Articulated Wall; Herbert Bayer

Photos: Secretaría de Cultura Ciudad de México from México,  Attribution 2.0 Generic

The Muro Articulado, (Articulated Wall), is among the most photographed of works from the Ruta de la Amistad. Station #13 of the Ruta de la Amistad, the work represented the people of Austria and the United States.

The dramatic Mid-Century Modern sculpture fares even better, historically speaking, when the biography of the artist behind it is better known. The considerable pedigree of the work may even illuminate some of the other works included in the Friendship sculptural route.

• Herbert Bayer (1900-1985), the sculptor who created the work, was born in Haag, Austria. A student at the Bauhaus, he counted among his professors Wassily Kandinsky, László Moholy-Nagy, and Paul Klee. Upon completion of his coursework there, Walter Gropius himself appointed Bayer director of advertising and printing for the Bauhaus.
• He was already known as an accomplished graphic designer, painter, photographer, sculptor, art director, environmental and interior designer, and architect. He did some work for the 1936 Berlin Olympics, but in 1937, his works were included in the infamous “Degenerate Art” exhibition organized by the Nazis.
• Bayer left Germany and ended up in the United States in 1938. In 2022, the Resnick Center for Herbert Bayer Studies opened in Aspen, Colorado, where he’d spent most of his life.

The Muro Articulado stands some 16.5 meters high. The reinforced concrete bars, 33 of them, unite around a single central steel axis. The arrangement is utterly simple. The effect is not just harmonious, but intriguing, familiar, and somehow inspiring.

The works stands just south of the Periférico highway, to the east of Insurgentes Sur.