Concepts of Time

"It's almost like a 3-D Tetris" explained the architect looking to make his fortunes on the Guadalajara Guggenheim, a conceptual museum in the first stages of planning. I visited Guadalajara last October and the iconic presence of a Guggenheim, especially one that looks like a lighthouse, positioned over a 2000-foot gorge, would simply be amazing. However, I won't be holding my breath for this one anytime soon. While in Mexico last October, I learned of the "Manana attitude" of Latin Americans. Work, leisure and concepts of time in Mexico correspond to an entirely different cultural mindset than us Americans. Americans beleive time is money, Mexicans beleive it is the "powerless" who wait - so having endless coffee breaks with friends and relatives while leaving someone waiting for an appointment makes them the powerful. It's crazy. When my ex-pat friends relocated there and needed something fixed, a scheduled appointment would take days, even weeks. My friends couldn't complain about the wait because then the work would never get done. Time also tends to be circular rather than linear in Latin America, that is, the past and present are perceived as equally relevant and so Mexicans do not do things in chronological order. This project might take longer than Spain's Bilboa, Berlin's Deutsche Guggenheim, and the Soho Guggenheim all combined.