Teddy Cruz: The Formal-Informal,learning from Border Cities

By Cesar Murillo

Locked out from our scheduled lecture room on a Saturday morning, we gathered, instead, around a corner-table of the Wurster Hall lobby. Using a nearby board as  projector, a thread of power-cords to provide energy--the setting for Teddy Cruz's presentation was not as formal as expected. We adapted to the needs and space, while improvising our gathering space in the middle of a hallway and making use of everything. Something similar to what Teddy Cruz might do, improvising/creating  architecture that addresss the issues and politics of the border cities between San Diego and Mexico.

Ironically, the informal setting created an informal lecture; a more-conversation with Guatemalan-born architect and founding principal of Estudio Teddy Cruz in San Diego. Cruz introduced his own dissatisfaction for architecture's high and blind value of aesthetics. Working in Downtown San Diego has allowed him to be close to neighborhoods trapped in the extremes of wealth and poverty. Like most designers, Cruz wishes that a "sexy building"(as he called it) could transform these cities of waste-and-recycling."I had to make a detour to set the ground for this type of architecture by providing the research to mobilize new technologies for these areas," he realized. Cruz explained that the new urbanism triggered by corporations becomes the greatest threat to our cities. Their lack of support for small communities creates an architecture only about scale, facade, or style. "New urban development has become superfluous to what use to make the fabrics of a city interesting," says Cruz.

"There's a seduction for the shanty towns, a seduction for the informal as a topic," Cruz described his work as a "re-collage" of materials. His main objective is to create graphics that convey issues beyond the scope of his architecture; reflecting political ideas, or perhaps issues of homeland security. The images illustrate laboratories; the creation of individual units into systems. "What is behind the drama of these images?" he asks.

Humorously, Cruz recognizes himself as a "Cultural Pimp," as he hopes to become a translator of procedures by producing systems of designs of collaboration, and designs for economic and political trends configured into architectural spaces.

"How do we camouflage housing economies? How do we control political apathy? How can we engage social activism?" Cruz knows that these complexities must be understood for designers to reactivate cities. "In expanding our modes of practice, we can rebuild ways of thinking.." he stated. Teddy understands that each city has different issues and requires specialized research, but unfortunately research becomes marginalized in poor cities like San Isidro. Research is taken for granted, as it requires time and does not create the immediate results of sociopolitical change that the Border population might expect. People then become easily amused and content by the creation of a lavish building that will visually mimic their culture.


His work becomes a collection of materials, a recycling of uses, a re-collage of images that speak of the greater political and socioeconomic issues that should be addressed by designers.



In building cities for Mexicans, Mexican-Americans, or Latinos, the debate of aesthetics and style always emerges. When entering certain neighborhoods, the public expects a packaging of identity through a said-style. "People want to see a Costco wrapped with an Aztec temple or Spanish colonial facade," Cruz admits. Innovation in some communities becomes a struggle, as people want to perpetuate stereotypes and create icons around their cultures.



"Let's not talk about style... We should ask: what does a facade do, not what does it look like?" Teddy believes that there exists a tension between style-image and procedures created by Latino designers. He asks that designers dwell deeper to find metaphoric relationships by investigating contradictions. "Rather than an object, create space..only certain cities need an iconic building--others require transitional or gathering spaces," Cruz battles against the iconography represented in Latino culture.

"We need a negotiation between the formal and informal..a stitching of systems. The trash of the suburbs can become the building material for new cities," he explained. "Neighborhoods should become a site of production and display... and we can only do this by acknowledging the unrecognizable...the voids." Finally, Teddy Cruz recognized that only architects can be the facilitators to provide recognition of these social gaps. "Filling in the social voids will create density--and density means people and neighborhoods working in collaboration," he understands that only as a whole can we enable change and take on the challenges created by sociopolitical systems that will probably take a long time to instill change.




Cruz has been committed to advancing architectural and urban planning projects that address the global, political, and social problems existing in the cities like Tijuana and San Diego. Cruz is known for his articles and research that inspire a practice and theory emerging from the singularities of these impoverished and bicultural cities. He is part of the Visual Arts Department at UC San Diego, recipient of a Rome Prize, a P/A Award, the Robert Taylor Teaching Award from the ACSA, and numerous AIA Honor Awards.

Luis Barragan mirrors a modern past, but not the present.

By: Cesar Murillo

"Mexican politicians and educators should follow in the footsteps of those like Barragan who employ our popular tradition with intelligence.. (for) to be truly modern we must first come to terms with our tradition, " a tradition that Nobel laureate Octavio Paz recognized in the work of architect Luis Barragan. By the late 1950s, Barragan's main focus was not the revival of traditional forms, nor the transmission of a prehispanic past. Instead he wanted to create an ambiance, a reflection of himself as a space and an incidental representation of a true Mexican identity. His work lacked unequivocal symbols of Mexican tradition; as an alternative, he incorporated his learning of European and American modernism to create an architecture that identifies itself with a specific folklore. Accordingly, works like the Jardines del Pedregal allowed him to address the simple aesthetics and meanings of modernism to create a form of Critical Regionalism. Although Barragan's modernism reintroduces and innovates upon a past of traditions to create an unprecedented architectural identity for modern Mexico, works like El Pedregal also proved to be high-end projects that reflected only the values of the elite, disregarding the greater population and not entirely representing the true context of his people successfully.

Episodes throughout El Pedregal explicitly create Critical Regionalism that uses the preexisiting nature and history to create a fusion with the modern architecture. This nexus is not established by copying older styles or decorations of Mexico, but instead by using folklore and ideas to create an experience and give new meaning to a space that can tie in with its regional people. Luis Barragan makes a unique display of postmodern thought that takes into consideration the past and traditions, but forgets to include the majority of the current people and processes that he hoped to represent. Instead, Barragan creates a lavish display of modern architecture and pretensious garden spaces that are difficult for the common person to understand. Critics like Henri Lefebvre argued that modernism in its whole sense could not harbor the everyday of the common folk. "A rejection of avant-garde escapism, pretension, and heroicism in favor of a more sensitive engagement with people's everyday environments and lives is actually needed." Lefebvre, similar to other Postmodernist critics, rejected Modernism in all social aspects aspects because its rigid order did not engage with individual needs and processes. Instead, the monotomy of modern architecture created a template that should be re-used over and over, despite any other individual, cultural, or topographic element. The houses created in El Pedregal were in a sense more modern than what Barragan's postmodern style hoped to achieve. These simple and linear elements created a rigid prototype similar to the bureaucratic systems regulating the order of the social everyday in modernism. Barragan creates uniformity in the exterior design of his houses and inevitably produces a standard of living for this wealthy class of estate owners.

Luis Barragan was uncritical about the population he hoped to represent through his critical regionalism. He was moved by economic gain and fame, yet created an architecture that was not there before him., Barragan has given Mexico a chance to be part of the 21st century's modern movement and has merely begun and architectural revolution for Latin America. Whether or not his works can be seen as true and complete Critical Regionalism, architects and critics should move beyond that point and rather focus to direct his work and ideas into a more powerful scheme. Works like El Pedregal are only the beginning of a form of Critical Regionalism that can be further exploited. By learning from his methods of discretely reflecting upon the past and oneself to create a modern scheme of nostalgia, memory, and mysticism, we will be able to reach out to the heart of the present. The present should not be about making aesthetics for the sake of luxury or beauty for an elite group, but instead to create aesthetics that can tell not only a past or a story, but instead the larger context of social issues that affect us the most. Barragan's Critical Regionalism can become more critical if we learn to incorporate the everyday, not only for Mexico, but for the ever-so-changing identities and issues rising in this new decade for immigrants, Chicanos, and all Latinos, alike.

Rogelio Hernandez on the creation of CASA.

By Cesar Murillo

A house without a toilet in the slums of San Isidro in Tijuana; growing up with none of the comforts he has today--"Roy" Rogelio Hernandez introduced his path from zero to hero.

Beginning in 1972 along with a small group of Chicano student designers: Anne Cervantes, Carlos Rodriguez, Oswaldo Lopez; Roy helped establish the Community Design Outreach Program with a mission to increase the recruitment of Chicanos in the College of Environmental Design (CED); as well as offering design services to Latino and low-income communities of color in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Roy explained his role in Latino activist movements in painting the CASA mural titled 'Adeltante y Nunca Pa'tras, Huelga de Estudiantes' on the fifth floor of Wurster Hall in 1977 which was painted over in the late 1980s. As well as playing a role in the creation of RAZA Day, the first successful recruitment efforts advocating Latinos for higher education done at a university--later adopted by other schools in the nation. Rogelio designed the first three Raza Day posters in '76, '77, and '78, and also collaborated with CASA to provide very popular seminars at CED on the study of architecture and community design. Finally, Hernandez helped greet highschool students with an incredible slideshow soundtrack--'War's LowRider'--produced by Carlos Rodriguez and Oswaldo Lopez----as well as organizing 'pachangas' as fundraisers to raise money for community and non-profit organizations in the Bay Area.

In sharing his work experience, he described his interest for pursing a multidisciplinary career. He started his work in designing different building-types to specialize in different aspects of building construction, but he moved on to pursue a career in digital software. "Firms that are different have better and more chances of surviving recessions," Roy suggests. He told the story of how he trained himself to learn AutoCad and introduce it's use for architecture design for his firm and was then hired to train others in firms nation-wide. Since then, Roy has worked with companies like IBM to become more involved in learning and expanding the use of different software in fields outside of architecture.