Pelli Clarke & Partners Develops "Torre Mítikah," Mexico City's Tallest Skyscraper

Pelli Clarke & Partners, an American architectural firm, has just finished building the Mtikah tower, making it Mexico City’s tallest skyscraper. The 267-meter-tall Torre Mítikah is in Mexico City’s Benito Jaures neighborhood, part of a complex that also features other buildings and shopping malls.

©Jason O’Rear

The Torre Mítikah: An Iconic Masterpiece in a Global Capital

Torre Mtikah towers over the cityscape and scenery of Mexico City, dominating views from every direction with its dramatic profile and exquisite façade, providing an epic landmark for the city of 21 million citizens.

Mítikah is the centerpiece residential high-rise building of Ciudad Viva in Mexico City’s Coyoacán neighborhood, an 11-hectare (27-acre), 3.6-million-square-foot mixed-use commercial center, a hub for world-class dining and amusement, Class-A private offices, and a state-of-the-art hospital.

Torre Mítikah has boosted Mexico City’s progress into a major global metropolis. It is a cultural landmark in the larger metropolitan area, adored and appreciated by many.

©Jason O’Rear

A “window to the heavens” results from the north and south perforated facades‘ clean design, exquisite detailing, and subtle curvature leading upwards. The timeless and solid nature of Torre Mtikah draws attention to its “axis mundi,” the vertical axis seen as a vital link between earth and sky across most cultures.

“We preserved the graduating entrance canopies on Churubusco and highlighted the sky-ground link by creating a point of focus in the skies with a terminal to a notch on the north and south sides of the tower,” the Studio claimed.

“Torre Mitikah is the “Ventana al infinito” (window to infinity) that satisfies our desire to fly. The tower serves as a “hito” (milestone), serving as a connecting point in this sense.”

Glass dominates the building’s façade ©Jason O’Rear

Torre Mítikah’s 1,100,000 square feet of residential housing helps establish a modern and bustling community hub where the “live-work-play-and-rest” lifestyle is the central theme.

There are multi-story townhouses at the tower’s base, spacious two- and three-bedroom apartments in the tower’s core, and opulent residences with internal gardens, private terraces, and direct helipad access at the tower’s highest levels.

©Jason O’Rear

On floors 24 and 48 of the tower, residents have access to the building’s main amenity spaces, which feature infinity pools, a children’s beach, an adult spa, a fitness center, soccer fields, a movie theatre, and a ballroom with all the fixings. ©Jason O’Rear

The high-end curtain wall in shiny silver brings out the structure’s beauty. The tower’s mechanical ventilation louvers are practical and aesthetically pleasing since they have been skillfully concealed within the curtain wall.

The structural system of Torre Mitikah takes into account the tower’s unique placement on the ancient soil of Tenochtitlan’s Lago Texcoco, combining advanced hybrid technology to ensure the tower’s functionality in the seismic zone it resides in.

©Jason O’Rear

The original 2007 commission for the skyscraper was part of a broader concept for the neighborhood that was also directed by Pelli Clarke & Partners. Nevertheless, a new developer purchased the tower in 2015 and fundamentally changed the original blueprints.

The Studio stated, “Under their management, all the brief design criteria were modified, including nearly all the initial design teams for each building and the masterplan. We continued to serve as architects for the iconic building when negotiations resulted in its transformation into a residential tower.”

©Jason O’Rear

The final layout incorporates a significantly smaller footprint for the complex, with a few lesser high-rise structures that connect to Mitikah at ground level. Furthermore, Pelli Clarke & Partners successfully kept the original master plan’s expansion of the pedestrian corridor, which involved submerging a nearby street.

After its September 2022 opening, Mitikah overtook LBR&A Architectos’ Torre Reforma as the city’s tallest skyscraper. Torre Mítikah may be the highest building in Mexico City, but it ranks just fourth in the entire country. The country’s tallest building is the 305-meter-tall Torres Obispado Torre 1 in Monterrey.