Alternative Mexico: a Mobile Application to Preserve Contemporary Heritage Values

“Alternative Mexico” is a mobile application drawing from the need to preserve and promote contemporary heritage resources that are of great value to its citizens. After more than a century of infrastructure building and promotion of urban lifeways to become a modern country, the experience has resulted in the appropriation of modern spaces and behaviors by Mexico’s citizens, with the inevitable creation of new heritage values. These new heritage resources oppose the national definition of cultural heritage and are the main the main source of conflict during infrastructure planning and building. Since modern resources are preserved mostly within the aesthetics of Mexican nationalism, federal institutions hardly intervene to preserve these alternative views of what heritage means to society. “Alternative Mexico” records people’s contemporary heritage values, hoping to play an important role in articulating the need for effective, sustainable and responsive preservation models contemplating all forms of heritage, creating a more agreeable partnership between Mexico’s citizens and institutions.