Pasaje Polanco
Av. Pdte. Masaryk 360, Polanco, Polanco III Secc, Miguel Hidalgo, 11560 Ciudad de México, CDMX
5617710404
https://www.facebook.com/pasajepolanco/
If you’re in town and looking to do some shopping then the area of Polanco is definitely the place to go as it’s the premier shopping district in Mexico City; yet if you don’t feel like going to your typical generic cookie-cutter kind of mall then Pasaje Polanco could be the best option that’s suitable for you. This outdoor shopping center is lined with trendy designer stores and surrounded by streets filled with restaurants, bars, and cafés that are just filled with the jovial bustle of a Mexican city. Since it’s Polanco it’s still going to be nice and clean, but filled with energy. The shopping center is also filled with hairstylists, restaurants, travel agencies, and handicraft stores, and is located on Masaryk avenue, within a 10-minute walk of Metro station “Polanco”. It opens every day from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.
There are arts and crafts stalls, as well as designer handbags, wrestling masks, and day of the dead-related folkloric handcrafts; Pasaje Polanco retains the flavor of a Mexican city that maybe some of the other shopping malls around the city might be lacking. Pasaje Polanco opened in 1938 and was designed by architect Francisco J. Serrano, who also designed the art deco buildings Edificio Basurto and Edificio México in the Condesa neighborhood; Serrano designed Pasaje Polanco in the Colonial californiano style, which had its origins in the United States as a reinterpretation of the original Spanish style during the colonial era; the Colonial californiano reached Mexico City in the 1930s and can be considered as a reinterpretation itself.
There’s an interior courtyard that’s reminiscent of the missions of southern California built in the XVII and XIX centuries. The Pasaje Polanco complex was known as “the navel of Polanco” when it was first inaugurated, and it blended residential living (58 apartments) with commercial activity (the 96 businesses that constitute the shopping center); in the middle of the courtyard, there is a fountain decorated by a solar universal clock measuring 3 meters in diameter that Serrano designed himself. The simple elegance of Pasaje Polanco has been the trademark of this shopping center for nearly 80 years, as it continues to be relevant to a neighborhood that has been in constant development ever since.
