Hello World

Hello, World

Ever since tenth grade I knew I wanted to study architecture. I found the built environment of my hometown, Mexico City, to be fascinating. With every street having a unique mix of buildings, and each of those telling their own story, it seemed as if the city was a melting pot of individual and collective hopes and needs. I felt like buildings were the embodiment of the architect’s ideas, telling a story through materials, organization, style, location and effect.

Paseo 16 de Septiembre

How incredible is that? To be able to put our ideas and your desires into a solid object that will hopefully stand the test of time.

From tenth grade to my junior year in college, this incredible task was the main reason why I wanted to study architecture. See, I was never sure about becoming an architect, I just wanted to speak the language in order to understand all the buildings that surround me. Designing the buildings and telling my story was never my goal, I was more interested with learning the reasons behind an existing project - What was the architect thinking? Who was the ideal user of the work? What was the architect responding to? What influenced the work? These questions are better answered by an architecture historian or theorist than a practicing architect.

Today, writing as a fourth year architecture student in college (in a five-year program), I am a little hurt that none of my architecture theory or history courses has helped me answer the questions I had in tenth grade. Most of my experience with architectural history has revolved around western ideas, focused solely on Europe and the U.S., with the eventual nod to Chinese or Japanese architecture. Not once has any of my professors mentioned Latin America of Mexico. I get it, we are not in Mexico, but since they had me learn all about palaces in Austria I cannot even pronounce, I find the complete exclusion of the Latin American contribution to the world of architecture quite offensive.

Zocalo

Affect my initial response, I saw the bright side to this situation. I realized this exclusion allowed me to talk about my country’s architectural history with a fresh eye, having learned the vocabulary and the process by which other works of architecture were discussed in my classes, I could use that knowledge to embark on my own journey through the minds of some of the most famous Mexican architects and their works. As architecture is never isolated from the art world, with all the works being in direct acceptance or opposition to the ideas of the field at the time, the works analyzed will be placed not only in the spectrum of Mexican architectural history, but also in the larger context of international architectural theories happing internationally. The work explored will be understood through the description of the architectural currents of the time - Beaux-Arts, Functionalism, Regionalism, Brutalism, “Emotional” Style, Nationalism - and the traditions of the place - culture, rituals, history. With works of Barragan, Pani, Candela, Legorreta, Ramirez-Vazquez, Kalach, TEN Arquitectos, and many others, this blog will try to listen to the whispers of the architecture that makes up the streets of my country.

Camino Real - Logorreta Arquitectos