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Frida Escobedo reveals first American residential design in Brooklyn

2024-04-04T15:16:00-04:00

Frida Escobedo’s first American residential commission has been revealed as a block-scale condominium project in the Boerum Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn.

The designer of the new Modern and Contemporary Art Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (in which she has set up a working studio) will deliver the new Bergen development at 209,000 square feet for client Avdoo & Partners by 2025.

It will stand as the second building project in the New York market for Escobedo following her collaboration with Handel on the new National Black Theatre mixed-use development in Harlem.

Image credit: DARCSTUDIO

Escobedo had gained notoriety in Mexico for residential projects, including Mar Tirreno 86, which will now inform her latest design, calling for 105 units configurable in 53 different types and ranging from studios to five bedrooms. The facade of the building is angled such that it maximizes natural light from an east-west direction, with porous openings made along the street level to produc...

The Met's Jhaelen Hernandez-Eli details his work as Vice President of Capital Projects to the New York Times

2023-11-15T19:24:00-05:00

The New York Times recently spoke to Jhaelen Hernandez-Eli about his work as the Vice President of Capital Projects for NYC's Metropolitan Museum of Art.

A Harvard GSD alum and former Associate Principal at Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Hernandez-Eli had previously worked in design and construction for the New York City Economic Development Corporation before joining the institution, where he is now responsible for a $2 billion capital improvements initiative that will prove to be one of the defining aspects of Director Max Hollein's tenure.

“The emphasis on environmental performance and dealing with the climate crisis is not separate and apart from the discussion around aesthetics,” Hernandez-Eli told NYT Art & Culture contributor Ted Loos last month. “I think that oftentimes those two things get divorced. You’re either focused on what a thing looks like or how a thing performs. Our argument here is that they’re not mutually exclusive, they’re merged.”

Previously on Archinect: Frida E...

Frida Escobedo and Handel's National Black Theatre project tops out in Harlem

2023-10-09T17:24:00-04:00

Frida Escobedo and Handel Architects have shared photos of their newly topped-out National Black Theatre and Ray Harlem mixed-use development in Manhattan.

The project entails a new 27,000-square-foot theater, retail spaces, and a 222-unit residential component strategically located along the historic 125th Street corridor in East Harlem. It is the first scheme in the city to utilize the Visual and Performing Arts bonus included in a comprehensive 2008 rezoning plan, expanding on the late National Black Theatre founder Barbara Ann Teer’s vision for “an artistic ecosystem that uplifts the community,” according to Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine. Proponents say its creation is also a catalyst for greater representation in the theater and cultural industries overall.

Image © Brett Tiagwad

Construction will now continue towards the NBT’s expected public opening in 2026. Once complete, the theater will include a 250-seat immersive technology performance space, a 99-seat flexible s...

Frida Escobedo speaks to Vogue on her plans for The Met expansion

2023-03-24T12:24:00-04:00

One year after acclaimed Mexican architect Frida Escobedo replaced David Chipperfield as the designer for the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art's $500 million modern and contemporary wing extension, Escobedo has spoken to Vogue about her vision fo the scheme. When completed, the project is expected to comprise 80,000 square feet of more accessible galleries and public spaces.

“My first thoughts were that this wing is quite isolated,” Escobedo told Vogue’s Dodie Kazanjian on a tour of the existing museum. “It feels like a separate part of the museum, and the question is, how can we integrate it more?”

While Escobedo is not due to present a design concept until June, she revealed to Vogue that her vision for the scheme will include some form of alteration to the building’s orientation. “Right now, the building is facing just one way, Fifth Avenue — the grand staircase, the Great Hall, and you can go in three directions to Egypt, to Greece, and to Europe,” Escobedo told the magazine....

CriticalProductive: New journal on culture, arts, and architecture to be launched by former USC Dean Milton S. F. Curry

2023-01-25T11:56:00-05:00

Former USC School of Architecture Dean Milton S. F. Curry has announced the creation of a new architecture journal. Titled CriticalProductive, the peer-reviewed print and digital academic journal will be released three times per year by MIT Press and will be “invested in the intellectual project of culture, arts, and architecture.”

Curry is joined in the magazine’s production by program and editorial assistant Grace Cillo. Other names associated with the journal’s editorial include Cornell associate professor Lilly H. Chi, Mexican architect Frida Escobedo, and UCLA city-LAB director Dana Cuff.

“It is a place where cultural theorists, designers, architects, urbanists, artists, humanists, and activists reflect on contemporary culture and experiment with provocative ideas on how to disrupt normative paradigms, activate and catalyze new potentials, and utilize...

Frida Escobedo has replaced David Chipperfield on the Met's $500 million modern and contemporary wing expansion

2022-03-14T14:56:00-04:00

Change at the top of the museum world as New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced Mexican architect Frida Escobedo as its new designer of the forthcoming Oscar L. Tang and H.M. Agnes Hsu-Tang Wing for modern and contemporary art.

Escobedo now officially replaces David Chipperfield, who had been selected by then-director Thomas Campbell in 2015. An announcement from the museum noted that the new wing will encompass some 80,000 square feet of more accessible galleries and public space all made possible by the Tang’s contribution to the nearly $500 million total cost.

The 42-year-old’s work has thus far been defined most notably by her 2018 design for the Serpentine Pavilion and through her eponymous Mexico City-based practice, which has authored a wide range of projects that include everything from historic renovation of an iconic hotel in Acapulco to investigations into the lives of domestic workers in Mexico City, among other standout projects. Escobedo has held teaching ...

Frida Escobedo's Serpentine Pavilion sold to spa company Therme

2018-10-09T13:26:00-04:00

The [pavilion] will now be displayed in ‘selected locations’ as part of the Therme Art Program, which was set up to fulfill artistic and architectural ’visions that cannot be realised in galleries or museum spaces: no matter how complex their production, installation and long-term maintenance may be’. Serpentine Galleries chief executive Yana Peel and artistic director Hans Ulrich Obrist said in a joint statement that they were ‘delighted’ by the purchase.

2018 Serpentine Pavilion, designed by Mexican architect Frida Escobedo, is unveiled ahead of Friday's opening

2018-06-11T15:45:00-04:00

In an interview with the Guardian earlier this month, Mexican architect, and this year's designer of the 2018 Serpentine Pavilion, Frida Escobedo told Rowan Moore her focus for the commission was on “how you feel inside the space, how you go about it in the moment.” Opening this Friday on the Serpentine Gallery lawn in Kensington Garden, visitors will finally get the chance to experience what she's created for them: an enclosed courtyard composed of a lattice of cement roof tiles, featuring a shallow pool of water to ward off the Summer heat.

The youngest architect to be given one of summer's hottest invitations, Escobedo is a welcom...

“I love materials that absorb the passage of time”: Frida Escobedo speaks with Rowan Moore about her 2018 Serpentine Pavilion and her design philosophy

2018-06-05T14:28:00-04:00

Escobedo’s approach is, she says, not about the look of the architectural object, but “how you feel inside the space, how you go about it in the moment”. It is designed for the “very specific space and time” of the Serpentine’s lawn in summer, but is also for the future in which, like previous pavilions, it will be sold to private collectors. Since “we don’t know where it’s going”, the design “can absorb locality no matter where it is”.

In this piece for The Guardian, Rowan Moore speaks with 39-year-old Mexican architect Frida Escobedo about her Serpentine Pavilion, an “intimate public courtyard” that will open in London this month. Escobedo talks about her start in architecture, Mexican modernism, and the “always incomplete”, temporal nature of architecture — a core concept of her work. “I love materials that absorb the passage of time”, she tells Moore.

“Throughout Escobedo’s work, there’s an interest in whatever is already there, which she attributes both to the influence of the French philosopher Henri Bergson, and to the culture of her country. To Bergson she owes the idea that every action adds to previous actions, like pearls on a necklace, changing the whole but not replacing it,” Moore writes.

Construction begins on 2018 Serpentine Pavilion

2018-04-23T19:19:00-04:00

Construction is now underway for the 2018 Serpentine Pavilion, which is scheduled to open in June in time for summer outdoor festivities at the Serpentine Galleries in London. Mexican architect Frida Escobedo — who was commissioned to design the 2018 pavilion in February — is working with AECOM, contractor Stage One Creative Services, and the Serpentine Galleries to bring the anticipated installation to life.

Escobedo's design fuses elements of Mexican domestic architecture and British materials and history, while playfully integrating light, water, and geometry.

Serpentine Pavilion 2018 Designed by Frida Escobedo, Taller de Arquitectura, Design Rendering, Interior View © Frida Escobedo, Taller de Arquitectura, Renderings by Atmósfera.

The pavilion comprises two rectangular volumes positioned at an angle to form an enclosed courtyard — a common feature of Mexican domestic architecture. The courtyard's axis will be directed to the north, in reference to the Prime Meridian that was est...

First Office + Ultramoderne among MoMA's 2016 Young Architects Program finalists

2015-12-02T15:30:00-05:00

Joining an eye-popping list of previous entrants and winners, the five finalists for the 2016 PS1/MoMA Young Architects Program (YAP) have been announced, and they are:

• Ultramoderne (the Providence, Rhode Island-based firm whose 2015 Chicago Architecture Biennial Lakefront Kiosk winning wood pavilion you may remember),

• Cobalt Office (based in Houston, Texas)

• First Office (L.A.-based authors of Nine Essays in the Graham Foundation's published series Treatise),

• Escobedo + Solis (hailing from Mexico City, Mexico)

• and Frida Escobedo (from Anzures, México)

As with YAP's previous 15 editions, the finalists submit proposals for a temporary summer installation to the program that must meet certain requirements. In the past, these requirements have included designs that provide water, seating, shade, as well as meeting environmental and sustainable guidelines. The winner will be announced likely in early 2016.