Ricardo Legorreta, Praemium Imperiale Laureate

Ricardo Legorreta (Mexico, DF 1931 - )

Ricardo Legorreta has been awarded the Praemium Imperiale prize (architecture).

The award, given to individuals who have “shown extraordinary acheivement in the fields of architecture, music, painting, sculpture and theatre/film, recognizes lifetime achievement in the arts in categories not covered by the Nobel prizes.

Ricardo Legorreta, among Mexico’s most significant living architects, combines the traditions of Western modernism with the building culture of his native country. Vibrant color, geometric shapes, fountains, light-filled spaces, and intimate courtyards are hallmarks of his style. With more than 100 design projects to his name he has created a diverse body of work in Mexico and abroad.

Official website for Ricardo Legorreta: http://legorretalegorreta.com/

Video in Spanish: http://esquire.esmas.com/video/351377/legorreta-premio-japon

The other Praemium Laureates this year are Seiji Ozawa (Japan) Music, Bill Viola (USA) Painting, Anish Kapoor (UK) Sculpture, and Judi Dench (UK) Theatre/Film.

Related, Books:

1001 Buildings You Must See Before You die:  The World’s Architectural Masterpeices (Quintessence Books) Hardcover; Mark Irving, Editor

Pedro Ramirez Vazquez awarded Fine Arts Medal

Pedro Ramirez Vazquez (Mexico, DF 1919 - )

Pedro Ramirez Vazquez, architect and urban designer, has been awarded the Fine Arts Medal by the National Institute of Fine Arts, the highest award for artistic achievement in Mexico.

National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City, DF

Ramirez Vazquez, a graduate of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, contributed profoundly to Mexico City’s urban panorama during his 6 decade career.  Much of his work is founded on his strong personal beliefs in social responsibility and civil participation.

Upon receiving the medal, he said,

On this day I want to share my reflections with youngsters… practice self-discipline, ecological conservation, and originality,  but keep roots, because these are permanent and do not change over time.

He is one of the most prolific of Mexican architects nationally and internationally.  Some of his projects in Mexico include:

• The National Anthropology Museum (Museo Nacional de Antropologia),
• the Aztec Soccer Stadium (Estadio Azteca),
• the new Guadalupe Basilica (Nueva Basílica de Guadalupe) and the
• Museum of Modern Art (Museo de Arte Moderno) in collaboration with Rafael Mijares

Mi Gran Obra

Ramirez Vasquez also designed a prefabricated school classroom for children, a concept which has been adopted internationally, which he refers to as “Mi gran obra“, his greatest work.  During his tenure on the federal committee of school construction, 30 thousand rural classrooms were built in just 3 years, a classroom every 2 hours it was said.  Ramirez’s design was taken to 17 countries in Latin America as well as Philippines, India, Indonesia, Yugoslavia and Italy. Eventually, an additional 150 thousand units were built in Mexico.

Related:

More information and photographs of of his projects:  Pedro Ramirez Vazquez awarded Fine Arts Medal by the National Institute of Fine Arts (Art Daily Newsletter)

BNKR Arquitectura plans “Earthscraper”

BNKR Arquitectura has unveiled an extraordinary plan to build an underground structure extending 65 stories below the Zócalo.

For those unfamiliar with Mexico City, the Zócalo refers to the city’s huge town square, or the Plaza de la Constitución. It is the site of many, many activities and bordered by important landmarks including the remains of the 14th- and 15th-century Templo Mayor, core of the Aztec city Tenochtitlán; the Catedral Metropolitana, built over 300 years in a jumble of architectural styles; and the Palacio Nacional.

The firm’s design is like an upside down pyramid with a central void allowing natural light to enter and air to circulate.  Plans for the first 30 stories, those near the ground level, include a museum focusing on Aztec and Mayan artifacts, stores and residential space.  The remaining 35 stories would be offices.

Here’s what BNKR Arquitectura says about the project:

The Historic Center of Mexico City is in a desperate need of a programmatic make-over. New infrastructure, office, retail and living space is required but no empty plots are available. Federal and local laws prohibit demolishing historic buildings and height regulations limit new structures to eight stories. The Earthscraper is the Skyscrapers antagonist in a historic urban landscape where the latter is condemned and the preservation of the built environment is the paramount ambition. It preserves the iconic presence of the city square and the existing hierarchy of the buildings that surround it. It is an inverted pyramid with a central void to allow all habitable spaces to enjoy natural lighting and ventilation.

To conserve the numerous activities that take place on the city square year round (concerts, political manifestations, open-air exhibitions, cultural gatherings, military parades.), the massive hole is covered with a glass floor that allows the life of the Earthscraper to blend with everything happening on top.

I wonder about the glass floor idea where plaza and surrounding structures sink and earthquakes occur; and I wonder about other things like:

Will people be able to skate on the glass?

How will a glass ceiling effect artistic performance?

Readers, what are your thoughts?

 

BNKR Arquitectura website: http://www.bunkerarquitectura.com/

Related articles

• It’s called Earthscraper-It’s basically an inverted skyscraper (amenaskhan.wordpress.com)

Mexico City, in a constant state of flux and reinvention

If Mexico City is a book, then it’s one that’s constantly being rewritten.

For the photographer Brian Rosa, Mexico City is in a constant state of flux and reinvention – never completely finished; never completely reinvented.

He photographed Mexico City during a research fellowship prior to the national Centennial Celebration in 2010 and saw a discrepancy between “the rigid central planning and the chaos of informal settlements…”.  He “ended up trying to reconcile these two conflicting histories…”  The result was a series Rosa titled: Palimpsesto Urbano: Mexico City (Urban palimpsest); it is not a comprehensive visual catalog of the city but calls attention to the city’s constant state of evolution.

To live in Mexico City is to cross countless invisible borders every day; to be constantly barraged with all things-beautiful and ugly, banal, and remarkable-that this world has to offer. – Brian Rosa

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(See this complete series and other work by Rosa on his site: http://brianrosa.net/ ).

Vocabulary:  Palimpsest/Palimpsesto

Decipherment in architecture

Architects imply palimpsest as a ghost—an image of what once was. In the built environment, this occurs somewhat often. Whenever spaces are shuffled, rebuilt, or remodeled, shadows remain. Tarred rooflines remain on the sides of a building long after the neighboring structure has been demolished; removed stairs leave a mark where the painted wall surface stopped. Dust lines remain from a relocated appliance. Ancient ruins speak volumes of their former wholeness. Palimpsests can inform us, archaeologically, of the realities of the built past.

Thus architects, archaeologists and design historians sometimes use the word to describe the accumulated iterations of a design or a site, whether in literal layers of archaeological remains, or by the figurative accumulation and reinforcement of design ideas over time.

Where in your neighborhood or city do you find palimpsests, shadows of the past?

Shelter from chaos in Interlomas, Mexico City.

Hey, it’s that’s BIG MALL being built near Los Angeles Hospital!  You know, the one that has made driving in Interlomas a nightmare?

Rendering of Commercial Mall in Interlomas, Huixquilucan by Rojkind Arquitectos

Here’s what Rojkinds’ architects have written about the project. I’ve bold-faced certain things that caught my eye; maybe you will be as surprised as I was by this harsh description of the city and the sense of stress and dystopia conveyed.

“…Located in the northern ‘car dependent’ suburb of Interlomas on the outskirts of Mexico City, this relatively new suburb is characterized by a lack of open public space and a myriad of roads on which pedestrians are not welcomed.   The new facade responds to a fast pace of the everyday life in this isolated suburb, sitting in the middle of a very congested intersection of highways and overpasses, which gives it a futuristic ‘blade runner-like’ feel.

With an existing circular footprint, the customization process of fabricating directly from 3D models drove the ideas behind the facade design intent.  Speed becomes a very important factor in the way the project is experienced, flexibility, fluidity, and dynamism drove the design process.

The double-layered facade shelters the store and its users from the chaotic environment.  It’s sleek stainless steel machine-like exterior, is intended to evolve in a very fluid way as the intense sun bathes it throughout the day.  It’s a contradiction to the grit and chaos of its surroundings; a juxtaposition that becomes a new reference for this part of the city.

The roof terrace will contain a park-like setting that can be enjoyed not only by the store visitors but also by the surrounding local community, thus enhancing the social role that the department store will play.  The complexity of the project combined with the a very tight schedule and a difficult urban site condition, required the combination of a highly skilled design team and collaborators in which the interconnectivity and digital design tools have radically transformed the way we design and construct buildings today…”

rojkind arquitectos: liverpool department store, mexico city.

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The ‘Blade runner’ reference was a jolt.  Associating their design with the film about a dystopian Los Angeles caused me to ponder (and wonder if they shouldn’t send a few of their designers to the therapists’ couch, perhaps a psychoanalyst working at the Hospital Los Angeles next door). As a refresher for those who don’t quite recall the plot:  It dealt with genetically engineered organic robots called replicants —visually indistinguishable from adult humans—manufactured by a powerful corporation and other “mega–manufacturers”.  Their use on Earth is banned and replicants are exclusively used for dangerous, menial or leisure work on Earth’s off-world colonies. Plot:  Replicants who defy the ban and return to Earth are hunted down and “retired” by police special operatives known as “Blade Runners“

Hospital Los Angeles:  http://www.hospitalangelesmexico.com/

Bladerunner Downtown - a.k.a. Interlomas?

Related article (read at your own discretion).

• Headless body left hanging off bridge in central Mexico (tancredoradio.wordpress.com).  This occurred at an overpass in view of the construction site.

I’m off now to take a few pictures of this futuristic ‘blade-runner’ like feel project, maybe I’ll catch a few ‘replicants’ on film.

Reader challenge/Writer prompt:

Write your own short paragraph about this project without using negative references.

Mexico’s Organic Architect – Javier Senosian

Javier Sanosiain, Organic architect

Mexico is home to many gifted architects of international fame.  There is one, however, Javier Senosiain, a professor at UNAM, the Autonomous University of Mexico, who represents a select few in his profession.

Architects in the past of similar style and passion have altered traditional ideas and, more and more often, we see architecture incorporating principles that identify this unique group of architects.

Organic Architecture follows principles such as a desire to adapt architecture to the environment and to understand the roots of a place and the people who live there.  It is often concerned with the functioning spaces where people’s connections to each other and to the environment they inhabit are meaningful and well-integrated; all architectural and environmental components, systems and strategies must work together as one functioning organism. Often natural and unusual materials are used and land planning and the use of natural resources are important.

Organic architecture is not new although it has had different names in the past.  Other architects, with names many readers will recognize, have left a strong legacy.

Frank Lloyd Wright was a pioneer in this kind of architecture; his adherence to sustainable architecture allowed him to develop projects unique to each site.

Mr. Senosiain’s work is often compared to the work of Frank Lloyd Wright as well as Paolo Soleri, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Buckminster Fuller, Antoni Gaudi and Rudolph Steiner

You can see many other projects of this type and learn more at this fascinating site:  Organic Architecture Guild: A Sustainable Unit: http://www.organicarchitecture.info/category/organicprojects/.

The official website of Javier Senosiain is on my website lists. 

It’s helpful to preview a few images of these other architect/designers’ work  before we look at Senosiain’s. It will make it easier to see the parallels and realize what an impact this architecture has had on our world and how the style and ethos has survived over time. The slideshow begins with images of these other architects work, followed by Sanosaian’s:

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Noteworthy: many of Senosian’s ‘homes’ are in Naucalpan, Mexico City. In his construction, he uses many diverse materials including shells, local stone, wood, fly ash, slab foams, cellulose, mineral fiber, recycled blue jeans, recycled newsprint, wastepaper composite, low toxic resins and other materials.