Mexico’s flatiron of the Deco age – the wedge tower of Tacubaya with a cinema in its prow, the capital’s first multi-use skyscraper.
At a glance
- Type
- Mixed-use building (apartments, retail, former cinema)
- Period
- 1929-1931
- Style
- Art Deco
- Location
- Avenida Revolucion, Tacubaya, Mexico City
- Coordinates
- 19.4036, -99.1869
- Architect
- Juan Segura
Overview
The Edificio Ermita fills its triangular corner where Avenida Revolucion forks at Tacubaya like a ship’s bow in carved concrete – Mexico’s answer to the Flatiron, completed in 1931 by Juan Segura, the young master of Mexican Deco. Apartments stack over shops, with a cinema embedded in the prow – the capital’s first deliberately mixed-use tower and still its most elegant.
History
The Mier y Pesado foundation commissioned Segura to monetize the old Ermita corner with everything a modern district needed at once; the Cine Hipodromo within premiered through Mexican cinema’s golden age. The building anchored Tacubaya’s brief glamour, weathered the district’s decline, and emerged restored as the icon of Mexico City’s Deco revival, its cinema space reborn for art exhibitions.
Architecture and Design
Segura’s prow rises through zigzag balconies to a stepped crown with flagpole finial; the apartments wrap a ventilation court in the efficient sections Mexican Deco perfected. Geometric ironwork, dentil bands in cast stone, and the marquee’s curve survive as built.
Cultural significance
The Ermita is the manifesto of Mexico City’s Deco decade – the Hipodromo-Condesa’s spirit at metropolitan scale – and Segura’s masterpiece, studied as the moment Mexican architecture turned modern without losing ornament’s pleasure.
Visiting today
The exterior commands the Tacubaya fork; gallery events open the former cinema. The Casa Luis Barragan – UNESCO-listed – stands ten minutes away for modernism’s next chapter.
Getting there
Tacubaya metro (lines 1, 7, 9) exits onto Avenida Revolucion beneath the building.
Sources and resources
Find it on the map
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