Rapid transformation for Mexico City
Mexico City was undergoing a rapid transformation when it welcomed the world in 1968. The Olympic Games contributed to that process and lent an Olympic identity to the city.
The seven new venues, two Olympic Villages and national training base (Mexican Olympic Sports Centre) built for the Games remain in use to this day. They formed part of an ambitious urban renewal project in a city that had seen its population more than double from 3.365 million in 1950 to 8.052 million by 1968. In the meantime, its metropolitan area had grown from 200 to 320 square kilometres.
These new facilities were modernist and futuristic in nature and reflected the economic and technological development of Mexico City. They appeared alongside other ambitious projects, which included the renovation and modernisation of the city’s airport and the building of expressways, housing complexes, hotels, warehouses and hospitals.
Work had also begun on a new subway system the year before the Games. A response to growing traffic problems – the number of cars in Mexico City tripled in the 1960s from 130,000 to 450,000 – the subway has grown ever since. Now boasting 12 lines, it is used by around 4.4 million passengers a day. The station symbols devised by Lance Wyman, part of the design team of the distinctive Mexico 1968 logo, remain in use today.