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VERKAUF UND PRÄSENTATION • RETAIL AND PRESENTATION INNERE WERTE • INNER VALUES

Einladend empfängt das Milán 44 seine Gäste. • Milán 44 welcomes its visitors invitingly. Markt-Restaurant Ojo de Agua von Casa Villana. • Ojo de Agua market restaurant designed by Casa Villana.

B arrio Abarotes Comida – neighbourhood, groceries, restaurants – is written on won numerous prizes and is a graduate from New York’s Columbia University, more
the façade in large letters and visible from a distance. On four storeys plus a
and more focuses on local and social projects in his home country and considers
roof terrace, this is where a mainly young and young-at-heart crowd goes to shop his profession to be a tool for promoting social development through architecture.
and eat out. Milán 44 is the name of the hip new contact point completed this year Together with Julio Amezcua, with whom he has been running the AT103 office for
in the Colonia Juárez municipality west of the historic old part of Mexico City. The 16 years, he planned to turn the outdated construction into an urban component
district is situated at an interface of two totally contrasting districts. On one side is which is able to contribute to the modernization of the district. The architects unco-
Mexico City’s booming economic centre with its numerous banks, offices, embas- vered the exposed-concrete structure of the warehouse and made the regular raster
sies, the stock exchange as well as upscale hotels and restaurants. On the other of the supports and beams the main characteristic of Milán 44. The blind façades
side, the Roma Norte district is the lively epicentre of the hipster subculture of have disappeared and the false skin as well. The four levels of the corner house
Mexico City. For some time now, this area, which since the earthquake in 1985 had have a two-storey food market, several restaurants and numerous small stores,
been suffering from continuous decline, is being revived step by step. The Milán 44 among them also a hair salon and a yoga studio. Un lugar para todos – a place for
complex located at the street corner Roma/ Milán and designed by Francisco Pardo everyone – is written in large letters on the open main staircase. And Milán 44 has
and Julio Amezcua also brings new life to the neighbourhood. Already at first glan- indeed become a lively new public space. Inside, an urban-relaxed atmosphere
ce, the four-storey, reinforced-concrete skeleton structure completely filled with reigns, not chic and expensive, but hip and cool as well as simple but with high-
glass and its roof garden look very inviting and open. That the two architects did a quality materials. For the restaurants and the stores, the architects designed the
great job is proved by looking at the photographs of the original building. The cor- same, variable system of stalls which guarantees unity in diversity and a harmonio-
ner house built around 1900 was formerly a warehouse for car parts and electrical us and consistent look. The stalls and the displays were made of concrete, untrea-
appliances. With its garage doors on the ground floor and the extensively closed ted plywood, wooden slats and slender steel profiles. When food products, flowers
façades on the upper levels, the building in the end made an extremely forbidding, and cosmetics are added to this shop system, a vibrant overall appearance results.
run-down impression. ReUrbano realized the building’s potential. The project-deve- The only dash of colour is the green-yellow staircase which is open towards the
loping company based in Mexico City by no means stands for a kind of anonymous street. Easy to find, it provides access to all the levels up to the roof terrace. This is
investors’ architecture but for the revitalization of city districts with individual, where there is a buzz of activity in the evenings. For the residents of the district, it
authentic renovation projects. In Francisco Pardo and his colleague Julio Amezcua, is a welcome venue for ordering an after-work beer from the bar and enjoying the
ReUrbano had found suitable architects for their project. Francisco Pardo, who has view – and a strong contrast to the business district within sight.

Das Stahlbetonskelett ist heute mit Glas ausgefacht. • The skeleton structure is now completely filled with glass. Zustand des Warenlagers vor der Revitalisierung • Condition of the warehouse before the revitalization

134 • AIT 9.2017