By the Forest of San Juan de Aragón, on the northeast edge of Mexico City, stands an architectural complex of one-story buildings, framed by a white fence, always closed and guarded by a watchman in a black uniform. This complex and the neighboring forest are only a few blocks away from the Benito Juárez Airport. The airplanes that take off and land every few minutes feel very near, flying at such low altitudes. Inside one of these buildings there’s an archive containing the documented history of the now desiccated Lake Texcoco: a small, low-ceiling hall, with a few wooden shelves holding binders lined in burgundy leather, along with a few thin-paged, softcover books. The wooden furniture is covered by a thin layer of dust, and a smell of old paper and humidity. The National Water Commission (Conagua), the government entity in charge of every matter regarding the (former) lake, occasionally publishes an illustrated journal that describes the developments of certain infrastructural projects which have been completed in some areas of the desertified lacustrine land: the planting of fruit trees; the details of a new water well; the innovations of the landfill site and how it transforms garbage into fertilizer for a fertile land in the future. [...]
Archive
in ENCYCLOPEDIA