Abstract
In the 1960s, the Mexican government promoted, through the National Border Program – ProNaF (Programa Nacional Fronterizo), a regional and urban planning iniciative to face an economic openness in the southern and northern borders cities which aimed to detonate an integrated development model. Mexican architect Mario Pani and Taller de Urbanismo, drawing on the ideas of major interventions already operated in Mexico City, especially the Mexico‟s National University urban project (UNAM), developed the urban plans. As part of this program, was proposed the first urban plan for Ciudad Juarez that incorporated a global economic vision, and was built between 1962-1966 a modern urban center known as Zona ProNaF, which proposed to lay out the foundations for the modern city. A particularly aspect is the concern to work with an “urban border proposal”, considering it as a transitional space between the American and Mexican city. The discussion submitted proposes a ProNaF – Ciudad Juarez study, analyzing three main elements of urban transformation in the planning history: the attempt to introduce the superblock, the civic center and the neighborhood unit. These two urban elements do not necessarily correspond to the fundamentals and principles established by the Modern Movement, but to the Anglo-Saxon urban tradition.
