But there is rather more to new Mexican architecture than this - which, after all, goes right back to Barragan's 1920s rediscovery and reinterpretation of the vernacular pueblo buildings of the region. There are increasing numbers of examples of what you might call glassy Mexican high-tech to be found, but these too are given a specific regional slant. One of the leading technology-leaning architects of the new generation, Enrique Norten of TEN Arquitectos, has found ways of filtering strong sunlight that gives his buildings - such as the Hotel Habita in Mexico City, or the proposed glass fibre-clad disc of the Guadalajara convention and exhibition centre - a different sensibility from their European or American counterparts. Indeed, Norten's idiosyncratic take on technology has won him a very significant competition, to design a large new public library in Brooklyn.

Elsewhere, you will find the practice of Miquel Adria, Isaac Broid and Michael Rojkind taking a recognizably European line in their National Educational Videotheque building in Mexico City. The use of clip-on panels of part-opaque glass, the deployment of open mesh for freestanding walls, and a certain fetishisation of struts and cables, somehow seems a little too like one of the better European business parks. And then an end block of rich terracotta colour hoves into view, and the locus genii is preserved. What after all, is a national characteristic in architecture or design? You know it when you see it, but it need not flaunt itself. Only Hungary still has such an utterly distinctive national style, an organic and decorative approach to building so different from everyone else, that you can spot it at a glance. In Mexico, the distinct regional difference is there, but it is done more subtly.