Of the roughly 625 buildings in Tijuana identified as historically significant, only about six carry formal cultural heritage designation. That gap between recognition and legal protection means at least 50 structures could disappear as urban development accelerates across the city, according to a warning delivered on June 2 at Universidad Iberoamericana Tijuana.
Architect María Eugenia Curry, vice president of ICOMOS Mexico (the International Council on Monuments and Sites, a UNESCO-affiliated organization), laid out the scale of the problem during a conference titled “The Venice Charter and the Cultural Heritage of Tijuana.” Curry also serves as coordinator of Tijuana’s Cultural Heritage Commission.
Tijuana Historic Buildings With and Without Protection
The buildings that currently hold formal heritage declarations are a small cluster: the Casa de la Cultura, the Antiguo Palacio Municipal (the old city hall), and the Parque Teniente Guerrero are among the roughly half-dozen with legal standing. That status means they cannot be demolished or substantially altered without government review.
The list of unprotected landmarks is longer and more familiar to anyone who has spent time on Avenida Revolución. Hotel Caesars, where the Caesar salad was invented in the 1920s, has no formal protection. The Torre de Agua Caliente, the tower from the legendary Prohibition-era casino complex, has none. The Correos building (Tijuana’s historic post office) has none. Multiple commercial structures along Revolución, the spine of Tijuana’s tourist district for a century, have none.
Plaza Monumental, the beachfront bullring near Playas de Tijuana that has hosted concerts, boxing matches, and cultural events for decades, is currently in the process of gaining protected status. But that process is not yet complete.
Without a formal declaration, a property owner can modify, gut, or demolish a building with few legal obstacles. Curry cited the common practice of “fachadismo,” where a historic facade is preserved as a shell while everything behind it is replaced. She called this a way of “inventing history.” “The windows are like the eyes, the nose, the mouth of a person,” Curry said during the conference. “If you change them, it is no longer the same.”
Tijuana’s 20th-Century Architecture Has No Colonial Precedent
Mexican heritage law and public attention tend to focus on colonial and pre-Hispanic sites. Tijuana has neither. The city was a small border settlement until the early 1900s, when Prohibition drove Americans south and a tourism economy exploded almost overnight. That history produced a different kind of architecture: Art Deco hotels, mid-century commercial strips, and a concentration of Googie-style buildings rare in Mexico.
Googie architecture originated in late-1940s Southern California. The style used futuristic shapes, bold angles, and oversized signage to catch the eyes of drivers on new highways. Tijuana adopted the style directly from Los Angeles and San Diego, producing buildings that reflected atomic-age optimism and car culture. Curry argued that this cross-border architectural exchange is itself a form of cultural heritage unique to the region.
But because this heritage does not fit the traditional Mexican framework of pyramids and cathedrals, it has been poorly understood. “Tijuana does not have pyramids or colonial buildings, but it does have valuable 20th-century examples that, it seems, we still cannot manage to understand,” Curry told the audience.
The Venice Charter of 1964, the international framework Curry cited during her talk, establishes that historic buildings must be conserved with respect for their original materials, their context, and the different stages of their history. “The monument cannot be separated from the history of which it is testimony nor from the environment in which it is found,” the charter states. “Restoration must stop where hypothesis begins.”
Urban Growth Puts Pressure on Unprotected Blocks
Tijuana’s population grew from roughly 1.3 million in 2000 to over 1.9 million in the 2020 census. Real estate development has intensified in the central zones where most historic buildings stand. Avenida Revolución, once sleepy after decades of declining tourism, has seen a wave of new restaurants, bars, and residential projects over the past five years. That revival brings money but also pressure to tear down older structures for new construction.
Curry estimated that at least 50 of the 625 identified historic properties could be lost to urban growth if protections are not expanded. Modified facades and demolished buildings are already part of the record. Each loss is permanent.
If you have walked Revolución recently, you have likely noticed the mix: renovated cantinas next to boarded-up storefronts, new mixed-use projects rising beside crumbling mid-century facades. The question Curry posed is whether those older buildings will survive long enough for formal protection to catch up.
Curry called on architecture students at the Iberoamericana to take an active role in documenting and advocating for heritage buildings. “We want to pass the baton so that you begin to act,” she said. The university has not announced a follow-up event, but the Cultural Heritage Commission continues cataloging properties across the city. This story was first reported by La Jornada Baja California.