Blog de los alumnos de Washington University – Tijuanologies.

Curso de diseño urbano que estoy impartiendo con John Hoal.

Entrega Final Julio 18, 2009

Blog of Washington Univeristy students – Studio I am teaching with John Hoal

Final Presentation July 18, 2009

A Literary Legend Fights for a Library

Ethan Pines for The New York Times

NYTimes Story

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El escritor Ray Bradbury a sus 90 años comenta sobre su carrera, como odia el internet, su preferencia de las bibliotecas por la universidades y ni más ni menos de Bo Derek!
Le doy toda la razón a Bradbury, si invirtiéramos en bibliotecas en vez de universidades patitos que aparecen por done quiera, tendríamos una sociedad más informada, creativa y libre. Se tiene que iniciar la idea de hacer un sistema de bibliotecas en vez de una sola centralizada, la época de la biblioteca como representación del conocimiento se acabo. El banco dejo de ser este espacio grandioso hace mucho tiempo, el cajero automático es su avatar…ocupamos el atm de los libros

I REALIZED THAT THERE IS SUCH A THING AS A STUPID QUESTION!

Esta semana me la pase en el DF, monstrou urbano. Aqui unas imagenes de las experiencias mas importantes…para mi!

CU y su traza urbana modernista
Convento de las Capuchinas de Luis Barragan
la iglesia de felix candela- no hay comparacion!

My late night insomniac generic thoughts

Notes on the future of the region

It is immediately apparent that this structure is composed of a formless heap of fragments colliding one against the other. The whole area between the Tiber, the Campidoglio, the Quirinale, and the Pincio is represented according to a method of arbitrary association (even though Piranesi accepts the suggestions of the Forma urbis), whose principles of organization exclude any organic unity.

Manfredo Tafuri, The Sphere and the Labyrinth – Avant-Gardes and Architecture from Piranesi to the 1970s (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1987), p. 34.

Tijuana began as a utopian ideal, its origin as a city rooted in concepts of modernism from the late 19^th century. Its past is modern – similar to NY, LA, Las Vegas or any other 20th century city. Downtown Tijuana is quasi modern and pseudo utopian. A city that simulated universal ideals that in the present remained obscure by the distopian path of postmodernism. Yet being modern (or pesudo modern) is not a fault, but an attribute that in the mist of globalization could generate a new “mood” for the city. As some say, maybe modernity is unfinished business. For Rem Koolhaas the generic is a consequence of the failure of modernism – junk space. Yet, a different kind of generic could appear –the search for an ethics in plurality and the ideal of architecture can become a premise for the construction of a correlative urban form. A Piranesian modernism is what Tijuana is all about.