The Monument to the Revolution () is a memorial arch commemorating the Mexican Revolution. It is located in the Plaza de la República, near the heart of the major thoroughfares Paseo de la Reforma and Avenida de los Insurgentes in downtown Mexico City. It is the tallest triumphal arch in the world, standing 67 m (220 ft) high.
History
Legislative building The building was initially planned as the Palacio Legislativo Federal (Federal Legislative Palace) during the regime of president Porfirio Díaz and "was intended as the unequaled monument to Porfirian glory." The building would hold the congressional chambers of the deputies and senators, but the project was not finished due to the Mexican Revolution.
Porfirio Díaz appointed a French architect, Émile Bénard to design and construct the structure, a neoclassical design with "characteristic touches of the French renaissance,"Benjamin, La Revolución, p. 121. showing government officials' aim to demonstrate Mexico's rightful place as an advanced nation. Díaz laid the first stone in 1910 during the centennial celebrations of Independence, when Díaz also inaugurated the Monument to Mexican Independence ("The Angel of Independence"). The internal structure was made of iron, and rather than using local Mexican materials in the stone façade, the design called for Italian marble and Norwegian granite. The Díaz regime was ousted in May 1911, but President Francisco I. Madero continued the project until his murder in 1913. After Madero's death, the project was cancelled and abandoned.
Monument The structure remained unfinished for twenty-five years, until the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas,Vuelta, Jacobo Dale Vuelta (12 September 1937). "Está concluido el Monumento a la Revolución," El Universal. Mexico City. when Mexican architect Carlos Obregón Santacilia proposed converting the abandoned shell of the dome into a monument to the heroes of the Mexican Revolution. After this was approved, the structure began its eclectic Art Deco and Mexican socialist realism conversion, building over the existing cupola structure.Obregón Santacilio, Carlos. El Monumento a la Revolución: Simbolismo e historia. Mexico: Secretaría de Educación Pública 1960.Garay Arrelleno, Graciela de. La obra de Carlos Obregón Santacilia, Arquitecto. Mexico: SEP/INBA 1979. Mexican sculptor Oliverio Martínez designed four stone sculpture groups for the monument,Benjamin, La Revolución, p. 89, Figure 8 with caption. with Francisco Zúñiga as one of his assistants. Work was completed in 1938.
The structure also functions as a mausoleum for some of the key figures of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, namely Francisco I. Madero, Francisco "Pancho" Villa, Venustiano Carranza, Plutarco Elías Calles, and Lázaro Cárdenas. Pancho Villa is the only internment who did not serve as a president of Mexico. Notably, revolutionary general Emiliano Zapata is not buried in the monument, but rather in Cuautla in his home state of Morelos, as the Zapata family has resisted the Mexican government's efforts to relocate Zapata's remains to the monument. Carranza ordered the ambush that killed Emiliano Zapata.
During the Mexican Revolution, Venustiano Carranza and Pancho Villa bitterly fought against one another, Plutarco Elías Calles hated Villa and likely ordered Villa's assassination,Katz, The Life and Times of Pancho Villa, pp. 765–766 and Lázaro Cárdenas had Calles exiled. The irony of all these men, who hated each other in life, being buried together has been noted, as part of the effort of the state to "unify" the Revolution into a single myth.
Burials in the Monumento a la Revolución Political parties
PortraitNameElectedTerm of officePolitical partyNotes Took office Left office Tenure Francisco I. Madero 1911 6 November 1911 19 February 1913 Progressive Constitutionalist Party Francisco "Pancho" Villa — Supreme Commander of the División del Norte Unaffiliated 29 September 1913 29 July 1920 — Interim Governor of Chihuahua 8 December 1913 7 January 1914 Venustiano Carranza — Head of the Executive PowerFirst Chief of the Constitutional Army Liberal Constitutionalist Party 13 August 1914 30 April 1917 1917 President of Mexico 1 May 1917 21 May 1920 Plutarco Elías Calles 1924 1 December 1924 30 November 1928 4 years Laborist Party Lázaro Cárdenas del Río 1934 1 December 1934 30 November 1940 6 years National Revolutionary Party
References
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