(b Mexico City, 17 June 1908; d Mexico City, 24 Nov 1990). Mexican architect, writer and theorist. He was a member of the Escuela Mexicana de Arquitectura, a group that from 1925 onwards sought to create an architecture that simultaneously expressed nationalism and modernity. Within this group, which was led by José Villagrán García, Yañez, with Juan O’Gorman and Juan Legorreta, represented the socialist tendency. In 1938, with Alberto T. Arai, Enrique Guerrero, Raúl Cacho, Carlos Leduc and Ricardo Rivas, Yañez formed the Unión de Arquitectos Socialistas, which had a significant influence on Mexican architecture. Their approach was characterized by an emphasis on the utilitarian and social aspects of architecture, for example the reduction of spaces to a bare minimum, and by a rejection of ‘bourgeois’ aesthetics. Nevertheless, Yañez’s own house (1935) and the Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas Building (1938) have a certain rhythmic plasticity, albeit rationalist and sparse. Later, still in the context of developing a ‘nationalist functionalism’, Yañez became one of the foremost designers of hospitals in Mexico. He won the competition for the construction of the Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social’s first hospital and designed the most important hospital complex in Mexico, the Centro Médico Nacional (1954–8; destr. 1985), Mexico City. The participation in the latter of the painter José Chávez Morado and the sculptor Francisco Zúñiga, among others, made it a milestone in the movement for the ‘plastic integration’ of the fine arts in Mexico in the 1950s. Among his many completed projects, other noteworthy hospitals include the Adolfo López Mateos Hospital (1969–70). His published writings recount his professional experiences and discuss architectural theory and history.

• Yañez (de la Fuente), Enrique
  • Mexico, §III, 2(ii): Modernist architecture, c 1910–68
  • Mexico City, §II, 3: Later history and urban development, after 1920
  • groups and movements
    • Arai, Alberto T.