LAUSR

As the third largest city in Mexico, Monterrey is a manufacturing hub that offers a provocative counterpoint to industrial cities in developed countries. Suburban sprawl, political instability, violence, social injustice, and de-industrialization illustrate increasing fragmentation—or terrain vague —where the conventional urban fabric unravels and less formal occupancies unfold. Defined by Catalan architect and theorist Ignasi Sola-Morales, terrain vague is expressed through obsolescence and various organic practices that react to depopulation and under-productivity. Investigating production and city-building, this article positions post-industrial Monterrey as a place of difference reflecting hybridized Latin American and American normative conditions. It surveys processes of industrialization and changing technology to situate iconic European and American architectural and urban precedents as forerunners of similar conditions in Monterrey.