Monograph on Railway Architecture - School of Architecture

On August 5, María Angélica Martínez, a professor and researcher at the School of Architecture at the University of Navarra, presented the monograph "National Railroad Station in the City of Durango, 1925–2025" in Mexico.

This is a commemorative publication marking the centennial of this building, considered one of the most representative examples of Mexican railway architecture from the early decades of the 20th century.

Its “ design ” was drawn up by Manuel Ortiz Monasterio Popham (1887–1967) of position , then a young architect in the capital. The “ project,” awarded through a competition, must have been finalized by at least 1917, when the laying of railroad tracks was promoted to meet the region’s growing industrial, commercial, and transportation needs, as well as its connections to the United States.

This monograph brings together a collection of 86 previously unpublished drawings preserved in the Drawing Archive of the National Center for the Preservation of Railway Cultural Heritage (Puebla, Mexico), presented here for the first time as a testament to Ortiz Monasterio’s technical ingenuity and the complexity of a project that integrated various services, becoming a symbol of progress and urban transformation during Mexico’s post-revolutionary period.

“The Useful and the Stable”

The terminal also reflects some of the main professional concerns of Ortiz Monasterio, a pioneer in the “ employment ” of new materials and technologies. In the“Talks on Architecture”(1933) organized by the Society of Architects of Mexico (SAM), Ortiz Monasterio expressed an idea that sheds light on part of his thinking: “In architecture, the path to beauty lies in what is useful and stable.” The terminal is, in fact, an early embodiment of that principle, integrating planning, structural innovation, and aesthetic exploration into one of Mexico’s most elegant and stately train stations.

About the author

Ortiz Monasterio began his professional career in 1913 and subsequently built an outstanding academic and institutional degree program . He was a professor and director at the National School of Architecture, president of the Mexican Society of Architects from 1923 to 1924, and Deputy Director at the National School of Fine Arts in 1926. Among his later works, the National Insurance Company building stands out; constructed between 1930 and 1932, it is considered a milestone in the “ development ” of high-rise architecture in Mexico City.

This book was made possible thanks to the support of the Chilchota Foundation ( ), the institutional seal of the Ministry of Culture (administrative office ), the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) in Mexico, and the University of Navarra's Institute for the Study of the World ( School of Architecture ).