El Pedregal Tag

ART & ARCHITECTURE DERIVES

The eco-aesthetics of  El Pedregal and the constructive botany in Mexico megacity

A conversation with Peter Krieger

With the participation of Juan José Kochen

This talk explores the urban-natural and artistic-architectural relationship of the Pedregal de San Ángel Ecological Reserve (REPSA), a unique reserve in the world that is located within Ciudad Universitaria and that protects an extraordinary fund of biodiversity stressed by the current unsustainable development of the mega city of Mexico.

Thanks to the fact that it is a place where the city, wild vegetation and volcanic rock remnant of the eruption of the Xitle volcano coexist, it has functioned as a didactic enclave that has been a source and inspiration for works of contemporary art such as STRATUM by Luis Carrera-Maul (MUCA Campus, 2022) or Modthern Nature by Gabriela Galván (Arte Abierto, 2023). It has also been the setting for imagining a new type of architecture that leaves only a minimal ecological footprint: constructive botany, a model created by the German architect Hannes Schwertfeger, who introduced it to Mexico in 2022 in a workshop given at UNAM.

This Derive reflects on how architecture, art and nature find points of confluence to think about our environmental responsibility as current inhabitants of the basin of Mexico and the world.

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The eco-aesthetics of El Pedregal and constructive botany in the megacity of Mexico..
A conversación con Peter Krieger.

  • Saturday, July 29, 2023
  • 13:00h
  • At Arte Abierto, located on the 2nd floor of Artz Pedregal
  • Free admission

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No registration needed.

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Peter Krieger
He is a PhD in Art History from the University of Hamburg, Germany, a researcher at the Institute for Aesthetic Research and a professor at UNAM’s Postgraduate Studies in Architecture and Art History. He has conducted research and publications on aesthetics, history, theory, ecology, and political iconography of architecture, cities, and landscapes. He is currently working on a book about the Pedregal de San Ángel Ecological Reserve. From 2004 to 2012 he was vice president of the International Committee for the History of Art (CIHA / UNESCO) and from 2010 to 2018 member of the Outdoor Advertising Commission, Ministry of Development and Housing, Government of Mexico City. During 2016 and 2017 he was visiting professor at the universities of Hamburg / chair Aby Warburg, Tübingen and Regensburg.

www.peterkrieger-ecoaesthetics.com/

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Juan José Kochen
Architect and publisher. He studied Architecture at the Faculty of Architecture of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Journalism at the Carlos Septién García School of Journalism and a master’s degree in Analysis, Theory and History of Architecture at UNAM. He wrote for the newspaper Reforma, was editor of Arquine, consultant to the General Subdirectorate of Sustainability and Technology of Infonavit, fellow of the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt), of the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and of the Youth Program Creators of the National Fund for Culture and the Arts (FONCA) on two occasions. He is the author of La utopía como modelo, a professor at the Universidad Iberoamericana and collaborator of the Sordo Madaleno Foundation.

TW @kochenjj

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Arte Abierto continues with its new public program Derivas de Arte y Arquitectura (Art & Architecture Derives), which seeks to renew our gaze on the architectural legacy of Mexico City. From a series of talks focused on rescuing the parallel stories of emblematic architectural projects and public spaces that have witnessed the variable intersection between art and architecture. In this first stage, the program deals mainly with modern architecture, based on a series of talks given by invited curators, architects, artists and urban planners.

With this program, ways of returning to architecture part of its public, experiential, collective character and close to those of us who inhabit the city are tested, recognizing in it its condition as a living archive. From these talks, circumstances, contexts and anecdotes are revealed that have been part of his sensitive memory and that complement his material memory, a relationship that often escapes documentary narratives and academic accounts.

The objective of the drifts is to generate experiences of spatial rediscovery, which allow us to renew our gaze on the legacy of certain emblematic architectural and artistic works, as well as those that have been forgotten.

The derives will be carried out free of charge on the last Saturday of each month, at 1:00 p.m. with a limited capacity.

Arte Abierto Derives :

February 26: Tania Ragasol / Entorno urbano, cotidianidad y arte: La Torre de los Vientos by Gonzalo Fonseca

March 26 : David Miranda / Del Animal Herido y otros eventos escultóricos dentro de la arquitectura moderna

April 23: Gustavo Lipkau y Xavier Hierro / Integración plástica de los edificios del campus central de CU: sus murales

May 28: Marisol Argüelles / La casa-estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo. Del espacio doméstico a la dimensión de lo público

June 25: Luis Javier de la Torre/ La Ruta de la Amistad MÉXICO68… más allá de 1968

July 30: Aldo Solano/ Architecture for playing in 20th Century Mexico City.

August 27: Christian del Castillo/ Tracing the modern in the architecture of the Historic Center of Mexico City.

September 24: Juan José Kochen/ The Ideal of the Multifamily Apartment cComplex.

October 29: Tania Candiani/ Quantum Prelude. Sound activation by Tania Candiani.

March 25: Ana Garduño/ Cultural Geographies: The invention of museum circuits in 20th century Mexico City.

May 27: Rebeca Barquera/ The Plastic Integration Movement México: More than murals on buildings.

June 17: Peter Kriegel/ The eco-aesthetics of El Pedregal and constructive botany in the megacity of Mexico.

TRANSVERSAL TOURS

ARE THERE VOLCANOES BETWEEN THE CITY OR A CITY BETWEEN THE VOLCANOES?

Transversal tour through Modthern Nature with Marie-Noëlle Guilbaud

The south of Mexico City sits on lava flows from the Xitle volcano, which erupted approximately 1,670 years ago. Now, the remains of lava from this volcano have almost disappeared with urban growth, despite this, many remnants still emerge at UNAM, mainly in the Pedregal de San Ángel Ecological Reserve. This lava, which is now a rocky landscape, sustains an ecosystem that is unique in the world. In this tour of the Modthern Nature exhibition, we will talk about the richness of this geoheritage and its relationship with life in our city.

The Transversal Tours are visits through the Arte ABierto exhibitions with guests from different areas beyond art, to expand the themes and points of reference from other gazes, perspectives, languages and disciplines.

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TRANSVERSAL TOURS
ARE THERE VOLCANOES BETWEEN THE CITY OR A CITY BETWEEN THE VOLCANOES?
Transversal tour through Modthern Nature with Marie-Noëlle Guilbaud

  • JUE.27.JUL.2023
  • 18:00 hrs.
  • Free admission
  • Arte Abierto | 2nd floor, Artz Pedregal

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MARIE-NOËLLE GUILBAUD
Dra. Marie-Noëlle Guilbaud is Head (B) researcher in the Department of Volcanology at the UNAM Institute of Geophysics, which she has been in charge of since August 2021. She obtained her PhD from the Open University (England) in 2006 and joined UNAM in April 2010. Since then, he has developed multiple projects related to monogenetic volcanism in Mexico and its importance for geoheritage and the resilience of populations against geological risks.

PARALLEL LANDSCAPES

VISITS AROUND EL PREDREGAL

ECOLOGIC SPACE OF THE ANAHUACALLI MUSEUM

Guided by the Anahuacalli Museum team.
+ An exercise in experimental drawing by Escrituras vegetales.

To kick off the Parallel Landscapes program, the first visit will be a tour of the Ecologic Space of the Anahuacalli Museum, which is one of the treasures that the Museum houses. In this there are almost 20,000 m2 of endemic vegetation, several water wells, and a sea of volcanic stone from the eruption of the Xitle volcano. This tour helps to understand how the original architecture, projected by Diego Rivera, combines landscape with functionalist architecture and aspects of pre-Hispanic cosmogony; while the architectural expansion serves as a contemporary reinterpretation of the existing buildings and dialogues with the volcanic environment in a game with the rugged topography.

After  the visit trough the Ecologic Space of the Anahuacalli Museum, Escrituras vegetales will share Nos habita un mundo vegetal que habitamos, an activity to reflect on the blurred limits of the notion of interior-exterior, and environment-contour, by which architecture has molded us. A collective drawing will be created on the windows and mirrors of the Anahuacalli workshop, taking into account the landscapes that are reflected and intertwined, playing with the borders of the environments that surround us and that shape the Museum in relation to the plant world.

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PARALLEL LANDSCAPES
Visits around El Pedregal
VISIT ONE: ECOLOGIC SPACE OF THE ANAHUACALLI MUSEUM
Guided by the Anahuacalli Museum team
+
An exercise in experimental drawing by Escrituras vegetales

  • SAT.22.JUL.2023
  • 12:00 hrs.
  • Ecologic Space of the Anahuacalli Museum
  • Pre-register here.
  • Duration: 60-90 min. each visit.
  • We recommend wearing comfortable shoes, water and a hat.

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Responsible Registration Policy: Your place is very special since space is limited, so we ask you to fill out the registration only if you can attend.
To cancel write to actividades@arteabierto.org

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Enter here to learn more about Arte Abierto’s Parallel Landscapes Program, with upcoming visit dates and places.

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Museo Anahuacalli
Projected between 1942-1957 and inaugurated in 1967, the Anahuacalli Museum is a house for pre-Hispanic art, designed by the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. Within his search to create a “City of Arts”, he projected the Anahuacalli as a great stage for the development of various artistic expressions in an atmosphere whose architecture represented the search for the Mexican essence.

http://museoanahuacalli.org.mx/
IG @anahuacalli
TW @anahuacalli
FB @museoanahuacalli
IG  Anahuacalli Museum workshops @talleres_anahuacalli

PARALLEL LANDSCAPES

VISITS AROUND EL PEDREGAL

Parallel Landscapes is a program of visits to four conjunctural sites in El Pedregal as part of the Modthern Nature exhibition by Gabriela Galván. The visits are designed to generate new possibilities of understanding the transforming landscape in El Pedregal environment.

Together with artists and different specialists from different areas – who contributed with their experiences and knowledge to the Modthern Nature project – we will visit each of the proposed sites to find new ways of inhabiting and looking at this landscape within its current urban context.

Parallel Landscapes is a way of sharing part of Gabriela Galván’s research, not from the bibliographic text or the data, but from the gaze, the body and coming into contact with the people, environments and landscapes that nurtured her research field.

PARALLEL LANDSCAPES
Visits around El Pedregal

  • Previous registration needed | Limited space | For all public.
  • Duration: 60-90 min. each visit.
  • We recommend wearing comfortable shoes, water and a hat.

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Pre-register here.
Responsible Registration Policy: Your place is very special since space is limited, so we ask you to fill out the registration only if you can attend.
To cancel write to actividades@arteabierto.org

VISITS

JULY>>

VISIT ONE: ESPACIO ECOLÓGICO DEL MUSEO ANAHUACALLI (Ecological Space of the Ahahuacalli Museum)
Anahuacalli Museum team
+
An experimental drawing exercise by Escrituras vegetales

SAT.22.JUL.2023
12:00 hrs.
Espacio Ecológico del Museo Anahuacalli

AUGUST>>

VISIT TWI: REPSA (El Pedregal de San Ángel Ecological Reserve, UNAM)
Dr. Silke Cram
Biologist and PhD in Agronomy, soil expert, current Executive Secretary of REPSA and researcher at the Institute of Geography, UNAM.
+
A body exploration exercise by Bárbara Foulkes

SAT.19.AUG.2023
10:00 hrs.
REPSA (El Pedregal de San Ángel Ecological Reserve), UNAM
Ecological Path – Sculptures Walk – Sculpture Space

SEPTEMBER>>

VISIT THREE: THE ROUTE OF FRIENDSHIP
Luis Javier de la Torre
President and Founder of the Board of Trustees Ruta de la Amistad A.C.
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A landscape intervention by Proyecto Escrituras Experimentales

SAT.23.SEP.2023
10:00 hrs.
The Route of Friendship
(Station 7: Italy’s sculpture. Man of Peace by Costantino Nivola)

OCTOBER>>

VISIT FOUR: CASA ESTUDIO MAX CETTO
The first house in Jardines del Pedregal.
Bettina Cetto and Julián Arroyo Cetto
Bettina Cetto is an economist, writer, daughter of Max Cetto and the first girl to inhabit Jardines del Pedregal, and Julián Arroyo Cetto, architect, grandson of Max Cetto and current inhabitant of the house.

SAT.07.OCT.2023
12:00 hrs.
Casa Estudio Max Cetto

ART & ARCHITECTURE DERIVES

Max Cetto in the beginnings of El Pedregal

A conversation with Julián Arroyo Cetto

For this 12º Art & Architecture Derive we moved the date to June 17 and we will have Julián Arroyo Cetto as a guest to talk about the beginnings of the area that we know in Mexico City as El Pedregal.

El Pedregal, a magnificent and unique terrain –almost untouched by humans since the seven successive lava flows from the Xitle volcano 2,000 years ago– became the setting for a virtuous mix of nature, art and modern architecture. Barragán’s vision, nurtured by Diego Rivera and Dr. Atl, among others, required a unique architecture for this singular place.

This task fell on Max Cetto, a German architect-engineer with a great cultural background –already with a career in his native Germany, a brief stay in the Neutra office in California and almost ten years in Mexico– to whom his friend Barragán entrusts to raise a first architecture proposal for the El Pedregal Gardens.

This is how the Show-Houses on Av. Fuentes and the Max Cetto Studio House arose, the first house in the subdivision and current witness to the passing of time on this site.

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Max Cetto in the beginning of El Pedregal.. Conversation with Julián Arroyo Cetto.

  • Saturday, June 17, 2023
  • 13:00h
  • At Espacio Arte Abierto, located on the 2nd flor in Artz Pedregal
  • Free admission

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No need to register.

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Julián Arroyo Cetto
Architect graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at UNAM and professor at the Universidad Iberoamericana. He has worked on various public and private projects; committed to the balanced integration of technical, artistic, economic and social aspects. He collaborated in the first projects of the Autoridad del Espacio Público: “Plaza de la República” and “Corredor Peatonal Madero”. He was Coordinator of architecture in the projects “Parque Hídrico La Quebradora” and renovation of the “Urban Park Monument to the Mother and Garden of Art”. He collaborated with Nuño, Mac Gregor and de Buen in the design of the “Building of Bars and Restaurants of the León Fair”. He has designed projects for SEDATU among which the “Garden of Shadows” and the “Garden of Water” (Collaboration with ORU); “Mirador Cultural Center”, “Main Square and Pisté Cultural Center”, “Sisbichén Square” and “Deportivo y Plaza Chelem”. He currently works in his own office and collaborates, both with public and private institutions in the development of projects.

IG @julian_arroyo_cetto
IG @dcmxarq

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Arte Abierto continues with its new public program Derivas de Arte y Arquitectura (Art & Architecture Derives), which seeks to renew our gaze on the architectural legacy of Mexico City. From a series of talks focused on rescuing the parallel stories of emblematic architectural projects and public spaces that have witnessed the variable intersection between art and architecture. In this first stage, the program deals mainly with modern architecture, based on a series of talks given by invited curators, architects, artists and urban planners.

With this program, ways of returning to architecture part of its public, experiential, collective character and close to those of us who inhabit the city are tested, recognizing in it its condition as a living archive. From these talks, circumstances, contexts and anecdotes are revealed that have been part of his sensitive memory and that complement his material memory, a relationship that often escapes documentary narratives and academic accounts.

The objective of the drifts is to generate experiences of spatial rediscovery, which allow us to renew our gaze on the legacy of certain emblematic architectural and artistic works, as well as those that have been forgotten.

The derives will be carried out free of charge on the last Saturday of each month, at 1:00 p.m. with a limited capacity.

Arte Abierto Derives :

February 26: Tania Ragasol / Entorno urbano, cotidianidad y arte: La Torre de los Vientos by Gonzalo Fonseca

March 26 : David Miranda / Del Animal Herido y otros eventos escultóricos dentro de la arquitectura moderna

April 23: Gustavo Lipkau y Xavier Hierro / Integración plástica de los edificios del campus central de CU: sus murales

May 28: Marisol Argüelles / La casa-estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo. Del espacio doméstico a la dimensión de lo público

June 25: Luis Javier de la Torre/ La Ruta de la Amistad MÉXICO68… más allá de 1968

July 30: Aldo Solano/ Architecture for playing in 20th Century Mexico City.

August 27: Christian del Castillo/ Tracing the modern in the architecture of the Historic Center of Mexico City.

September 24: Juan José Kochen/ The Ideal of the Multifamily Apartment cComplex.

October 29: Tania Candiani/ Quantum Prelude. Sound activation by Tania Candiani.

March 25: Ana Garduño/ Cultural Geographies: The invention of museum circuits in 20th century Mexico City.

May 27: Rebeca Barquera/ The Plastic Integration Movement México: More than murals on buildings.

MODTHERN NATURE

Modthern Nature is a multisensorial and site-specific installation commissioned to artist Gabriela Galván (Mexico City, 1974) by Arte Abierto, with which our space is turned into an endemic and hydroponic garden which seeks to reflect upon the humanity-nature relationship, taking biodiversity and the transformation of El Pedregal as a result of modern thought as a starting point.

Modthern Nature arises from the interest in experiencing with the concept of transformation, privileging the contemplation of natural and everyday happenings through the senses. For Galván, transformation and temporality are notions which could be explored through art as fields of experimentation, investigation and knowledge, having the immediate context as reference and creating connections between living beings, places and cultures.

What we currently conceive as an urban zone, and was known in ancient Mesoamérica as Cuicuilco, was a territory which was buried by the eruption of the Xitle Volcano, provoking a volcanic landscape which we have nowadays come to witness, live in and think through. Later, during the 20th century, the area was intervened by a modern style of architecture which allows us to notice the links between natural development and human development.

 

The changes that the El Pedregal has undergone throughout its history allow us to think in concepts such as transformation, temporality and contemplation, which are of interest to the artist. The act of approaching this context from the vantage point of the present is not fortuitous: in the midst of our contemporary lives, it becomes urgent to contemplate the endemic nature that surrounds us in order to be able to recognize the knowledge transmitted by plants, rocks and living beings, as thus, reimagine our relationship to nature and our sense of belonging to it.

 

As Gabriela Galván puts forth, Modthern Nature suggests a re-enchantment with nature, but also reflects upon the importance of the sensorial aspect and our lived experience through its means. This project isn’t but a single glance at the grandiosity and complexity of El Pedregal, as guided by the knowledge of biologists, geologists, historians, landscapists and researchers who have studied the wisdoms of this historical space. This is also the first grand scale exhibition that Gabriela Galván has shown in Mexico for the past 10 years, and one of the most complex in her career.

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Gabriela Galván’s exhibition, Modthern Nature, will be open from June to November 2023, Tuesday to Sunday from 12 to 7 pm at Espacio Arte Abierto located on the 2nd floor Artz Pedregal (Periférico Sur 3720 Col. Jardines del Pedregal, CP. 01900, Mexico City).

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We appreciate the support and advice to make this project possible to: Eduardo Berumen, Dra. N. Ivalú Cacho González, Arq. Wilfredo Cahuantzi Sigüenza, Blga. Teresa Castaño, Bettina Cetto, Dra. Silke Cram, Ing. Antonio González Guzmán, Ing. Luis Lin, Dra. María Fernanda Martinez-Báez Téllez, Pablo Villaseñor, Facultad de Ciencias de la Tierra (UNAM), Jardín Botánico (IB-UNAM), Reserva Ecológica del Pedregal de San Ángel (UNAM) y Taller de Paisaje Entorno.