Torre Reforma

Torre Reforma
L. Benjamín Romano, with texts by Felipe Leal, Ali Malkawi and Francisco Serrano, and photographs by Iwan Baan
Arquine, April 2019



Hardcover | 8 x 12 inches | 240 pages | 70 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-6079489434 | $50.00

Publisher's Description:

LBR&Arquitectos, a firm founded in 1976 by Mexican architect Benjamín Romano, designs and builds architecture projects based on four defining principles: sustainability, structure, high technology and artistic integration. The firm is responsible for one of Mexico City’s tallest skyscrapers, the Reforma Tower (2016), built on the corner of Paseo de la Reforma and Río Elba. At 57 stories and 807 feet high, the tower’s delicate silhouette made a striking addition to the city’s skyline.

This book explores the process involved in designing and building the Reforma Tower, narrating how the architects navigated urban regulation in the center of a dense city and considerations of height, circulation, sunlight, wind, ventilation and most importantly, structure (the building is located in a seismic zone). Featuring photographs by Iwan Bann, this volume documents the Reforma Tower project from the first designs to the finished building.

dDAB Commentary:

In 2017, when I was writing How to Build a Skyscraper I went back and forth with the publisher trying to incorporate skyscrapers that I liked, swapping them out with less appealing ones in the list I was given when the publisher hired me. Many of the towers I saw as important and that added diversity to the selection were included, but a few of them weren't, due in part to scarcity of photographs and other readily available documentation at the time. One such tower was Torre Reforma in Mexico City, designed by L. Benjamín Romano and completed one year earlier, in 2016. If I were writing that book today, Torre Reforma would be in there for sure, since this eponymous building monograph published by Arquine provides loads of information and lots of photos on the 56-story office tower at Paseo de la Reforma 483.

I'll admit that when I argued for the inclusion of Torre Reforma in my book, I didn't know much about the building. I was struck by the prismatic form of the building, which changes subtly at each floor and has a tapered top; the exterior materials, concrete on two sides and curtain wall on the bent third side; and the way the tower rises next to and above a historic building. It was only later that I learned how the form of the building relates to its interior spaces, responds to local regulations, actually stands up structurally, and how well the office building performs environmentally. It seems that my instincts were correct, as evidenced by it winning DAM's International Highrise Award 2018.

Devoting a whole book to Torre Reforma means learning the above and many other characteristics of the building in depth. A series of axonometric diagrams is most helpful in understanding the tower's various services and systems (e.g., air flow, vertical circulation, water, etc.). Although the same diagrams are found on the architect's website, in the book they are printed on acetate sheets, as visible in the first spread below; a loose sheet of paper with a drawing of the tower serves as an underlayment for the diagrams. The rest of the book, more traditional in its presentation, has floor plans, sections, enlarged sections, and detail drawings, as well as plenty of photos: 50 pages of construction photos and about twice as many with finished photos by Iwan Baan. With short essays by Romano and others rounding out the book, Torre Reforma is an excellent case study on a tower deserving such a treatment.

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Author Bio:

Benjamín Romano is an architect from the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City with studies in Israel on “Precast elements”. Romano is the founder of the firm LBR&A Arquitectos that has a broad professional history of over 40 years.

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