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Known as “The man who built Mexico”, Pedro Ramírez Vázquez (Mexico City, 1919–2013) is responsible for some essential buildings in the urban landscape of Mexico City.

As a forefather of the trend that sought to transform the armed revolution into a social revolution through government programs, he devoted his seven decades of professional practice to building the walls that shield the great epicenters of culture, politics, sports and religion in the country.

Ramírez Vázquez’s works include the National Museum of Anthropology and History, the Museum of Modern Art, the Templo Mayor Museum, the Estadio Azteca, the Basilica of Guadalupe —in collaboration with architects Gabriel Chávez de la Mora and José Luis Benlliure— and the San Lázaro Legislative Palace.

Outside Mexico he participated in the construction of the Museum of Black Civilizations in Dakar, Senegal; government buildings in the capital of Tanzania, Dodoma; the Nubian Museum in Aswan, Egypt; the Presidential House of Costa Rica; the offices and museum of the International Olympic Committee in Switzerland; and the Mexican Pavilion in World Expos in Seville, Brussels, Seattle and New York.

In 1968 he was appointed president of the Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games in Mexico, and was awarded the National Prize for Arts and Sciences in 1973.