Torres de Ciudad Satélite

The Torres de Ciudad Satélite, (The Satellite City Towers) is a 1958 sculptural work. An ensemble of five triangular prisms, their varying colors and heights present a “City Scape” on the the Periferico highway in the Ciudad Satélite.

The work was the collaboration between sculptor Mathias Goeritz and the architect Luis Barragán. The painter Chucho Reyes Ferreira advised on color. Originally, the work was to include seven towers with the highest at 200 meters tall. Two were later eliminated from the plan, and the tallest is 52 meters high. The shortest stands at 30 meters.

• The Ciudad Satélite is a residential suburb in Naucalpan de Juárez, in Mexico State. A master plan was conceived of by architect Mario Pani and the artist, José Luis Cuevas in 1954. It was among the most ambitious urban planning projects of its time. Urban sprawl soon engulfed the self-contained “city” and it came to include many surrounding communities.

Goeritz originally planned all of the towers in varying shades of orange. Builders and businessmen are said to have convinced him to vary the tones and this was done in consultation with Chucho Reyes. Prior to the 1968 Olympics, the towers were painted orange and they remained that way until 1974.

Goeritz and Barragán had separately traveled to San Gimignano in Italy in the early 1950s, and the towers there are thought to have influenced the work. Some historians have also noted Goeritz’s interest in “emotional architecture” when discussing the project.

For the work’s 50th anniversary in 2008, the Naucalpan municipality entirely restored the work. They also installed architectural lighting.