Some reflections on the Mexico City Mint building and Luis Díez Navarro

Abstract

This work examines the production of the Spanish

military engineer Luis Díez Navarro (Málaga,

1699–Guatemala, 1780), as an example of eighteenth-

century artistic migration. From Spain, Navarro

brought to the Viceroyalty of New Spain and

the Capitán General of Guatemala a complex

genre: the duo formed by the fusion of military engineering

and architecture. This entailed a new way

of understanding and expressing the imaginary of

metropolitan power in the Hispanic realms. Both

in fortifications (Veracruz), and in administrative

buildings (the Casa de Moneda, or mint, in

Mexico City), Díez Navarro gave a new sense to

the universality of Baroque architecture. It was,

however, his work in the planning of the new capital

of Guatemala, after a series of earthquakes had

destroyed Santiago de los Caballeros in 1773, that

ensured him a fundamental role in the dialectics of

globalization and local identity.