Mario Pani

Mario Pani Darqui (March 29, 1911 – February 23, 1993) was a Mexican architect and urbanist. He was one of the most active urbanists under the Mexican Miracle, and gave form to a good part of the urban appearance of Mexico City, with emblematic buildings (nowadays characteristic of Mexico City), such as the main campus of the UNAM, the Unidad Habitacional Nonoalco-Tlatelolco (following Le Corbusier's urban principles), the Normal School of Teachers (Mexico), the National Conservatory of Music and other big housing projects called multifamiliares.

Early life and education

Mario Pani Darqui was born on March 29, 1911, in Mexico City, and moved to Europe in early childhood. His parents were Dolores Darqui and Arturo Pani–Arteaga.

Pani attended the Marist College, a Marist Brothers Catholic school in Genoa, Italy for three years (now Istituto Champagnat, Genoa); followed study at San Carlo College (Collegio San Carlo) in Milan, Italy; and the Lycée Janson-de-Sailly secondary school in Paris for four years. Pani continued his education at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris for six years.

Career

In 1938, he began the journal Arquitectura Mexico, which was published until 1979. He introduced the International Style in Mexico, and was the first promoter of big housing Tower block projects. Pani was a great innovator of the urban design of Mexico City, and was involved in the construction of some of its newer parts, developing or participating in the more ambitious and important city-developing plans of the 20th century in Mexico, like Ciudad Satélite (along with Domingo Garcia Ramos and Jose Luis Cuevas), Tlatelolco, the Juárez and Miguel Alemán tower blocks, and the condominium in Paseo de la Reforma, the first of its type in Mexico.

He would found the National College of Architects (Mexico) in 1946.