(b Mexico City, 29 March 1911; d Mexico City, 23 Feb 1993). Mexican architect and urban planner. He studied architecture at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, graduating in 1934 (his degree was validated by the Universidad Nacional de México in October of the same year). He returned to Mexico at a time of rapid national development and soon earnt recognition for the quality and originality of his designs. The innovative approach that was already evident in his early works remained a feature of his work throughout his subsequent career, although it was at times necessarily diluted to some extent by the requirements of working in a large practice and in numerous professional partnerships. Outstanding among his early works was the Hotel Reforma (1936) in Mexico City, the first modern hotel in the country, which was followed in the 1940s by a series of houses and apartment buildings in Mexico City, including those at Río Balsas 36 (1944), Avenida Juárez 88 (1945) and Paseo de la Reforma 334 (1946, destr.). These were notable for their height and for the split-level planning that Pani adopted. Contemporary with these were the Escuela Nacional de Maestros (1945–7), a pioneering example of the integration of the plastic arts, executed in collaboration with the sculptor Luis Ortiz Monasterio and the painter José Clemente Orozco, and the Conservatorio Nacional de Música (1946), both in Mexico City.

• Pani, Mario
  • Mexico, §IV, 2(v): Painting, graphic arts and sculpture, c 1950 and after
  • collaboration
    • González de Léon, Teodoro
    • Mérida, Carlos
    • Moral, Enrique del
    • Ortega Flores, Salvador
  • works
    • Mexico, §III, 2(ii): Modernist architecture, c 1910–68
    • Mexico City, §II, 3: Later history and urban development, after 1920