, Angélica de las Nieves. The Architect Luis F. Molina and his imprint in Culiacan: Crossroads of a biography and an urban-architectural history in the Porfiriato context (1890-1911). Relac. Estud. hist. soc. [online]. 2021, vol.42, n.167, pp.49-68.  Epub Dec 02, 2022. ISSN 2448-7554.  https://doi.org/10.24901/rehs.v42i167.877.

In this article, we analyze how the biography of the Architect Luis F. Molina and the conditions of a specific period (1890-1911) intersected to produce a profound spatial transformation in Culiacan, the capital city of Sinaloa, Mexico. Over a century later, the transformations produced by this intersection still give decisive shape to the urban and visual landscape of the city. The changes in the architecture and urban landscape of Culiacan during this period, the last two decades of “the Porfiriato,” resulted not only from stylistic, technical, and engineering decisions but also from how these decisions were shaped by factors of a subjective and personal nature. Most important among these factors are the personality of the architect Luis F. Molina - who moved to Culiacan from Mexico City shortly after graduating from the San Carlos Academy- and the sociopolitical and cultural characteristics of the city’s ruling elite.

Among the relevant biographical data, this article highlights Molina’s family history, the frustrations, and sentiments that shaped his youth, his personal aspirations, and the conditions of his social class. Molina’s biography intersected with the social, economic, and political conditions of the Sinaloa Porfirian elite, combining to promote spatial changes through which this elite sought to mark the city with the imprint of its power and prestige. This article analyzes the intersections of a biography and the urban-architectural history of Culiacan during a specific time, bound by Molina’s arrival in the city (1890) and his departure, which resulted from the triumph of the maderista revolution (1911). Our method of analysis is a hybrid: microhistory predominates, but this history is in dialogue with the history of mentalités, the symbolic anthropology of Clifford Geertz, Roger Chartier’s concept of representation, and the stylistic analysis typical of architectural critique and urban studies.

Keywords : Arch. Molina; Porfirian Culiacan; microhistory; spatiality; intersections.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )