ImageSome of the people with spaces at Edificio Mascota, including Carlos Amorales (back row, third from right), photographed in the privada Calle Mascota in Mexico City on May 6, 2024. Back row, from left: Christian Vivanco, co-founder and creative director of the design brand Balsa; Ernesto Azcarate, furniture designer; Luigi Lupone, documentary filmmaker; Mecky Reuss; and Ana Paula Ruiz Galindo. Center row, from left: Giovanna Cavasola, actress, puppeteer and storyteller; John R. Thompson, painter and curator; Rómulo Escudero, painter; Benedikt Fahlbusch; Ana Armenta, architect; Rob Pardo, musician; Fer Millán, designer and content creator; Domingo Delaroière, architect and artist; Marta Marginet Miguel, silversmith and jewelry maker; and Santiago De la Puente, artist and photographer. Front row, from left: Carlos Chimal, novelist and science writer; Leticia del R. Bucio Velázquez, book restorer and artisan; María Natalia Reus Anda, writer and professor; Solange Lebourges; and Maris Bustamante, artist and retired university professor.Credit...Mariano Fernandez

“I came to Edificio Mascota for the first time thanks to my mother, who bought her place here in 1999. It was very different then. The gates from the privadas [the three internal lanes where many of the apartments are located] onto the main roads were always open. There was a gang of kids who’d hang out and smoke pot by the fountain and an old man who collected dogs. In 2017luck9, after the earthquake, I lost the apartment I’d been renting in Colonia Roma Sur and this became my home-studio. (These days, I keep my studio elsewhere.) The previous tenant told me my apartment had been a studio for an important actor and singer, Pedro Vargas, and that he’d composed some of his songs here — and perhaps brought his lovers here. I think there’s always been some sort of mix with the world of the arts.

“These were always homes for the middle class, for students, for artists, and what I really like is the balance of those different communities: the people who’ve been here forever, people from my mother’s generation, people my age and younger. At the Mascota, you really do live alongside people who’re different from you. It can cause conflict sometimes, and sometimes it works great. One of the realities of this place is that you can’t be anonymous — one way or another, you bump into people. We’ll see if that lasts but, at least for now, that really enriches things.

“In 2017, we got INBAL [the National Institute for Fine Arts and Literature] to come and inspect the building, so a whole bunch of us went up onto the roof, and from there you start to realize the totality of the thing, how huge it is and how diverse. There are apartments that’re beautifully fixed up, others that are literally rotting, others that are very modest. But there’s a shared consciousness of the beauty of the place and that we have to conserve it.” — Carlos Amorales, 54, multidisciplinary artist

Address: A 174-unit apartment complex in Colonia Juárez, Mexico City, spread out over an entire city block. Originally designed in 1912 by Miguel Ángel de Quevedo, it used to house employees of the Buen Tono cigarette factory.

Residents, Past and Present: Dozens of artists and those working in other creative fields, including Benedikt Fahlbusch, architect and photographer; Mecky Reuss and Ana Paula Ruiz Galindo, co-founders of the architecture, art and design studio Pedro y Juana; Carlos Amorales, multidisciplinary artist; Solange Lebourges, dancer; Jenny Mügel, radio producer; and Ernesto Azcarate, furniture designer.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Producer: Alan Gómez at Gobe Studio. Photo assistant: Rodrigo Alvarezluck9

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