Oaxaca City

For the past four months Oaxaca’s historic city centre – a world heritage site – has played host to a bizarre guessing game involving the new Governor’s plans for the city’s main square - the zócalo - and bewildered locals and tourists.

The corrugated metal fencing that had shrouded building work has now come down, and with it the children’s drawings, poems and protest banners.

Ron Mader of Planeta.com has kept a photographic record of the zócalo during the renovation work.

View zócalo images as a slideshow

Zócalo, Oaxaca – 1 August 2005  photo: Ron Mader

Ron’s latest photos were taken on Monday from the upstairs balcony at the Casa de la Abuela restaurant, overlooking the northwest corner of the zócalo.

Oaxaqueños have begun to reacquaint themselves with this historic public space. Squinting, they search for a shady spot (there is now much less of it) for a natter a cooling paleta.

The laying of new cantera stone paving is now almost complete. Landscaping of the gardens that surround the existing kiosko, fountains and sculptures is underway. The cast iron benches have been manoevered back into position in the now stark ‘modernised’ square.

The tourists still come. Following a reader survey, the August issue of Travel + Leisure magazine names the city of  Oaxaca the ninth best city in the world.

Maybe time will heal the wounds.

The main plaza – or zócalo - has been the spirited heart of Oaxaca for almost five hundred years, since the city was first mapped out by Alonso Garcia Bravo early in the sixteenth century.

Then imagine everyone’s surprise when a fortnight ago workmen began jackhammering out the paved walking areas, removing all the grass and gutting the flowerbeds as part of a grand “re-design”. The Alameda (an adjacent plaza) and the atrium of the nearby cathedral are also affected.

As the dust began to settle, surprise quickly turned to alarm as the sheer scale of the project became clear to the Unconsulted. To any observer, the visual impact is striking.  

The canopy of towering Indian laurel trees that shade the plaza is still there, although there is some confusion as to its eventual fate. The roots of one specimen were hacked so severely that it toppled onto the Palacio del Gobierno.

The exact nature of the re-development remain somewhat of a mystery. Some reports suggest the previously shady and lush plaza will go the same way as the rather austere garden that fronts the Dominican church of Santo Domingo five blocks north of the zócalo on Calle Alcalá. Others say the changes will be slight.

“What bothered Oaxaqueños was that the first public meeting took place the day the bulldozers arrived,” Ron Mader told me. “The developers underestimated the affection Oaxaqueños have for the endearing, albeit non-endemic, Indian laurel trees.”

Ron will be continually updating his zócalo page during the work, which is scheduled to finish in time for the Guelaguetza festival in July. Locals are more sceptical; even some workmen on the project were overheard to suggest December’s Noche de Rabanos as a more likely completion date.

The authorities seem to have been unprepared for the largely stinging reaction from residents and startled tourists. Work was temporarily halted this week, pending an inspection by officials from the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH).

Whatever is in store for the zócalo, city planners appear not to have understood that public space isn’t something that is simply created on the architect’s drawing board, but develops over time as a result of the interaction of complex social and commercial relationships – none more so than in Oaxaca’s main plaza – for centuries a focal point where people of different cultures have intermingled.

Check out Ron’s Planeta.com website, which also features a very handy guide to 30+ Things to do in Oaxaca.

Ocotlán – Convento – Rodolfo Morales

Spring has arrived in Oaxaca and the wonderful purple trumpet blossoms of the jacarandas have been out for a couple of weeks. 

Appropriate then for Oscar Carrizosa to get in touch this week and ask me to mention this year’s Spring Festival, which runs from 20-27 March with a varied programme of art exhibitions and classical music.

The festival began in 1982 at the initiative of then Governor Pedro Vázquez Colmenares, for the celebration of the 450th. anniversary of the founding of the city of Oaxaca. But after the sudden death of the great painter from Ocotlán, Rodolfo Morales in 2001, his name was added.

Festival website.

Thanks to Larry Miller for allowing me to use this photo of the restored convento complex in Ocotlán.

Stephanie Mills has emailed this to me. Captured on a balcony overlooking Calle Alcala in Oaxaca.

The calavera (a typical Mexican skeletal figure) holds a heart bearing the inscription “Amor Mio… Sube… Abrazame” (“My love, come up, embrace me”).

The Christmas event in Oaxaca is the unusual Noche de Rábanos, which takes place on 23 December.

Artisans carve tableaux from giant radishes for kudos and a prize of $12,000 pesos (about £550 or $1,065 US dollars).

Check out the photos on the website of the Oaxaca state tourism office (in Spanish).

Oaxaca is the place to be over the coming days. The Guelaguetza – also known as Lunes del Cerro (“Mondays of the Hill”) is a wonderful spectacle of music and dance, and one of the most colourful celebrations in the Americas. As always, this year’s festivities take place on consecutive Mondays – 19th and 26th July.

The streets of Oaxaca will be the place to be next week. The Guelaguetza – also known as Lunes del Cerro (“Mondays of the Hill”) is a wonderful spectacle of music and dance, and one of the most colourful celebrations in the Americas. As always, this year’s festivities take place on consecutive Mondays – 21st and 28th July.
Photo: courtesy Ron Mader