Exhibition

  • Casa Manifiesto: Technological Reproduction, Reconstruction Technics
    Alberto Odériz and Lucía Villers
    Artists
    Tania Tovar Torres
    Curator
    Proyector, Mexico City
    Apr 09, 2022 to Jul 09, 2022
  • GRANTEE
    Proyector
    GRANT YEAR
    2021

Juan José Kochen, Alberto Odériz and Lucía Villers, “Casa Manifiesto I: Casa O’Gorman,” 2017. House Elements, Digital Photo-collage

Casa Manifiesto is an exhibition establishes a material dialogue based on the physical reconstruction and spatial confrontation of the two houses he built for himself by Mexican architect Juan O’Gorman (1905–1982): his studio house in San Ángel (1929) considered the first functionalist house in Mexico; and the experimental and unrepeatable Casa Cueva (1948–1969) sculpted from its own land in El Pedregal. The exhibition establishes a link between the two houses that reflect not only the particular interests at the beginning and end of O'Gorman's oeuvre, but an antagonistic lineage that explains the modern dwelling in Mexico. This immersive and representative form of the architectural environment of the time present in the exhibition also functions as a space built to probe reality, making the paradigms that produced them even more visible. The historical strength of these manifestos acquires a special status through the fact that one of them is still standing, while the other was entirely demolished.

Tania Tovar Torres is an architect, writer, and curator. She’s cofounder and director of Proyector, a curatorial platform based in Mexico City devoted to the promotion of architecture research. She has worked at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal and at the Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery in New York. Her practice in Mexico City includes projects at the University Museum of Science and Art; collaborations with the National Council for Educational Development presented at the Venice Architecture Biennale and the development of academic-practical programs at the UNAM School of Architecture. She is professor at the Universidad Iberoamericana and curator of the 2019 Architecture Pavilion of the Abierto Mexicano de Diseño. Tovar is trained as an architect by the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; studied at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart; and holds a master’s degree from the  Critical, Curatorial and Conceptual Practices in Architecture program at Columbia University.

Alberto Oderiz is an architect by the ETSA of Barcelona and holds a master’s of analysis theory and history of architecture and the city from UNAM. Since 2010 he is based in Mexico where he combines his work as a sculptor with other disciplines such as urbanism, in his practice Consultorio Urbano; as well as teaching, directing the research seminar in the master's degree in city program at CENTRO. He has recently carried out exhibitions such as The Unexplainable Rock, exploring from the sculpture different actions carried out by humans on stones to signify them; the installation The Zócalo in the Plaza de la Constitución; Casa Manifiesto, a reconstruction of the ideology of the first functionalist house of O’Gorman; Nueve(punto)ocho, on the relationship of objects with bodies; Dolmen, levantar la piedra, in a village in northern Spain, among others.

Lucía Villers is an architect by the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and holds a master’s in history, art, and architecture from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia. Villers was awarded the second prize for the Mexican pavilion at the 14th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice for the project: Archaeologies of modernity, the persistence of ideas. She has been a "Jovenes Creadores" grantee by the FONCA-CONACULTA (National Council for Culture and the Arts, Mexico) to develop the research project “Cartographies of temporality.” Villers has been invited to participate in the Eco Pavilion Competition in Mexico City, and received a grant by the Ministry of Culture of Mexico City to develop art workshops aimed at youth community on the streets in collaboration with the NGO Breakarts in San Francisco.

Juan José Kochen is architect, editor, and professor of architectural theory. He studied architecture at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, journalism at the Escuela de Periodismo Carlos Septién García, and received a master's degree in the analysis, theory, and history of architecture. He has published in Reforma newspaper, was an editor at Arquine magazine, and served as consultant at the Mexican Federal Institute for Worker's Housing. He is currently general director at Fundación ICA and professor at the Universidad Iberoamericana.

Juan Carlos Espinosa Cuock, is cofounder of Proyector, a curatorial platform and exhibition space based in Mexico City devoted to the promotion of architecture research. As an urban planner he has developed his research at the Institute for Urban Futures in Montreal, the Open-Output Foundation in New York, and was member of the Center for Sustainable Design Strategies of Pratt Institute. In Mexico, he has been consultant for UN-Habitat and coordinator of the Federal Program of Public Space Rescue of the Ministry of Social Development. Espinosa is a trained architect and holds master’s in architectural design from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; a master’s in analysis, theory, and history from the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid; a master’s in architecture and urban design from Pratt Institute in New York, and is currently a doctoral candidate at the UNAM Graduate School of Architecture.

Proyector is a curatorial platform based in Mexico City, dedicated to promoting emerging voices in contemporary architectural research. Proyector is committed to fostering new strategies and critical, theoretical, and historical tools on spatial issues. During the three seasons of the annual program, researchers (and research groups) are invited to work together with the curatorial team of Proyector in a collaborative manner, seeking the projection of their research in multiple formats: exhibitions, publications, workshops, performances, talks, seminars, among others.