''Puerta 1808'' (Spanish for "Gateway") is an outdoor carbon steel sculpture by

Manuel Felguérez Manuel Felguérez Barra (December 12, 1928June 8, 2020) was a Mexican abstract artist, part of the Generación de la Ruptura that broke with the muralist movement of Diego Rivera and others in the mid 20th century. Early life Felguérez was ...

installed 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 ...

, Mexico. It was inaugurated on 20 October 2007 by

Marcelo Ebrard Marcelo Luis Ebrard Casaubón (; born 10 October 1959) is a Mexican politician who is serving as the Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Mexico. Affiliated with the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) since 2018, he was appointed to lead the f ...

, the head of government, and was placed in the corner of

Paseo de la Reforma Paseo de la Reforma (translated as "Promenade of the Reform") is a wide avenue that runs diagonally across the heart of Mexico City. It was designed at the behest of Emperor Maximilian by Ferdinand von Rosenzweig during the era of the Secon ...

and

Avenida Juárez Avenida Juárez is a street in the Historic Center of Mexico City flanking the south side of the centuries-old Alameda Central park. Originally each block had a different name: *Calle de la Puente de San Francisco between San Juan de Letrán ...

, in

Cuauhtémoc Cuauhtémoc (, ), also known as Cuauhtemotzín, Guatimozín, or Guatémoc, was the Aztec ruler ('' tlatoani'') of Tenochtitlan from 1520 to 1521, making him the last Aztec Emperor. The name Cuauhtemōc means "one who has descended like an eagle ...

. It is a 15 meters (49 feet) high sculpture that lies on a 2 meters (6 ft 7 in) high plinth. The number in its name represents the year 1808 referencing the country's pre-independence events of

1810 Events January–March * January 1 – Major-General Lachlan Macquarie officially becomes Governor of New South Wales. * January 4 – Australian seal hunter Frederick Hasselborough discovers Campbell Island, in the Subantarctic. * Jan ...

. Despite its name, it is an abstract sculpture that is not a traditional gateway-shaped figure. Felguérez said it represents one symbolically as it is the starting point to the

historic center of Mexico City The historic center of Mexico City ( es, Centro Histórico de la Ciudad de México), also known as the Centro or Centro Histórico, is the central neighborhood in Mexico City, Mexico, focused on Zócalo or main plaza and extending in all directio ...

. He also dedicated it to

Francisco Primo de Verdad y Ramos Francisco Primo de Verdad y Ramos (June 9, 1760, Ciénega del Rincón, New Spain – October 4, 1808, Mexico City, New Spain) was a Novohispanic lawyer and politician and a proponent of Mexican independence from Spain. He was imprisoned by th ...

, a New Spain lawyer imprisoned by the Spanish authorities for his independentist advocacy and who died in a prison in 1808. ''Puerta 1808'' was created specifically for the celebrations of the 200th anniversary of the country's independence. The work was complemented with the '' Fuente de la República'' placed a few meters away. Álvaro Medina, from the Durban Segnini Gallery, described the sculpture as a "structure composed of a pair of triangles, the trunk of a cone divided vertically, a pair of

cantilever A cantilever is a rigid structural element that extends horizontally and is supported at only one end. Typically it extends from a flat vertical surface such as a wall, to which it must be firmly attached. Like other structural elements, a cant ...

ed arched beams, a tubular linear beam and a few tensors". Later in his life, Felguérez said about ''Puerta 1808'': "It is a living sculpture: it changes its look in every demonstration; it is colored with the slogans of the nonconformists in turn. And this, far from bothering me or being a grievance for the sculpture, gives it dynamism and validity that will only be exhausted when we live in a fair country and when all social demands have been satisfied. That is to say, never".

References

External links

* {{Public art in Mexico City 2007 establishments in Mexico 2007 sculptures Abstract sculpture Historic center of Mexico City Outdoor sculptures in Mexico City Paseo de la Reforma Steel sculptures in Mexico