La vigilancia de la frontera norte de México en las décadas de 1920 y 1930: Los proyectos de la SCOP para puertas, aduanas y garitas

Abstract

In the 1933 year, the architect Roberto Álvarez Espinosa – Chief of the Buildings Department at the Communications and Public Works Ministry (Secretaría de Comunicaciones y Obras Públicas, SCOP) –, presented to his superiors bosses the result of two decades of inspections, studies and projects to solve the infrastructure requirements of the border with United States of America. The Programa para la Construcción de Palacios Federales y Aduanas en las Ciudades de la Frontera Norte del País y Puertos (PCPFA) proposed the erection of buildings for the surveillance and control of people and merchandise flows, in 24 towns and cities of the dividing line. Through a preliminary study of the numerous files, architectural projects and urban plans that were formulated, today it is possible to discuss the Mexican State’s way to conceive, literally, the building of its most populated border. An exam of the reasoning of several commissions with capacity to build – dependent on the Tax Authority and Public Credit Ministry (Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público, SHCP), the External Affairs Ministry (Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, SRE), and the SCOP – reveals the meaning of surveillance in relation to vehicular and pedestrian mobility, the concentration of inspection offices and the conception of entry gates to the country, all as a goal of a borderization process that had started eight decades before.