Un magnífico portal metálico coronado por una estructura de piedra esculpida. Un friso de serpientes, perros y conejos esculpidos rodea el portal, así como la parte superior del frontón. En el centro del frontón, el escudo esculpido de México.
The Mexican coat of arms has been an important symbol of Mexican politics and culture for centuries. The current representation has undergone few changes since the Aztecs developed it almost seven hundred years ago. The current emblem depicts a golden eagle perched on a prickly pear tree, devouring a snake. This emblem also appears on the flag of Mexico.
El escudo de México ha sido un símbolo importante de la política y la cultura mexicanas durante siglos. La representación actual ha sufrido pocos cambios desde que los aztecas lo desarrollaron hace casi setecientos años. El emblema actual representa un águila real posada en un nopal, devorando una serpiente. Este emblema también aparece en la bandera de México.
Built by the Italian, Adamo Boari and Mexican, Gonzalo Garita in 1902, the building opened in 1907. It was intended, then as now, as a main city post office. The Postal Palace is stock full of gargoyles, marble ornaments, and elaborate plaster work.
Construido por el italiano Adamo Boari y el mexicano Gonzalo Garita en 1902, el edificio se inauguró en 1907. Se concibió, entonces como ahora, como oficina principal de correos de la ciudad. El Palacio Postal está repleto de gárgolas, ornamentos de mármol y elaborados trabajos en yeso.
Palacio Postal
Credits
El Palacio Postal o la Quinta Casa de Correos es un edificio del Centro Histórico de la Ciudad de México. Esta obra de arquitectura ecléctica fue construida a comienzos del siglo xx como uno de los símbolos del Porfiriato.
Antecedentes
Para el año de 1902, se dio inicio a la construcción de la nueva sede de la Dirección General de Correos, siendo necesaria su reubicación debido a la importancia y al volumen de correspondencia que ya para aquellos tiempos manejaba el servicio postal de México. Es importante señalar que lleva el nombre de Quinta Casa de Correos debido a que el inmueble es la quinta sede del correo mexicano. La primera se ubicó a espaldas del Palacio Nacional, entre las calles de Correo Mayor y La Soledad durando en este lugar de enero de 1621 a junio de 1765; de junio de 1765 a octubre de 1788 se cambia a la segunda sede, la cual estuvo ubicada en la actual Calle de Guatemala; la tercera sede se ubicó en la Calle de San Francisco (hoy el número 33 de la Calle Francisco I. Madero) de octubre de 1788 hasta el 2 de mayo de 1852; y la cuarta sede se encontraba en un espacio anexo de la Casa de Moneda, en la Calle de Moneda, del 3 de febrero de 1852 al 16 de febrero de 1907.
Historia y descripción del edificio
En el lugar que ahora ocupa el Palacio Postal se ubicaba el edificio del antiguo Hospital de Terceros de San Francisco o por su nombre completo, el Hospital Real de Nuestra Señora de la Pura y Limpia Concepción, una de las construcciones levantadas en el hacia el año de 1761 por la orden franciscana y cuyo fin dado era para atender solo a los miembros de la hermandad. El edificio sobrevivió la vida azarosa que padeció la ciudad durante todo el siglo xix hasta el año de 1900, en que fue demolido para que en su lugar, que consta de 3.730 metros cuadrados, se levantara la construcción actual.
Las obras se iniciaron el 14 de septiembre de 1902, con la colocación de la primera piedra por el entonces presidente Porfirio Díaz. El proyecto y diseño del edificio fue obra del arquitecto italiano Adamo Boari, quien también trabajó en el inicio del Palacio de Bellas Artes. La construcción se llevó a cabo por el ingeniero mexicano Gonzalo Garita, ocupando para ello la novedosa cimentación tipo "Chicago", consistente en una losa de concreto corrida con espesor promedio de 70 centímetros y una estructura de viguetas de acero con un peralte de 21 pulgadas en ambos sentidos.
Los trabajos de construcción se llevaron al cabo durante 5 años, siendo terminada la obra en el año de 1907, e inaugurándose el 17 de febrero de ese mismo año por Porfirio Díaz, el cual en un acto simbólico, depositó dos tarjetas postales, con la imagen del Palacio Postal.
De arquitectura ecléctica, consta el edificio de cuatro niveles. Destaca el exterior del edificio trabajado en cantera de chiluca (la cual fue extraída del Pueblo de Santa María Tulpetlac en el Municipio de Ecatepec de Morelos, Estado de México), donde es posible admirar la exquisita combinación de elementos pertenecientes al estilo gótico isabelino con arcos mixtilíneos, columnas entorchadas, cresterías floridas y una arcada coronando la parte superior de la fachada, utiliza varios elementos de la casa de los Abarca. La fachada principal en pan-coupé (es decir, que cuenta con un chaflán en la esquina, visto en planta), muestra en su último nivel un reloj de manufactura alemana.
El interior es espléndido. Las columnas del interior que recubren la estructura de hierro que sostiene al edificio, se encuentran cubiertas en su totalidad con la técnica de la escayola. Destaca la señorial escalinata del hall principal realizada con mármoles mexicanos y herrería de bronce bellamente trabajada por la Fondería Pignone de Florencia, quienes también realizaron los detalles de los pórticos, las ventanillas, las gárgolas y farolas del exterior y demás trabajos realizados en bronce en el interior. El remate del cubo de dicho hall se encuentra cubierto por un enorme domo de cristal emplomado transparente diseñado por Boari. Destacan también los escudos que coronan los remates de la arquería interior del tercer piso, en donde se exhiben los escudos de los países que formaban parte de la Unión Postal Universal a comienzos del siglo xx.
A mediados de la década de los mil novecientos noventa se llevó a cabo una intensa labor de restauración en todo el inmueble, destacando en dicho trabajo el rescate de algunas áreas que fueron ocupadas por edificios anexos, así como la limpieza y recuperación de la cantera del exterior, y la recuperación de elementos y detalles originales en el interior. Se logró recuperar el espacio para reinstalar los elevadores originales diseñados por la firma Otis Elevator Company
Fue declarado monumento artístico el 4 de mayo de 1987. Alberga en su último piso la sede del Museo de Historia y Cultura Naval de la Secretaría de Marina, inaugurada el 23 de noviembre de 2004.
Palacio de Correos de México
The Palacio de Correos de México (Postal Palace of Mexico City), also known as the "Correo Mayor" (Main Post Office) is located in the historic center of Mexico City, on the Eje Central (Lázaro Cardenas) near the Palacio de Bellas Artes. It was built in 1907, when the Post Office became a separate government entity. Its design and construction was the most modern at the time, including a very eclectic style which mixed several different traditions, mainly Neo-Plateresque, into a very complex design. In the 1950s, the building was modified in a way that caused stress and damage, so when the 1985 earthquake struck Mexico City, it was heavily damaged. In the 1990s, restoration work has brought the building back to original construction and appearance.
History
Two service windows upon entering the Palacio de Correos from the main entrance.
In 1901, the Dirección General de Correos (General Direction of Mail) was made a separate government agency. Before, it has been an administrative division of the Ministry of Communications and Transportation. It was then decided that this function should have its own building, in part due to the volume of mail being handled annually at that time, which was about 130 million pieces. The Italian architect Adamo Boari was chosen for the project. The design is eclectic, yet Boari's design pulls the various styles used together. The military engineer Gonzalo Garita y Frontera supervised the construction. The site chosen was the old Hospital of Terceros Franciscanos, which was demolished in 1902. The foundation laid was a new technique called "Chicago" consisting of a concrete slab with a thickness of 70 cm reinforced with steel beams. This foundation was mostly constructed in New York, by the Millinken Brothers and shipped to Mexico in 1903. The first stone of the building was placed on 14 September 1902, and work on the building lasted for another five years. In 1907, the building was inaugurated by then president of Mexico, Porfirio Diaz, who, in a symbolic act, dropped two postcards into the receiving bin, one addressed to a location in Mexico City, and one addressed to a different locale in the country. For some time after it was built, this palace was also called the Quinta Casa de Correos (Fifth House of Mail), since it was the fifth building to house postal services in Mexico City.
The building has remained in continuous operation as a post office since 1907. However, in the 1950s, the growing economy forced the Bank of Mexico next door to occupy a large section of the Palacio de Correos, for this reason, two bridges were built to connect the Palacio with the Bank of Mexico building. Modifications for the Bank destroyed much of the decoration elements that were originally in this section. They also added greatly to the weight of the building and have overloaded the steel structure. This would cause damage to the building, along with the 1985 Mexico City earthquake.
Description
Frontal view of the central stairs.
Its architectural style is highly eclectic, with the building being classed as Art Nouveau, Spanish Renaissance Revival, Plateresque, Spanish Rococo style, Elizabethan Gothic, Elizabethan Plateresque and Venetian Gothic Revival and/or a mixture of each. The building also has Moorish, Neoclassical, Baroque and Art Deco elements. There is also a mix of materials and design elements from Europe and Mexico. The palace contains ornaments of marble, plaster of paris and white "cantera" stone from Puebla.
The building has a steel frame and a foundation built on an enormous grid of steel beams, which has allowed it to withstand a number of earthquakes and has avoided the subsidence problem that plagues many buildings here.
The post office is made with a very light-colored, almost translucent variety of a stone called "chiluca." The exterior is covered in decorative details such as iron dragon light fixtures and intricately carved stone around the windows and the edge of the roof. Much of the metal work around the windows and other parts of the facade highly polished brass, which was made in Italy. An example of the building's complicated design is that each of the floors has windows of a different architectural style. The facade's unity is kept through the repetition of arches. The main entrance has a large ironwork canopy which is typical of the Art Nouveau that was fashionable in the early 20th century. The gallery on the fourth floor consists of slender Solomonic columns and a filigree cresting that surrounds the entire building.
Inside, the marble floors and shelves combine with bronze and iron window frames manufactured in Florence, Italy. The main stairway is characterized by two separate ramps that come together to form a landing. They also seem to cross on the second landing above, after which each move off in their own direction. The meeting room contains frescos by Bartolomé Gallotti painted over a base of 24 carat gold, with themes relating to the history of written communication and the sending of messages.
Postal Palace.
From the 1950s to the 1980s, the Bank of Mexico located next door on Madero Street, occupied a large section of the Palacio. The Bank made extensive modifications to its portion of the building, such as security walls, roofing the open-air terraces and the like that added a great deal of weight and stress to the steel-beam building. This in and of itself caused damage to the building, but when the 1985 earthquake struck Mexico City, this damage was made far worse. The earthquake also severely damaged or destroy a number of buildings nearby, so when city reconstruction efforts began, the Bank decided to move out of the Palacio and build new structures nearby to house their extra offices. The building was declared an Artistic Monument on 4 May 1987, due to its beauty and history, and restoration efforts were begun in the 1990s. These efforts were significantly helped by the large number of graphic representations of the structure as it originally appeared and other documents kept by the National Archives. They were also able to locate the architect's daughter in Italy, who donated her father's plans and notes from the project. These can now be seen at the National Museum of Architecture, in the Palacio de Bellas Artes.
Restoration began with the structure of the building, repairing and reinforcing the columns and steel beams damaged by the earthquake. Next came the removal of the weight added to the building by the projects done by the Bank of Mexico, restoring the floors to their original weight and construction design. Last done, was the reconstruction of the interiors that had been greatly modified and with most of the original decorative elements destroyed. For this aspect of the work, Boari's plans and notes proved invaluable. The restoration project also allowed for the technological upgrading of services.