Next Generation Design Competition

The Mexico-Pittsburgh Connection

February 24, 2009

Laboratory of Architecture/Fernando Romero opens at the Carnegie Museum of Art

By Daniela Morell

Architects do much more than just keep us out of the rain. Consider, for instance, the upcoming exhibition, Laboratory of Architecture/Fernando Romero, which includes master planning, cultural exchange, and socio-political research.

The show at the Carnegie Museum of Art’s Heinz Architectural Center in Pittsburgh is Fernando Romero ’s first monograph exhibition and runs from February 28 through May 31, 2009. It covers his firm’s work of the past ten years, both from the flagship office in Mexico City and second office in Los Angeles. Built and un-built projects will be presented as acrylic lit-from-below models, and the firm’s books and research areas are explored through photographic projections.

Romero, says the exhibition’s curator, Raymond Ryan, “is very conscious of global currents. He has a background at Koolhaas’s office, and he’s also busy thinking abroad.” Indeed, there’s work in the show from as far afield as China and Poland in addition to more local Mexican projects. The curator adds that in Pittsburg, with its relatively small Mexican population, visitors likely “will be kind of shocked to see there’s this very ambitions architecture under way right now in Mexico.”

Romero was a runner up in the 2006 Next Generation Competition for the research that lead to his book, Hyperborder: The Contemporary U.S.-Mexico Border and its Future, which in some 300 pages explores the political, social, and design facts of the world’s longest border past, present, and future. This research was the backbone of the project to create a real bridge between Mexico and the U.S., which did not materialize. But the architectural bridge idea can be seen in Romero’s completed work, Bridging Teahouse in Jinhua, China, which literally spans a river to connect the old city with the new.

When asked about his interest in bridges Romero mused, “I think a connection of two cultures is something that is extremely challenging” for the simple reason that the material world can symbolize the emotional and cultural connections through the built environment. “So we are very interested in bridges and we are extremely interested in infrastructure along the border.” Laboratory of Architecture/Fernando Romero is yet another element bridging a diverse practice to the wider world.

See the images for further information on Romero’s projects.