The Dallas Architecture Forum
Presents Celebrated Architect
FRIDA ESCOBEDO
FOUNDER and PRINCIPAL
FRIDA ESCOBEDO, TALLER DE ARQUITECTURA
MEXICO CITY
25 February 2020
Tuesday, 7:00 pm
Reception and check-in 6:15 pm
Horchow Auditorium, Dallas Museum of Art
The Rose Family Lecture
Presented in Partnership with UTA CAPPA
Since founding her eponymous practice in 2006, Frida Escobedo has developed a distinctive approach to architecture, design, sculpture and art, successfully using them, in both contemporary and historical contexts, as indispensable touchstones for her projects. Transcending the traditional boundaries of the architectural discipline, the studio’s creative output operates at a wide array of scales and mediums, encompassing buildings and experimental preservation projects, temporary installations and public sculpture, limited edition objects, publications and exhibition designs. Informed by an unmistakable material sensibility and intuitive feeling for pattern, Ms. Escobedo’s work is at once unmistakably architectural, and yet frequently blurs the boundary between architecture and art.
Frida Escobedo´s design includes art and architecture installations, custom furniture, as well as residential and public buildings. The firm has received prestigious commissions from the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Guggenheim Foundation, Stanford University, Neutra’s VDL Research House, the Chicago Architecture Biennial and la Biennale d’Architecture d’Orléans. Among Escobedo’s many awards and recognitions are those from Architectural Review and The Architectural League. Escobedo has been a visiting professor at Columbia, UC Berkeley, Rice, Harvard GSD and London’s Architectural Association. Escobedo was recognized as one of the top 30 most influential architects practicing today by archdaily.com.
The studio’s design projects give equal attention to both craft and practicality, demonstrating a pure and organic nature true to their context and site. These principles are evidenced in large scale social housing projects such as INFONAVIT and in smaller scale projects including Casa Cruz Castillo and Casa Negra and a courtyard at Stony Island Arts Bank. The studio’s notable projects also include the rehabilitation of the home and studio of seminal Mexican painter David Siqueiros, Librería Octavio Paz, La Tallera, and the renovation of the iconic Hotel Boca Chica in Acapulco. Escobedo is known for creating temporary and interactive works which can accommodate multiple intended purposes.
In 2018 Escobedo received the coveted commission to design that year’s Serpentine Pavilion in London’s Kensington Gardens using materials and architectural styles from both Britain and Mexico in order to create a work that would capture the historical and cultural aspects of each country. The design of the Pavilion is an allusion to courtyards typically attached to houses in Mexico. Her selection to design the Serpentine Pavilion is one of the highest design recognitions awarded to an architect, an honor previously given to Zaha Hadid, Oscar Niemeyer, Bjarke Ingels, Jean Nouvel, Peter Zumthor, Herzog & de Meuron, and Rem Koolhaas.
featured image: Serpentine Pavilion. London, England.Courtesy of the Architect.jpg