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Industrial complex of the textile factory La Constancia Mexicana and its housing area

Property names are listed in the language in which they have been submitted by the State Party.

Mexico (Latin America and the Caribbean)

Date of Submission: 06/12/2004
Criteria: (ii)(iv)
Category: Cultural
Submission prepared by:
World Heritage Office (INAH) Mexico's National Commission for UNESCO (CONALMEX) Puebla 95, Col. R
Coordinates:
19° 05' 32'' N 98° 14'03'' W
Ref.: 1961

Description

In 1835, Esteban de Antuñano inaugurated the first textile factory in Latin America that used automatic machinery to manufacture fabrics: La Constancia Mexicana. This factory, located nine kilometers away from downtown Puebla, widely reflected the introduction of modern European ideas corresponding to the second stage of development of industrial capitalism within the XIX century Latin American industry.



The factory was built within the Santo Domingo Hacienda through which the Atoyac River flows and it also had a waterfall called “Alquilaque”, the river current was used to drive the mill and to water the land. The hacienda already had an important hydraulic infrastructure because there was a reservoir, waterways to irrigate the land and a clean water aqueduct. This factory did not only introduce the use of machinery, but also a new architectonic style.



La Constancia had several departments of different dimensions. In addition to those used for production, it had a spare part warehouse, a power substation, an area for two boilers, and an area where the mechanical and the carpentry workshops were; there was also a room that was used as an emergency power generation plant. Most of the rooms had stone-walls plastered with lime, some had cement floors, and others were covered with flat stones or with carved paving stones.



Between 1905 and 1909 warehouses to store raw materials and products were added. Its façade was changed giving it a modern appearance, a style characteristic during that period. There were wide corridors and a big garden in the inside patio where housing for the managers and their families was provided. Outside, in the biggest patio, housing areas for the workers were built, these included a chapel –inaugurated by Antonio Couttolenc in 1897–, and a school; all of these made up a huge architectonical complex; the factory was 360 meters long from northeast to south and 320 meters wide from east to west.



Floors in the new areas were covered with tiles, the old departments had a Catalan vault; others were built with brick vaults, and the most recent were made of grooved sheets on iron beams. Roofs, in general, were stable and the rooms were well ventilated and skylights were used to let light in. It also had a fire-fighting system that consisted of a pipe net with two-inch hydrants and numerous portable extinguishers. The location of the different departments did not follow the order of the productive process, yet it was adapted to the needs of the driving power.



The Barbaroux family bought the company at the beginning of the 1930’s and some areas were then enlarged. The school was remodeled and made bigger, and one of the rooms was turned into a doctor’s office with an area to take care of the wounded. Miguel Barbaroux, the last owner, turned La Constancia Mexicana over to the workers in 1972; the plot’s surface was then 69,600 square meters, and it was bounded on the east by the Puebla industrial railroad on its route to the El Valor factory, on the west and on the north by the Santo Domingo Hacienda and on the south by the Puebla–Tlaxcala Royal Road.



The factory and the housing areas for the workers make up an architectonical unit that resembles a fortress with its main façade facing south. The complex consists of two square patios; in the first, we find the church and three rows of houses, of which some have their entrance facing the patio and the others, back to back, open directly into the street, these were the houses for the general workers. The second patio follows the first only divided by a central hallway, here there were fourteen houses for specialized workers and for high hierarchy employees.



The complex for the workers included different types of houses; those of the lowest category had only one room and were in the perimeter of the main complex, they formed continuous rows and shared communal services (the laundry area and the water closets). In the first patio, there were two room houses that were better lighted; in the second patio, close to the factory, there were bigger houses with their own services. The walls were made of stone with red brick openings for the doors and windows, with a mortar surface finish outside and inside. The houses had no running water, but outside there was drinking water that came from the Atoyac River through an aqueduct with steel columns and a tin upper canal.



The main façade consists of a central entrance that breaks up a 15-house row. At both ends, there are turrets used to guard the complex, and there were loopholes all along the frieze. These elements evidence the strict surveillance conditions that prevailed in the complex.



The houses have a moderate level of preservation and they suffered some changes, mainly, opening doors to join two inside rooms, or opening windows to improve lightning, without losing proportion or style. Thus, it can be considered that La Constancia Mexicana is the first sample of nineteenth century industrial architecture worked on stone and metal in Latin America.



This factory was definitely closed in 1991, and through an initiative of the governor of Puebla Melquíades Morales, it was bought in 2001 to be used as an education and artistic training center, and as a museum dedicated to the historical memory of the textile industry in Puebla.