Fernando Romero, Mexiko
Fernando Romero is a young Mexican architect who founded the LCM
architecture office in Mexico in 1998. LCM has three main objectives:
contemporary design, investigation and contemporary cultural programs.
Pursuing experimental design and researching Mexico City, LCM began as
a workshop of young architects and students.
It brings to the Aedes Gallery three current projects and two completed
projects as well as a data recollection project (ZMVM) that explores the
transformation of the critical conditions that define urban life in Mexico City:
House M, Mixoac, Mexico City (1999):
This is the first project LCM built in Mexico, and the experiment stands to an
architecture that has a physical condition far beyond its concepts. The
systems that are used here will never be used again. The house disobeys
the comprehension of modernity, dictated by a context defined by chaos.
The living room is buried, while the rooms live to the ceiling of the house, on
top of a ruled surfaced slab with different geometry.
Flats in Colima, La Roma, Mexico City (2000):
For the building it was necessary to maintain a distance from the evident
Dutch influence. A three storey structure was designed to distribute artist
flats, each with a completely different lecture.
Anexo D, Desierto de los Leones, Mexico City (2001):
With this project, LCM was presented an opportunity to experiment both
with the designing process, as well as with new constructive systems. The
concept is one
continuous skin which wraps in its own to define the space and to produce
a ramp that links to the garden. Theoretically, the construction shows the
confrontation of two historical moments, presenting the possible evolution
of a modernist house in Mexico City during the 1950s, where the family’s
growth requirements, a children’s room and a playing area would be placed.
The concept of the construction is that of an iron structure covered with
polyurethane foam, and this one on its turn, covered with fibre glass.
House in Ixtapa, Zihuatanejo, Guerrero, Mexico (2001):
The property is situated on a private beach on the coast of the Pacific
Ocean. The house is divided into two conditions: a public and a private
space. The first is contained by a solid mass that holds the services like the
kitchen and restrooms. And the second is on the upper floor and it has five,
almost identical rooms with three different kinds of bathrooms. The concept
comes from a surface that while blending on its own, defines the
differences between public and private.
House for José Noe Suro, Guadalajara, Mexico (2002):
José Noe Suro is a prominent young contemporary art collector from
Guadalajara, Jalisco, the second most important city in the country after
Mexico City. One of his most important conditions in commissioning a firm to
build his house was that the architect be involved in the world of
contemporary art. The house itself is divided into two conditions: public and
private, where private space stands floating on top of the public space,
giving the necessary light filter, movement and flexible conditions of scale.
A continuous skin defines the public space that holds the space necessary
to exhibit the personal collection of objects, videos, and paintings. The
private space will carry the loads of all the tiled walls that define the public
area.
ZMVM:
Is a data recollection project that explores the transformation on the critical
conditions that define urban life in Mexico City: population, size, economy,
insecurity, pollution, water, infrastructure, housing, transport, relations,
informalities, young pop, and education. The analysis is more general than
specific and it constitutes a first step towards more specific projects,
proposals and solutions that will continue to deal with Mexico City in parts
and as a whole.
Talks by Kristin Feireiss, Berlin, Mrs. Sari Bermudez, Head of Ministry of
Culture,
Dr. Gabriele von Mahlsen-Tilborch, Cultural Department Auswärtiges Amt,
Berlin, Catherine David, Paris, and Hubertus Adam, Zürich, will accompany
the opening on the 6th of July 2001.
