Luis Ortiz Macedo: Past and present

Abstract

Ortiz Macedo began his architecture career in 1951 at the Escuela Nacional de Arquitectura, at a time dominated by functionalist dogmas. However, this man had a unusual profile, for he was in love with history and had a particular interest in its conservation. Early in his career, Ortiz Macedo received his first restoration commissions at the Parroquia de San Mateo in Tepetlacalco and the former Hacienda el Altillo. In 1960, he presented his graduate work entitled “La conservación de los monumentos históricos y artísticos de México” (Conservation of historic and artistic monuments in Mexico), where he discusses the importance of this discipline in the country. After a few fructiferous years in France, where he obtained the Superior Diploma of Monument Restoration, Ortiz Macedo returned to Guanajuato, Mexico, where he established the Institute for Monument Restoration in 1963, first of its kind in America. Back in Mexico City, he was assigned head of the Department of Colonial and Republican Monuments at the INAH (National Institute of Anthropology and History) in 1966. He stayed in this Institute two more years, during which he occupied the General Director post. Afterwards, he became undersecretary at the SEP (Public Education Office) and later head of the INBA (National Institute of Fine Arts). His extraordinary achievements granted him many outstanding awards, such as the Merit Medal of the Italian Government (1972), his adherence as honorary member of the AIA (1972), and the Legion of Honor, the French Government’s most important recognition. In the past few decades, Luis Ortiz Macedo directed many projects, most of them restoration works, in some of Mexico’s most wellknown monuments, such as the Basílica de Guadalupe and Tulancingo’s Cathedral.