Abraham Zabludovsky (born Abraham Zabludowski Kraveski; June 14, 1924 – April 10, 2003) was a Mexican

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

. He was the brother of the well known journalist

Jacobo Zabludovsky Jacobo Zabludovsky Kraveski (May 24, 1928 – July 2, 2015) was a Mexican journalist. He was the first anchorman in Mexican television and his TV news program, ''24 Horas'' (''24 Hours'') was for decades regarded as the most important in the cou ...

. Abraham Zabludovsky was born in Białystok,

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

. He studied at the

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México The National Autonomous University of Mexico ( es, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM) is a public research university in Mexico. It is consistently ranked as one of the best universities in Latin America, where it's also the bigges ...

, graduating in 1949. In his early years he produced a large number of outstanding residential buildings and offices in Mexico City, making rigorous use of the International style and demonstrating an impeccable handling of contemporary design, techniques and materials. Also notable from this period was the Centro Cívico Cinco de Mayo (1962), Puebla, on which he collaborated with Guillermo Rossell. In 1968 Zabludovsky began working in collaboration with

Teodoro González de León Teodoro González de León (May 29, 1926 – September 16, 2016) was a Mexican architect. Biography González de León studied at the Escuela Nacional de Arquitectura of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) from 1942 to 19 ...

, although the two architects continued to work on some projects individually and retained their separate stylistic identities. Their collaborative work was remarkable for its quality and maturity, establishing functional and formal solutions that were later widely imitated. Clear examples of their characteristic proposals for constructions of massive, linear volume are the Delegación Cuauhtémoc (1972–3; with Jaime Ortiz Monasterio (b 1928) and Luis Antonio Zapiain (b 1942)), the headquarters of

INFONAVIT The Institute of the National Housing Fund for Workers (Spanish: ''Instituto del Fondo Nacional de la Vivienda para los Trabajadores''; ''INFONAVIT'') is the Mexican federal institute for worker's housing, founded in 1972, and located at Barranca ...

(Instituto del Fondo Nacional de la Vivienda para los Trabajadores, completed 1975) and the new building for the Colegio de México (1974–5; see MEXICO, fig. 7), all in Mexico City. Zabludovsky also carried out a number of works individually in the same style. Outstanding among these was the Centro Cultural Emilio O. Rabasa (1983),

Tuxtla Gutiérrez Tuxtla Gutiérrez (, ) is the capital and the largest city of the Mexican southeastern state of Chiapas. It is the seat of the municipality of the same name, the most developed and populated in the state. A busy government, commercial and servic ...

, Chiapas, a construction with sculptural aspects that manages faithfully to fulfil the need for both theatricality and

diffusion Diffusion is the net movement of anything (for example, atoms, ions, molecules, energy) generally from a region of higher concentration to a region of lower concentration. Diffusion is driven by a gradient in Gibbs free energy or chemica ...

. He also designed two multipurpose auditoriums in

Celaya Celaya (; ) is a city and its surrounding municipality in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico, located in the southeast quadrant of the state. It is the third most populous city in the state, with a 2005 census population of 310,413. The municipality ...

and

Dolores Hidalgo Dolores Hidalgo (; in full, Dolores Hidalgo Cuna de la Independencia Nacional, en, Dolores Hidalgo Birthplace of exicanNational Independence) is the name of a city and the surrounding municipality in the north-central part of the Mexican state o ...

, Guanajuato (1990), two theatres in

Guanajuato, Guanajuato Guanajuato () is a city and municipal seat of the municipality of Guanajuato in central Mexico and the capital of the state of the same name. It is part of the macroregion of the Bajío. It is in a narrow valley, which makes its streets narrow a ...

, and

Aguascalientes, Aguascalientes (''Virtue in the Water, Fidelity in the Heart'') , image_skyline = AGUASCALIENTES CITY.jpg , imagesize = , image_caption = Clockwise from top: San Antonio de Padua Church, La Exedra (main square), Aguascal ...

(1991), and a convention centre in

, Chiapas (1994).''Fallece Abraham Zabludovsky (1924–2003)''
arquiRED, Reservados Todos los Derechos (Spanish)''Abraham Zabludovsky (1924–2003)''
epdlp.com (Spanish) He died of a heart attack in

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital city, capital and primate city, largest city of Mexico, and the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North Amer ...

on April 10, 2003, aged 78.

Awards

* Professor Emeritus of the Mexican National Academy of Architecture * Honorary member of The American Institute of Architects * Professor Emeritus of the

International Academy of Architecture The International Academy of Architecture - ''a non-profit-making company for performing activities for private benefit'' (IAA, bg, Международна архитектурна академия) is a non-governmental and non-profit organizat ...

in Sofia, Bulgaria * Gold Medal at the International Architecture Biennial in Sofia, Bulgaria * Latin American Grand Prix at the Buenos Aires Biennial * Honorary mention at the Third International Architecture Biennial in Brazil * VITRUVIO Award for outstanding achievements in the creation and fomenting of culture

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zabludovsky, Abraham Modernist architects from Mexico 1924 births 2003 deaths Architects from Mexico City Architecture firms of Mexico Jewish architects Mexican Jews Mexican people of Polish-Jewish descent Polish emigrants to Mexico People from Białystok National Autonomous University of Mexico alumni 20th-century Polish architects 20th-century Mexican architects 21st-century Mexican architects