World Monuments Fund
The Ruta de la Amistad, a series of enormous sculptures by international artists that dot a 10-mile path through southern Mexico City, has been neglected since it was created to celebrate the 1968 Olympics and was named to the World Monuments Fund's 2012 Watch List.
Along with Peru's Nasca geoglyphs, the floating villages of Vietnam's Ha Long Bay and England's modern Brutalist architecture, a colonial-era bridge in Oaxaca and a modern outdoor sculpture museum built to celebrate the 1968 Mexico City Olympics have landed Mexico once again on the World Monuments Fund's Watch List for 2012, announced Oct. 5.
It's a dubious honor — the Watch List sounds the alarm for worldwide cultural and historical sites whose days appear to be numbered. But in drawing international attention to endangered places, the WMF often manages to raise funds and other forms of support for archaeological sites, public architecture, historical buildings and religious buildings in danger of extinction. This year's Watch List, which the 46-year-old nonprofit compiles every other year, brings Mexico's
total number of sites to 32.
Mexico's 2012 sites
The 450-year-old
Colonial Bridge of Tequixtepec (Oaxaca) is a remnant of a prosperous cultural and economic center in what is now a remote area in the Oaxaca mountains. In the mid- to late 16th century, the majestic arch of volcanic rock and other local stone was the conduit for obsidian, quetzal feathers, cacao, textiles and ceramics between Coixtlahuaca and Tequixtepec. It was part of the now mostly obliterated Ruta Dominicana, which linked the region's Dominican convents. But as Tequixtepec's population has dwindled from 30,000 in the 1700s to just over 900 in 2005, economic resources that might have preserved the bridge have dried up as well. Frequent flash floods have battered the bridge to the point of collapse.
Mexico City's
Ruta de la Amistad (Friendship Route) consists of 22 sculptures as much as 72 feet high that were commissioned in connection with the 1968 Olympics, which marked Mexico's growing sense of internationalism. Artists from five continents, including Alexander Calder and Itzhak Danziger, contributed pieces that stretched more than 10 miles through a valley in the city's southern reaches. Over the years, the city has grown up around the route, which is now a major traffic corridor where an elevated toll road is under consideration, and individual sculptures are threatened. Since distance and traffic make it hard to get from one sculpture to another, they are now treated individually as community art. Local efforts have rescued 17 sculptures, and advocates are trying to muster resources to finish the other five and re-establish the route as a major cultural corridor.
Mexico's accumulation of Watch List sites range from major Mexico City landmarks and well-known archaeological sites such as
Teotihuacan (Distrito Federal) and
Monte Albán (Oaxaca) to small pilgrimage churches, convents, cave dwellings, the surrealist landscape at
Las Pozas and a communal neighborhood in
Veracruz (Veracruz). Some have seen their fortunes turn around after being named to the list, while others remain in dire need.
Success stories
Acueducto de Tembleque, Zempoala (Hidalgo) to Otumba (Mexico). North America's greatest hydraulic engineering feat of the 16th century rises to 125 feet over about 10 miles of farms, ravines, cities and pre-Hispanic ruins in rocky central Mexico. The stone aqueduct was built from 1543 to 1560 to carry water through a polished stone channel between the two cities. Conservation efforts to combat erosion and vandalism focus on restoring the complex system of tanks, water coffers and troughs to continue providing water to local communities. Since its listing two years ago, the government has committed funds to restore more than a half-mile of the aqueduct and develop a conservation master plan for the rest.
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