The interior photos of Camino Real Ixtapa Hotel best convey the sense of mystery to me.  The simple masses evoke a clarity yet the volumes create an essence of curiosity of what is around the corner.  I think the way he move the circulation through the space does support his mantra of designing for the people.  His comments on the Mexican culture I found intriguing.  I had the opportunity to work for a Mexican Architect for a project in Belize and reading this interview gives me much more insight on the cultural differences.  There was a lot of consideration for how things would be constructed and what kind of skills was reasonable for the construction team.  The mañana aspect infiltrates much more than just Architects.  But I think the most interesting part of the interview was his comments on the mystery, surprise and emotion he uses to describe the Mexican culture.  Designing for this type of regionalism takes a great deal of understanding of the culture.

Prior to this reading, I had only seen Rick Joy’s desert works.  It was interesting to see this house in Vermont.  Discovering the reasoning behind some of the details (no gutters to collect icicles) was fascinating.  His use of materials and form keep the context of the surrounding rural architecture.  The open interior layout reminds me of a Native American Long-House.

R. Legorreta ….”with pre Columbian architecture we have to meditate on simplicity…….based on simple masses.”
While traveling the country side and “looking at” the villages of Mexico he had an encounter with a farmer which lead him to understand that many people were economically poor but spiritually rich. Legoretto determined that he would design architecture that truly serves the people.

Do you think his exuberance for “viva la Mexico” is apparent in his work?
Legorreta’s work is extremely interesting in the way he roots his architecture in the fundamental culture of his country. It is interesting that he is inspired by precolumbian architecture, a typology based on simple forms, rather than be inspired by a more present version of Mexican culture. Greatly affected by the Spanish, the Mexicans lost a lot of their indigenous culture, becoming a strongly Catholic nation. The Mexican people did, however, invent their own way of mixing the European with traditional culture, and the Spanish that moved there, mostly clergy, more often adopted traditional techniques unlike what happened in the present-day United States. Some results of this are how Churrigueresco style architecture in Spain became barroco novohispano in Latin America, and the creation of religious folk art.

It’s interesting, then, that Legorreta would choose to reject the Spanish or even mestizo styles popular at the time, while favoring a combination of extremely ancient ideas with modernism.  The result is undeniably beautiful, but it is historically interesting to think about why he would choose to ignore visual styles at the heart of present-day Mexican folk culture in favor of ideas from hundreds of years ago.  It is interesting social commentary, and criticism of colonialism throughout Latin America is not uncommon.

Which project (any in the book) seems to convey Legorreta’s sense of mystery to you?

The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose is a project that seems to have so many small changes in plane and space, which seems to provide interesting places to discover at a personal, human scale.  The playful use of columns and sporadic light wells creates an inhabitable sculpture of wonder.  Changes in texture and light reflection create spaces which are constantly reacting to light, adding a living component to the building.

Copyright Legorreta + Legorreta

Rick Joy’s architecture feels pure and simple, which makes it powerful.  The raw quality of materials gives character to the structures and gives them a sense of timelessness and belonging to the landscape and region.  The essence of his work reminds me of a small Las Vegas firm named assemblageSTUDIO.  (http://www.assemblagestudio.com/) One of the partners, Drew Gregory, was my second-year studio instructor who incouraged us to work with the regional palette of materials and develop an appreciation for the beauty of the dessert, but these principles can be applied to other regions as well.  

Here is the project we worked on in the studio.  It’s an experiential visitor center for the senses at Red Rock Canyon.  If you are ever in Southern Nevada be sure to check out the raw natural beauty of this National Park.

I would categorize Brian MacKay’s Messenger House II as an extremely minimal “dwelling”, an “essay” as the author puts it of architecture’s most simplistic manifestations.  It seems that anyone even without architectural training in plan view could read the simlistic organization of space, structure, served vs. service spaces, however this concept is less apparent in elevation.  Besides orientation, looking at the pictures, the openings don’t seem to follow a rigid set of principles as the plan does, which I would argue is quite a challange in contemporary architecture as elevations often get reduced into pattern making.  This was also discussed in our studio section as we moved into elevation and enclosure design and how the building concepts can be manifested in elevation.

An interesting blog I came across related to Fredrika’s presentation.

http://blog.miragestudio7.com/blind-architect-braille-blueprints/3512/