Cristobal Colón |
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Paseo de la Reforma and Morelos.
The statue was made in Paris by Charles Henri Joseph Cordier and donated to the city of Mexico by Don Antonio Escandón. The figure of Columbus it is accompanied by the statues in bronze of Fray Juan Pérez, head of the monastery of the Rábida, the friar Dominican Diego Deza, who advocated the project of Columbus, the educational brother Pedro de Gante and brother Bartolomé de las Casas, defender of the Indians. The monument was inaugurated in 1877. |
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Cuauhtémoc |
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Paseo de la Reforma and Insurgentes
On December 5, 1520, Cuauhtémoc turned in tlatoani of Tenochtitlán and defended the city against Hernán Cortés and his Allied Forces, up to the final battle in Tlatelolco, on August 13, 1521. The young commander and other noblemen were caught and tortured; later they remained in prison. During his trip to the Higueras, in Central America, Cortes took Cuauhtemoc with him, whom it made hang in Izancanac (Tabasco). This way the last master of the Mexicans died, on March 5, 1525.
Cuauhtémoc (1502+1525) represents the feeling of a courageous people and the first point of inflection in the history of Mexico and his entry to the stage of a world controlled by the Europeans.
Francisco Jiménez planned and began to construct the monument in 1878 until 1884, when he died. Ramón Agea concluded the work. Miguel Noreña sculpted and melted the statue and he was responsible for the set, with the collaboration of Jesús Contreras, who melted the bronzes and Gabriel Guerra, author of the bas-reliefs who re-treat the torture in the sides north and south of the pedestal. |
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Monumento a la Madre |
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Sullivan street.
In this place next to Reforma Avenue there was the Colonial station of the Mexican Railroad. The monument was constructed in the decade of the 50 of the 20th century by the architect Luis Ortiz Monasterio; the style art déco and he shows a clear nationalistic tendency. The place where it is located is known as Garden of the Art, since for several decades it turned into gallery outdoors, where many painters exhibit and sell his works on weekends. |
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Columna de la Independencia |
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Paseo de la Reforma and Florencia
It was inaugurated in 1910 according to a project of Antonio Rivas Mercado, constructed by Roberto Gayol. The sculptures belong to Enrique Alciati. The base of the monument is quadrangular and in his angles they turn out to be represented the Law, the Justice, the War, and the Peace. They represent also the statues of some heroes of the Independence of Mexico: Morelos, Guerrero, Mina y Bravo.
It measures 36 m high and on top there is the Victoria Alada known as the " Angel ", which has in his hand a crown of laurel. This angel measures 6.7 m, made in bronze and covered of gold weighs seven ton. In the interior part of the column there is a spiral staircase with 200 steps that come up to the lookout placed in the base of the angel.
In the door of the mausoleum is where the crypts are containing the remains of Miguel Hidalgo, José Maria Morelos, Leona Vicario and Andrés Quintana Roo, between other charachters who fought for the independence of Mexico.
In 1957, an earthquake knocked down the angel and damaged the column. A group of technicians restored the monument and sculptor José Fernández Urbina reconstructed the Victoria Alada that fell into pieces. By safety the access to the lookout is not already allowed. |
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Fuente de la Diana |
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Paseo de la Reforma and Río Rin
The most important ornament of this fountain is the sculpture of the Roman goddess Diana the Huntress, work of sculptor Juan Olaguíbel, who made it from April to October, 1942 and melted the bronze of the sculpture in six pieces. His weight is of more than one ton and his height approximately is of 3 m.
The fountain is of quarry, designed by the architect Vicente Mendiola. Nowadays the statue match his original design, with the naked body. There was a time in which it was considered to be immodest and swimming trunks got over it. The face was altered to avoid the similarities with the model. In the street Genova of Zona Rosa there is another version of the same sculpture showing the face of the model. |
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Estatuas de la Reforma |
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The War of Reform (1858-1861) was the crisis of a long clash between conservative and liberal. Defeated militarily, the conservatives propitiated the invasion of Mexico for the Frenchmen (1862) and the imposition of Maximiliano de Habsburgo and his wife Carlota de Bélgica, who in 1864 set as his residence the Castle of Chapultepec.
An old rural way between Chapultepec and Mexico served as base to the engineer Ramón Agea according to the project of the Austrian engineer Bolland, to construct an imperial route, similar to Elysian Fields, in Paris, to communicate Chapultepec with the center of the city.
After restoration of the Republic (1867) it was called Paseo de la Reforma begining its transformation during the porfiriato (1876-1911). From 1894 to 1902, 36 statues of national heroes were placed along Paseo de la Reforma, Jesús F. Contreras being author of 20 of them. Others 16 were created by different artists: Ernesto Scheleske, Federico Homdedeu, Primitive Elevated place, Bald Epitaph, Juan Islas, Enrique Alciati, Gabriel Guerra y Melesio Aguirre. |
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Programas
