Morfogénesis de una ciudad turística: los lenguajes arquitectónicos desde el imaginario internacional de lo mexicano

Abstract

The tourist cities intend to recreate the international imaginaries about certain cultures, adapting to the given expectations of the visiting place. The imaginaries are the social reality built by the citizens. Through them, people seize and explain their perceptions on others, on events and relationships, and as well as on objects. In the emerging cities of tourism, the building up of equipment, public as well as private, ignores the preexisting city. Cultural local experiences are left aside to prepare an optimal scenario that would make the place attractive for the foreign visitors. In this sense, the cultural references for “the Mexican” are captured trough architecture. They take elements from different regions and different historical momentums, according to the international imaginary. These architectural languages works as an authenticity reference for space, validating the tourist experience. The objective of this paper is to throw light on the origin of architectural forms –the morphogenesis- in an emerging tourist city. We will look at the urban and architectural languages, as well as the connexion that the exhibit designs keep towards the Mexican culture international imaginary. In order to do so, we will take advantage of the itineraries the tourists follow to get to the tourist developments, of the images exposed in specific places, and of the tourists account of their experiences. Our means of access will be the real images (taken by the author of this paper) and those collected in web sites of hotel chains and personal tourist journals (blogs). With these instruments we intend to associate the place plastic languages with those derived from international imaginaries on the Mexican culture. As an example we take into account to points of view: the real estate promoter’s and the tourist’s. The case of study is Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, a city that has suffered a tough switch to the tourist activities within the last ten years, and of which its real-estate growth represents an emblematic case in the Mexican northwest. Bringing forward a brief conclusion, it can be pointed out that the array of images and the port design achieve the paradoxical function settle themselves on the traveller’s memory (creating a memorable and singular city), and at the same time they authenticate the tourist experience. In other words, these images are consistent with the imaginary that the tourists have formed even before they began their tour. This recreation of the images is accessible through the stories of other travellers or trough the speech of realestate promoters (realties), both of which available with a single “clic”.On other side, the references seek by the tourist realties are attached to the antique Mexican architecture: the pre-Hispanic cultures, the haciendas and the colonial period, that have very few or nothing to do with the regional environment of Puerto Peñasco. However, that array allows the creation of an "ideal" environment, expected by the tourist to approach to the Mexican culture. Finally, contrasting the point of view of a traveller and a real-estate promoter, we will expose the desired city and the fictional city. In this way, we will approach to the "real city", which now seems the copy of the other two.