GUADALAJARA CHARACTERS

El Eco An expansion, an echo, for Mathias Goeritzs museum in Mexico City.

The Orient ExpressPublic transportation brings urban development to the forgotten municipality.

P. I.G.Parque Industrial Guadalajara / Guadalajara Industrial Park.

Paradise Lust

Pan Am ParkRevitalizing a metropolitan park for the olympics of the Americas.

Hotelito DesconocidoThe Unknown hotel Somewhere in the Mexican Pacific coastline...

The Occidental GardenPorfirio Daz in his salon d t.

East Coast

Amexican DreamFor in Mexico the sun also rises.

OLIVAEthnobotanic Garden and Research Center.

Happy Bull City[The strip] is our campus.

Credits and acknowledgements

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ON GUADALAJARA

Cities are complex and fascinating phenomenons. Inhabiting one, half-enabled with our limited spatial perception, we can only ap-prehend just a few aspects of its nature simultaneously, leaving its full personality elusive, hard to grasp like a well-made fiction character. In the play put by our worlds cities, Guadalajara fea-tures as a supporting actor, rather lost in the scene. Theres a party where everycity is dancing and having fun, ones hitting on a southern italian beauty, ones preaching about its good deeds, Mexico City is telling a dirty joke and eve-rycitys laughing. Guadalajara sits alone on the couch looking out through the window. The Pacific ocean is dimly lit by the moon. Shes tired because she worked so hard during the day. She re-proaches herself being such a wannabe, always betrayed by her own mediocrity; failing at being Paris, failing at being America. Failing at being Good. GUADALAJARA CHARACTERS portrays her plural per-sonality, the people who produce it, and the pictographs which pronounce it.

5EL ECO

Invitation-based competitionGuadalajara/Mexico City, MX; 2006

Project Leaders: Juan Ignacio Castiello, Ricardo Agraz, Antonio RiggenTeam: 8 peopleDuration: 6 weeks My contribution: Model-making

The German-born Mexican-naturalized Mathi-as Goeritz, author of El Eco museum, came to Mexico in 1948 invited by Ignacio Diaz Mo-rales when he founded Guadalajaras school of Architecture, along with a flock of european architects, artists and engineers that would decidedly influence the cultural climate which produced the only recognizable architecture-related movement of the city; Luis Barragn, with whom Goeritz co-authored several pro-jects, being the most acclaimed participant of this scene. Not long after, disdainful of the still small provincial town, both Goeritz and Bar-ragn moved to Mexico City. Built in 1952, El Eco was Goeritzs manifesto for an emotional architecture. Op-positional to positivist modernism and its author being more of a sculptor than an archi-tect the buildings language reached towards subjective expressiveness rather than towards objective order. The perspective of its entrance hallway is tightly stretched through the slight non-parallelity of its accompanying walls, the illusively parallel striae of its wooden deck and the proportional relation between its planes. El Eco was progressively abandoned throughout the rest of the century, and in 2004 it underwent renovations by architect/editor Victor Jimnez. In 2005 ten groups of archi-tects were called to a competition to design an annex to the museum. We were the only team from Guadalajara Juan Ignacio Castiello be-ing Diaz Morales main disciple.

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Our projects main concern was how to connect the museum to

its annex. Consisting of a small auditorium, gift-shop (surprise),

administration and storage areas, the annex had to be a continu-

ation of the museums circuit. The problem was solved making

a subtle incision in the courtyards wall: a revolving door that

when closed is barely noticeable and when open guarantees the

circular continuity between both parts. The annex asserts itself

by contrast to the museum: an ethereal container of activities

that floats next to the tectonics of El Eco.

Mexico City-based architect Fernando Romero former OMA

collaborator and telecom tycoon Carlos Slims son-in-law won

the competition. He would later build Soumaya museum, which

exhibits his father-in-laws art collection free of charge.

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THE ORIENT EXPRESS

Design studio project4th year, 2nd SemesterGuadalajara,MX; 2006

Instructors: Juan Palomar and Luis MrquezClass: 17 peopleTeam: 3 peopleDuration: Semester-long Mark Obtained: 9/10My Contribution: Individually: editorial design guidelines for the project documents for the whole class; within my team, designed a metro station and the flexible-growth territorial system.

Collectively: with Juan Palomar, the instructor, produced the introductory and masterplan documents of the project; with my team, designed the general development strategies for the yellow division of the general intervention area.

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This exercise in urban design implies a territorial strategy derived from the extension of one of the citys metro lines to its eastern limit. With the implementation of this infrastructure several objectives are proposed: the establishment of its properly equipped right-of-way as the Axis of the Ori-ent; the careful redevelopment of the affected areas next to it; the consideration of historically relevant neighbouring settlements; the integration of large adjacent parks and hydrologic networks; the creation of a bounding linear park to the northeast, keeping the sprawl off the Huentitn ravine and providing a continuous viewpoint to its depths.

Solidarity Park: the dynamic gate to the forsaken east.

The area of study was divided in six parts; the class was formed in teams accordingly. Within my teams area of study, a metro station connects both sides of the Axis molding lengthily the plain terrain. To its south, a flexible system of land appropriation enacts within the intersection of two coor-dinate grids: a moir. A semi-public orchard extends throughout the site in longitudinal bars, enhancing the relationship between the dwellers and the land. Furthermore, as the next pages sketch sections show, the manipulation of soil may give direct access to the ground level to more than one level of the building.

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Unsolicited research.Guadalajara, MX; 2009

This is an individually produced reedition and reinterpretation on my Bachelors thesis project, once developed in collaboration with Rigo Reyes.

Guadalajara Industrial Park (or PIG, for its acronym in spanish Parque Industrial Guadalajara) is an urban design exercise dealing, in general, with the exploitation of the latent value of industrial areas fallen into decadence. It finds its conceptual framing in the contemporary post-industrial condi-tion in mexican society, in the rise of digital culture and the productive activities related to it, and in the approach to a wiser employment of spatial, material and energetic resources. Specifically, in each chapter or case, PIG relies in different interpretations of the value of industrial architecture, industrial culture, or the social conditions enhanced by the industrial.

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During the last years of the nineteenth century, the french-loving regime of Porfirio Daz brought to Mexico two cultural phenomenons whose ambiguous relationship remains relevant: positivism and ro-manticism although they seem perfectly opposed, certain perspectives confound their obsessions and purposes. With its thirst for Order and Progress, Diazs regime brought rail transportation in 1888 meanwhile in Paris, Eiffel tower was being erected. Electricity, the telephone and the automobile closely followed the way of the rail. Among with these, it also brought the religious ecstasy of the neo-gothic Ex-piatorio temple (designed by Adamo Boari, italian architect imported by Diaz) and its sharpened spires, certain fancy for neoclassic sculpture, and the aesthetic mood that pervades the Americana borough (formerly know as the Porfirio Diaz borough). This painting by Jose Ma. Velasco portrays the spirit of the time: progress marches on through the wild, and the furthermost of the mountains merge with the clouds.

Since rail transportation was privatized during the last decade of the twentieth century, with a few touristic exceptions one of which is a line that goes from Guadalajara to Tequila mexican trains carry only goods. Following the privatization, the Mexican Train Museum was built in a park a couple of blocks away from Zona Industrial Guadalajaras biggest industrial area to dignify its past. The museum was composed of a locomotive and a couple of passenger coaches with their interiors preserved as in the good-old-days. Not long after its opening ceremony, in 1999, the museum perished in a fire. Whats left of it remains, profaned, in the park. If the essence of romanticism is the celebration of mans individuality and its autonomy from any system outside of himself, what is the relationship between the rise of the private over the public and romanticism? William Blake vs. Carlos Slim.

Even though FERROMEX (the privatized rail corporation) is considered a reasonably successful enterprise, Guadalajaras large industrial areas served by it display a state of utter decadence. Simultaneously to the consolidation of the nostalgic character of the inner citys landscape (the landscape of what was and isnt anymore), more and more industrial parks which seldom use the rail infrastructure populate the outer city. More recently, based on the economic activities developed in these industrial parks, Guada-lajara gained the moniker of the Mexican Silicon Valley. Unlike Californias, no creative work is ever developed here it is but a merely manufactural enterprise. Ever since the privatization, a regional/urban plan, intended to deviate the railroad around the city, has been periodically revisited by the local urbanists. Its implementation would rid the city of the unnecessary and annoying vicinity of the freight train and its industries. Could the urban renovation fol-lowing the Deviation Plan rid the city of its leaning towards transnational servility?

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As the inner citys industries are relocated, and the rails right-of-way is freed, passenger transportation is regained both in urban and regional scales; the red line extends the actual metro system (blue and orange lines), and multimodal urban-regional nodes (red dots) are strategically located.

Zooming in, urban design resources are acknowledged: the railroads, their right-of-way and service areas, industries and warehouses, and the nearby large urban parks.

Based on these resources, spatial limits are established for the intervention and the area is divided in six PIECES for particual treatment.

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The depth of each study depended basically on the dimensions of each piece. Some of the studied elements were: the land use; connectivity and mobility means; the adequate creation, conservation and destruction of urban matter; the citys legibility; and the constant attention to public space. Due to the briefness this sort of document demands, the full comprehensiveness of the project was reduced to the exposition of the results of only three pieces: C, D and F.

C is the clearest example of the marginalizing effect of the railroads urban incision; the poor live on one side, the well-off live on the other. In its interior, two wide strips run parallel to the rails: one consists of an enclosed flat surface where idle boxcars dwell among brand new automobiles waiting to be driven; the other strip consists of an irregular series of factories and warehouses. One of the two most notable factories is aligned with the axis of Chapultepec Av. almost perpendicular to the strip axis; the factorys furnace is its visual punchline.

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The flat surface of the first strip is kept as a sequence of parks interrupted by an atrium for the main industrial buildings, which are kept as well and reprogrammed as a cultural and research complex concerned with the history of the industrial. New buildings are scattered through the second strip along with the preserved warehouses and foundries and silos and mills. Enclosing walls are removed and both parts of the city are connected through street-wide walkways. The railroad is buried underground and a metro line rolls through it.

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DThe road that crosses this piece, Calzada Independencia formerly know as, again, Calzada Porfirio Diaz was built around 1910 OVER the river next to which the city was first established. This is the origin. Seen from north to south, as in the images displayed below, one can notice the following: an obelisk that celebrates Benito Juarez the many times blessed heretic who divided State from Church in Mexico; surrounding the obelisk and under the shade of flowery trees, a square where, each Sunday, punks, darks, drunken bums and other misfits gather in urban ritual; beyond it, the former citys train station now central offices of Ferromex; further beyond, a barely noticeable silo from Zona Industrial; and, at last, the slums of Del Cuatro hill.

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Again, enclosing wall are removed and walkways are laid in the additive intersection of visual axes from both sides; the negative space of these is built; mixed uses inhabit. Avenues are heavily reconfigured in plan and section. Juarez square is extended southwards; at a certain point, the floor level of the square begins to rise, diagonally, turning into a viewpoint for the southern cityscape; Del Cuatro hills T.V. signal towers crown the view. Agua Azul, the large park, is also extended southwards; underneath the nave pastoral hills, its urban strata houses mixed use.

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DSouthern Guadalajaras landscape as seen from the viewpoint.

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FIn 1957, just before Guadalajaras population reached its first million, and even before Mario Pani built the NONALCO-TLATELOLCO housing development in Mexico City, the first corbusian megablocks in Mexico were built in Guadalajaras deep south.The ZONA INDUSTRIAL is a neatly ordered catalog of Industrial Architecture, or, as the Bechers wanted, an ordered catalog of Calvinist Cathedrals. How do these industrial megablocks relate to the ones built by Pani in Tlatelolco, the former that sprang from pure economic thinking and the latter that supposedly sprang from idealistic humanism? What was it that made Panis megablocks possible? And, ultimately, 1968.

In its interior, like in Michel Gondrys video for The Chemical Brothers Star Guitar, landscape elements are rhyth-mically related: the curtain gates are like a noisy bass-line, setting the beat; the ups and downs of the rooftops set a repetitive melodic contour, bewitch-ing like a mantra; the sharp vertical-ity of the electricity posts signal the

crashing of cymbals. Here and there a few buildings rise in calvinistic ecstasy over the mo-notonous cadence of the warehouse

landscape.Zona Industrial, Guadalajara Nonalco-Tlatelolco, Mexico City

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Operative anachronism: The structural grid of a typical warehouse is sparse enough to share load-transmission area with a second structural system, enabling the superimposition of two cities. A second urban ground hovers above the ground level. Penetrating through the ceilings of the existing warehouses, the main structural system is laid on a 150m by 150m grid; each member houses vertical circulation and infrastructural networks. A secondary structural system enacts when needed; diagonal circulations are scattered through the site, linking both cities in a continuous flow. Trans-portation: on the ground level high-traffic roads (yellow in the axonometric) cross the site; local mobility is divided in two independent 300m by 300m grids: one for motor transportation (orange) and one for non-motor transportation (yes, green). A bar-building is laid over the main structural system; a continuous mixed use bar-building; when the situation demands so the crossing of high-traffic roads, the presence of a tall and remarkable industrial building, a park, whole elements of the bar-building are subtracted, thus the shape of its plan. Like an artificial horizon, or like a two-sided perforated looking-glass, the second urban ground element is a slim building in itself.

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After earning my degree I went on a study trip for six months: flew to London, then ferried to the Netherlands and trained through France and Spain; then I flew back to the US. Starting from New York I alternately hitchhiked and bused southwards across the Appalachia and the Mississippi, through the Great Plains, the Bravo river and back to Mexico.

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After earning my degree I went on a study trip for six months: flew to London, then ferried to the Netherlands and trained through France and Spain; then I flew back to the US. Starting from New York I alternately hitchhiked and bused southwards across the Appalachia and the Mississippi, through the Great Plains, the Bravo river and back to Mexico.

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PAN AM PARK

Competition; 2nd placeGuadalajara/Mexico City, MX; 2009

Project Leaders: Tatiana Bilbao (architecture), Carlos Rodrguez Bernal (landscape), Luis Mrquez (urbanism)Team: 12 peopleDuration: 8 weeks My contribution: Production of most landscape-related diagrams, plans, and imagery presented

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In 2011 Guadalajara hosted the Pan-American Games, the local Olympics for the Americas. Since the city won the commission, a dozen stadiums, public transportation networks, revitalizing housing developments and leisure areas were designed; only some of these were actually built. The pro-ject that would have had the politicians rename the Metropolitan Park as the Pan-American Park wasnt.

Metropolitan Park: the forsaken garden of the wealthy west.

The Metropolitan Park, not long ago mere badlands, was cumbersomely established as such during the 90s, and has undergone a sequence of unfortunate interventions ever since mostly due to budgetary deficit. The park always ends up being larger than the available resources.

The first attempt to humanize the wild & dry com-prised entrance motifs and snacks, benches and re-strooms scattered through the whole area. Designed by the elseways fine Fernando Gonzlez Gortzar, the project got short of enhancing the whole park.

The second attempt was to turn it into a public golf course, but only the trees that would have shaped the fairways made it. As of today, the parks hydraulic system is only able to irrigate one of the nine pro-jected fairways.

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Even though a large part of the terrain was shaped to function as a basin, it is currently underutilized as a tag paintball arena eloquently themed as a middle-eastern desert war zone.

We didnt win the competition, but neither did the winning project nor the city. In the end, this water sports arena was built on the park. It says duck.

Our projects main concern was to make the park gather, contain and irrigate its naturally acquired water. After all the local hydraulic systems were acknowledged, we real-ized there was only enough water to irrigate 25% of the land throughout the whole year. Then, the park was divided in areas which would receive different amounts of water each producing simultaneous Spring and Fall-like envi-ronments. The entry motifs are altered, reproduced and scattered as viewpoints. The basin which holds most of the parks water resources is established as the central element of the park; theres a wharf and a promenade. Mi-nor basins intersect the natural water run-offs in a playful manner. Activity-generators spread throughout the park.

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HOTELITO DESCONOCIDO

CommissionCostalegre, Jalisco, MX; 2009-2010

Project Leader: Carlos Rodrguez Bernal, Laura Snchez PenichetTeam: 12 peopleMy contribution: Production of concept design imagery (six weeks stage), on-site coordination of landscape project execution (six months stage)

SOMEWHERE

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Through the 70s and 80s, Italian designer Marcelo Muzzili built a multimillion-dollar fashion brand known as El Charro, inspired in the western-Mexican popular character known for his manners and courage a mix between a Spanish caballero and a Western film cowboy. In the early 90s he sold it and sailed in a two-year world-expedition, looking for a place where to build an Eco-Luxury resort designed in harmony with its surroundings. He found that place in Jalisco, where he once had found his fashion brands name, and the resort opened in 97. Hotelito Desconocido had a great run for ten years and, all of a sudden, he, again, sold it. The buyer was a Mexican entrepreneur, once a regular at Muzzilis hotel. His commission demanded both architectural and landscape interventions; he also demanded to keep the foreign Mexican Curious themed building language.

Somewhere in the Mexican Pacific coastline...

Down in MexicaliTheres a crazy little place that I know

Where the drinks are hotter than the chili sauceAnd the boss is a cat named Joe

He wears a red bandana, plays a cool pianaIn a honky tonk, down in Mexico

He wears a purple sash, and a black moustacheIn honky tonk, down in Mexico

Well, the first time that I saw himHe was sittin on a piano stool

I said Tell me man, when does the fun begin?He just winked his eye and said Man, be cool.

He wears a red bandana, plays a cool pianaIn a honky tonk, down in Mexico

He wears a purple sash and a black moustacheIn a honky tonk, down in Mexico

In Mexico...All of a sudden in walks a chick

In Mexico...Joe starts playin on a latin kick

In Mexico...Around her waist she wore three fishnets

In Mexico...She started dancin with the castanets

In Mexico...I didnt know just what to expect

In Mexico...She threw her arms around my neck

In Mexico...We started dancin all around the floor

In Mexico...Until she did a dance I never saw before

So if youre south of the borderI mean down in Mexico

And you wanna get straightMan, dont hesitate

Just look up a cat named Joe

Down in MexicoThe Coasters, 1956

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Being such a low-tech project, a lot of decisions had to be made on-site just as things were being traced and

built, so two members of the studio were sent there; one handled architecture , one handled land-

scape . We were lodged in a building which would be the new hotels laundry , in the

nearest village; and we went to the site from sunrise to sunset . The landscape interven-

tion involved mainly earthmoving , the tracing of walking paths and vegetation areas

and planting and transplanting a wide range of species . Meetings involving all parts and contrac-

tors were periodically held on-site .

e

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Being such a low-tech project, a lot of decisions had to be made on-site just as things were being traced and

built, so two members of the studio were sent there; one handled architecture , one handled land-

scape . We were lodged in a building which would be the new hotels laundry , in the

nearest village; and we went to the site from sunrise to sunset . The landscape interven-

tion involved mainly earthmoving , the tracing of walking paths and vegetation areas

and planting and transplanting a wide range of species . Meetings involving all parts and contrac-

tors were periodically held on-site .

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THE OCCIDENTAL GARDEN

Commission, produced individually.Chapala, MX; 2010

The Occidental Garden is a small open space for throwing parties for two hundred guests. It is located next to Mexicos biggest lake, Chapala. The commission demanded minor infrastructural implementations for the events and a landscape/gardening intervention. With curiosities that first arose during the Hotelito stage, this work was taken as a pretext to study the historical/aesthetic foundations of occidental Mexico, and how the founding of some of its cities stem from the random conjunction of power and leisure.

In the sixties, Hollywood founded the seaside city of Puerto Vallarta when John Huston shot THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA somewhere in the mexican coast by the Pacific Ocean. The plot first written as a short story, then adapted for the stage, and finally for the screen, all by Ten-nessee Williams depicts the adventures Rev. Lawrence Shannon experiences as a touristic guide in Puerto Vallarta working for a third-class travel agency after being expelled from the Order for characterizing the Occidental image of God as a senile delinquent in one of his sermons. While shooting the film, Richard Burton (the actor playing Shannon) developed an affair with Elizabeth Taylor, and married her in the seaside town. The media followed, and Puerto Vallarta was born. In 1970, mexican and american presidents Gustavo Diaz Ordaz and Richard Nixon hosted the opening of Puerto Vallartas international airport. Since then, every spring break, international youngsters revisit Rev. Shannons sexual/spiritual investigations by the cliff-like hotels that rise facing the Pacific ocean.

Analogously, in the first decade of the twentieth century, before the Vallarta phenomenon, Porfirio Diaz founded the lakeside town of Chapala when he chose as his SALON DT a mod-est fishermens village in the mexican occident. Like the spring-breakers, Don Porfirio visited the state of Jalisco yearly, on easter. In 1910 the Mexican Revolution broke out and Diaz exiled himself in Paris, where he would later die and be buried; like Oscar Wilde did. While the revolution shed blood throughout the rest of the country, rich Guadalajara families founded the CHAPALA YACHT CLUB and built a road from the city to the lakeside town. In words of Martn Casillas de Alba, one of Chapalas promotors, it was a place to rest and to have fun, to live and to explore the shady paths of the passions. In 1923, during his savage pilgrimage, D.H. Lawrence spent some time in Chapala and wrote there one of his most divisive novels, THE PLUMED SERPENT, a tale about power and race, sex and blood.

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The Muse, disgusted at an age and climeBarren of every glorious theme,

In distant lands now waits a better timeProducing subjects worthy fame;

In happy climes, where from the genial sunAnd virgin earth such scenes ensue,

The force of art by nature seems outdone,And fancied beauties by the true:

In happy climes, the feat of innocence,Where nature guides, and virtue rules;

Where men shall not impose for truth and senseThe pedantry of courts and schools.

There shall be sung another golden age,The rise of empire and arts,

The good and great inspiring epic rage,The wisest heads and noblest hearts.

Not such as Europe breeds in her decay;Such as she bred when fresh and young,

When heavenly flame did animate her clay,By future poets shall be sung.

Westward the course of empire takes its way:The four first acts already past,

A fifth shall close the drama with the day:Times noblest offspring is the last.

On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in AmericaGeorge Berkeley, 1726

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The Occidental Garden is a small open space for throwing parties for 200 guests; it is located be-tween a mountain range and Mex-icos biggest lake, Chapala; its right next to it. The commission demanded minor infrastructural implementations for the events services for the guests, an area to install a temporary kitchen, a handrail by the sites open-ended boundary overlooking the lake and a landscape/gardening inter-vention, which had to meet only two conditions: the view from the terrace to the lake should remain unobstructed, and enough space to install a tent right by the lake had to be left clear. Then the veg-etation was disposed according to two scales: the public, spread through the sites bounding limits, and the private, a new, intimate space at the center of the garden delimited by flowery bushes.

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In 2011 my parents went to the the East Coast for their first time; they went to Washington, Philadelphia, NY, Boston, up to Montral, to Toronto through the Trans-Cananda high way, and down to Chicago. They asked me to give them pointers about where to go and what to see, so as they cant handle smartphones I made this pocket travel guide for them.

When we were discussing the Canadian locations they said no, no, no, just tell us where the forests are.

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In 2011 my parents went to the the East Coast for their first time; they went to Washington, Philadelphia, NY, Boston, up to Montral, to Toronto through the Trans-Cananda high way, and down to Chicago. They asked me to give them pointers about where to go and what to see, so as they cant handle smartphones I made this pocket travel guide for them.

When we were discussing the Canadian locations they said no, no, no, just tell us where the forests are.

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AMEXICAN DREAM

Research & Arts competition entry; produced individually.Guadalajara, MX; 2011

AMEXICAN DREAM explores the unique westernmost quality of the Mexican

state of Jalisco with special emphasis in the city of Guadalajara, and per-

forms certain comparison to California and Los Angeles. It is framed as a

sort of cartesian dual study, for, working longitudinally, in the context of the

whole width of the world, it disregards actual geopolitical borders favor-

ing a more relevant geographical condition whose effects pervasiveness

spreads transnationally throughout the Pacific coastline of the Americas;

and, in this latitudinal context, it deals with the relationship between Anglo

and Latin culture in America, clearly focalized in the vicinity of the U.S.A.

and Mexico. Its main aim is to produce research-fed landscape-related im-

agery exploring this westernmost condition.

Some topics from which it draws its subject matter are the follow-

ing: George Berkeleys poem on America Westward the course of empire

takes its way; the hispanic-muslim myth about seven cities of gold (or

Cbola and Quivira) built way out west beyond the Atlantic ocean; Califor-

nias gold rush; the birth of Hollywood, Western films and its appropriation

by Italian and Mexican cinema; the aforementioned case of Puerto Vallarta

and THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA; light and darkness in the work of David Lynch.

Funds werent granted though.

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OLIVA

Architecture competition entry; produced individually.Guadalajara, MX; 2011

The Ethnobotanic Garden and Research Center, OLIVA, was designed as an approach to health and life opposite to Guadalajaras Civil Hospitals, in front of which it lays. It is clear to OLIVAs agenda that the occidental hegemonic approach to pharmacology represented here by the Hospital is in the core of the narcotics situation currently seizing Mexico in particular and the Americas in general.

In the late eighteenth century, during the last days of

the spanish inquisition and colonial Mexico, after a

building process that lasted more than fifty years, the

spanish bishop Fray Antonio Alcalde (key figure of

Guadalajaras urban development) founded the citys

Civil Hospital. Eloquently and ignorant of Jeremy

Benthams work it was built as a panopticon; a

panopticon for well-being.

OLIVA, named after the notable mexican

pharmacologist Leonardo Oliva, is a place for eth-

nobotanic experimentation; designed as a heavily-

programmed atrium or as a stripped-down building,

it houses a wide range of activities: recreational,

commercial, educational, academic, cultural, healing.

Theres an herbarium where plants used by both

the regions ethnic and urban groups are kept and

studied; the herbariums catalog is to be displayed on

the exhibition modules; the pharmacological effects

of the plants are discussed in the workshops, open to

the general public; chefs and botany and pharmacol-

ogy scholars collaboratively prepare dishes, beverag-

es and others in the SANCE/caf, where the citizens

may submit themselves for the study of the recipes

reactions; the most successful ingredients, dishes and

combinations produced in the caf are available for

purchase at the shop; theres an auditorium for public

lectures on the subjects being addressed by the resid-

ing scholars; all knowledge produced in the research

center is subject to be applied in the hospital.

Current situation

An atrium, urban weaving and three patios

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ExhibitionWorkshopSance CafShopCloakroomAuditoriumBus stopRestroomsDown to ParkingUp to Scientific Area

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StorageEmployees roomEmployees restroomsHerbariumMedia roomGermplasm bankClassify, Dry & FreezeMultiple purpose roomLibraryAdministrationMeeting roomCurators officeResearchers cubicleDown to Public Area

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HAPPY BULL CITY

Urban planning competition entry; produced individually. Admission requirement for the Erasmus Mundus transeuropean reCity master program, in which I was accepted ranking 12th among more than 800 participants.Gioia Tauro, Italy; 2012

Happy Bull City responds to the contemporary post-industrial condition in which the production of knowledge is more valuable than the production of goods. In order to trigger urban life in the Gioia Tauro plain it aims to become an international capital of knowledge production heavily based in academic activity. With the endorsement of the pertinent organizations, voluntary-based work, and horizontal collaboration with worldwide institutions, it finds itself in the pursuit of a shift of nature of the worlds energetic resources employment. For its urbanization, HBC exploits the elements that define the plains current economic landscape as its architectural language: the container port and agriculture.

The following is an ambitious city-scale proposal that inserts itself in a context of ideas of even wider magnitude works of continental and global scale; it corresponds to and extends the reach of these projects, which were developed between governments, NGOs and private practices, and are concerned mainly with the employment of energetic resources. This proposal also aims to, taking advantage of the relationships its undertaking would imply, deal in transnational collabo-ration with local issues other than the energetic. In the global scale, it reacts partly to The Energy Report produced by WWF, Ecofys and OMA/AMO, dealing with switching 100% to renewable energy by 2050, and partly to Jeremy Rifkins Third Industrial Revolution plan, which also deals with renewable energy and the possibility of sharing it in a manner analog to internets peer to peer file-sharing through a worldwide energy grid. In the european scale, it reacts to the Roadmap 2050 developed by the European Commission and, again, the OMA/AMO tandem, an Europe-scale plan to reduce 80% of greenhouse gas emissions by said date; it also proposes a sharing power grid, subway-style. Within said context, this intervention sets its effective study margin on the Mediter-ranean scale, for it means integrational possibilities for the Mediterranean cultures in particular, and northern and southern cultures in general; therefore, innovative migration policies and cul-tural inclusiveness are key. Informed by the global nature of the harbour, Happy Bull City takes migration and transnational collaboration as a basic element of its development program. In the attempt to weave a worldwide power grid the intervention in Gioia Tauro is a valuable opportunity to settle a connection point with the Maghreb in the Mezzogiorno and to establish an Italian capital of solar energy harvesting the most profitable power source under its geographic conditions.

Finally, with arithmetics on our side, we should note that the only way to successfully regenerate urban life in this exercise is to make Happy Bull Citys ambitions greater than Gioia Tauro plains vast challenges.

THEORY OF RECIPROCAL INFLUENCE

In Borges INTRODUCTION TO NORTH AMERICAN LITERATURE, he recalls Valery Larbauds ob-servation on how United States essentially a nation of immigrants literature has influenced back in the whole world; so that, for example, Edgar Allan Poe begot Baudelaire, who begot the symbolists, who begot Valry1, and so on. Of course, this is also evident in every sphere out-side literature, and urban culture is no exception. The Italian diaspora on the USA which sent immigrants mainly from the Mezzogiorno and deppressed northern regions has had a notable effect in American culture, which, at its greatest dimensions, influenced the creation of the city of Las Vegas. In certain ways, added to the main purpose of urban regeneration, this proposal is exercised as a study and conscious reflection of this kind of influence and its nature in this particular case. Within this context, it is worth noticing that through its influence in the USA, Italian mafia has had an effect both of repulsion and enchantment. Why cant the world help but love Puzo-Coppolas Vito Corleone? And yet: the bleakness in every detail and implication of the Getty kidnap; so close to Gioia Tauro ports history2. A first step in this proposals approach to the social security situation of Calabria should be the overcoming of the vain villain vs. victim dichotomy. According to John Dickie, English scholar in Italian studies, the ndrangheta, the most powerful mafia of the region, is a direct product of the prison system and late product of the failure of the Bourbon state3. Indeed, crime is symptomatic to social exclusion; it is intertwined with the whole of society and cant be eradicated from, but slowly assimilated into the system. Inclusive, non-reprehensive policies are inherent to true urban development.

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VECTORSCAPE VS. PIXELSCAPE

There are two opposite approaches to the lecture of space that define Gioia Tauros landscape. One is concerned with lines and movement: the water streams that tread the land, fertilizing soil and procuring crops; the container ships that connect its harbour to other cities elsewhere; the wake these ships drag through the sea; digital data transmissions, bank transactions and cell-phone calls; the wind. The other is concerned with area and permanence: land property divisions; the shape of the container and its patterned array; ndranghetas bunker-architecture. Within this new dichotomy, HBC proposes the cityscape that could be produced under a new energetic and politcal power regime.. A city produced in a decentralized power system. Its built elements respond to the scale of the power acquirable by its individual citizens; its built environment responds to their ability to collaborate. Tweening harbour and agriculture the plains main economic activities a gradient range of possibilities blossom: farm, public orchard, equipped park; container-built housing units, massive transportable pots, transportable pool, photovoltaic panel mainframe, etc. Regarding container architecture: its been said it doesnt really matter by whom that the only constant to commonplaces is that they hold a tiny grain of truth, which is what brings them up over and over until it wears off. It is clear that the architectural employment of contain-ers has become commonplace. Their truth lies in the containers flexibility; nevertheless, its the bland abuse of its raw industrial aesthetics what washes out its grace. If container architecture is to shine it must overcome this first inevitable stage and focus on its flexibility. Container Architectures importance doesnt lie in the mere employment of industrial debris, but in how containers are transformed.

PORT 1

How to organically integrate such small almost rural sparsely scattered settlements with a world-scale harbour a device intrinsically indifferent to the cultural geography in which it is inscribed? How to create a port where the scalar distance between the city and its harbour is so overwhelming that its mere coexistence means interference?

DIGITAL? FOR REAL?

Second to the late strategy of restoring abandoned bunkers to shelter the servers of delicate content websites such as The Pirate Bay or WikiLeaks, as the most notable cases, the generic container seaport is the place that best represents the junction between the digital and the real space. Within the metallic sheet walls of the thousands of indifferently neighboring containers lie a silent city of products with untraceable origins and destinations managed online. The Internet has provided what might be the best solution yet to the worlds energy crisis peer to peer power sharing: an internet of energy, what can it do for the Mezzogiornos social division? Back to Rifkin: as an economic overcoming of the decadence of both the market and the public sector, he observes and proposes the growth of a third sector voluntary and community-based organizations that will create new jobs with government support.4 Now, web-based communities have indeed met unprecedented multicultural understanding. From 9gag to Couchsurfing to the reCity EMMC, the bright side of the Internet suggests the will to overcome atavistic xenophobic instincts and the exclusion-based kind of policies that have historically pro-duced crime. If both of these phenomenons intersected, how long could they go?

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PORT 2

Gioia Tauros harbour, being incompatible with the rest of the urban land in terms of activity, and hav-ing such prominent position in Calabrias geography like the stage of a massive amphitheater with an auditorium that stretches through a thirty kilometer radius, and its cranes being a band, its the point to which the surrounding mountains surrender their streams, it blends in as a passive landscape feature like a distant mountain over the skyline, or like the setting sun. Seen from atop the sedentarized con-tainers of Happy Bull City, the harbour is there, but intangible. Its array of multi-colored boxes is every-day unique; the design of each days composition is unknowingly decided in cities ignorant of its exist-ence. In this way, the container harbour contains the rest of the world.

BULLY

Politics will eventually be replaced by imagery. The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favor of his image, because the image will be much more powerful than he could ever be. 5

To correspond with the multicultural am-bitions of the proposal, the new city is baptized in a rather blunt english translation of Gioia Tauro; and, halfway between a bull with an utterly ridicu-lous smile and a circle approaching its completion (a proposal of integration), the citys logo a post-coat-of-arms speaks a language even more ubiquitous than english. The embracing of the bulls figure and the suggestion of its gesture holds an opposition to the bull and bear dilemma of paradigmatic market economy a proposal to overcome it?

11. Borges, Jorge Luis. Introduccin a la literatura norteamericana. Alianza Editorial. 1967.

2. The ransom [of John Paul Getty III] was used to buy the trucks needed to establish a transport monopoly in the construction of the Gioia Tauro port. Arlacchi, Pino. Mafia Business. Schocken Books. 1986.

3. http://youtu.be/CR1Gu_7Po38 30:15 and 32:10

4. Rifkin, Jeremy. The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force

and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era. Putnam Publishing Group. 1995

5. McLuhan, Marshall. MacLeans Magazine. 1971.

6. http://archinect.com/features/article/35533857/contours-new-energy-efficient-technologies-part-ii

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Entertainment

1,950,000 (2010)

351.7 km2

Regular

1931

Nevada legalized gambling

National Crime Organization

Casino-Hotel

The Strip

Purpose

Population

Area

Growth rate

Birth

Seed

Parenthood

Architecture

Urbanism

and Dubais 2015 seafront plan compared to...the project for Auroville,...the designed part of Brasilia,...

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Spiritual

2,300 (2007)

1 km2 (currently at 10% development phase)

Low

1968

UNESCO + Governmental + NGO collaboration

Founded by Mirra Alfassa, a.k.a. Mother

Citizen-based design and construction

Total-design urbanization

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Financial and Entertainment

3,400,000 (metropolitan, 2010)

1,500 km2

Madman

Early 1970s

Oil discovery and Gold smuggling

Oil, War and Free Trade

Unprecedented massiveness

Unprecedented massiveness

Political/Administrative

2,500,000 (2010)

300 km2 (estimate)

Regular

1960

Brazils industrial independence

Lcio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer

Sensuous-lined International Style

Total-design urbanization

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CPVM

The Continuous Photovoltaic Monu-ment is a six kilometer long solar energy farm which also functions as the spinal infrastructural ele-ment for the seafront activities and as connector of the towns of Gioia Tauro and San Ferdinando. Assembled with recycled structural frames of containers, the photovoltaic panels are installed on its top storing sun rays and, at the same time, providing shelter to whom walks underneath. CPVMs versatility can be exploited by modi-fying or adding to the horizontally monumental structure. Aesthetically, it sets it-self where the discourse of 68 and 73 meet between the utopian-minded revolts and the energetic crisis, probably the birth of our era. Italian avant-gardists Superstudios Total Urbanization Continuous Monu-ment model turns into a solar energy farm. A critique of pretentious uto-pianism? A critique of preachy eco-moralism? Neither? Both?

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THE STRIP...

[The Strip] is our campus. -Alteration of reCitys motto.

Like Vegas, HBCs Strip built comple-mentarily to the current railways axis holds the essence to its urban life in the exchange between the local and the for-eign. Visiting scholars, independent re-searchers and others of the kind come for the Mediterranean weather and to gam-ble on their curiosity. The residents profit from this exchange and from the work de-veloped by themselves in the Strip, which, of course, includes every human activity besides the academic. Perpendicular to the Strip, a series of crane-accessible axes run south-eastward; each corridor is concerned with the research of a particular discipline like in an array of test-tubes, displaying its content to the Strip. Discoveries and inven-tions made in each corridor are prone to be applied in the whole development and elsewhere. Diagonal avenues embody the long-desired concept of the multidiscipli-nary.

THE CRANE...

Analogously to how in the theocentric city the height of any civic building must be inferior to the cathedral, or how in the an-thropocentric city the skyline resembles a chaotic bar chart comparing the capi-tal power of the private entrepreneurs, Happy Bull City buildings are subject to the capabilities of the crane, its flag the city is her product, like a spider and its cobweb. Capitalism, the most powerful urban-shaping ideology of late, created two orders which correspond to the dis-tance between the subject case and the financial center. If near: vertical, self-as-sertive the skyscraper; if far: horizontal, territorial the suburb. As a city without a center or, at any rate, with a moving center, HBC reshapes the current paradig-matic urban structure; in conjunction with the flexibility of the container, the crane

enables the possibility of an order beyond those of the capitalist city. Since the late 60s weve been deliriously dreaming of another city, but we just havent found the power to build it. Maybe the essential power shift ad-dressed by Happy Bull City can.

AND THE NEW BRICK.

A cross section of the strip offers a land-scape that simultaneously display differ-ent stages of the history of human labor, or the three sectors of economy: the agricultural (primary) the most direct profit from earthly matter, the industrial (secondary) oil and carbon based manu-facture and transportation of goods, and ours, the post-industrial (tertiary) an economy focused on knowledge and crea-tivity. Goods and consumables are to be mostly produced and consumed locally; knowledge and information are to be pro-duced and shared globally. In a sort of neo-sprawl, past el-ements are rearranged to configure our interior and exterior landscapes: the cur-rently agricultural land is progressively integrated to an urbanized environment using recycled containers as bricks and other large metallic structures where bricks could be stacked more complexly; inside these, we design other landscapes in our laptops.

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2. Research Center 2015

This proposal lies in the assumption of the efficiency of photovoltaic panels; situation which is not quite accomplished yet. The CPVMs energy harvest is what will sustain seafront activity and help build HBC. There-fore, although theres been recent valuable achievements in the field6, further research is prime. The employment of Le Cisterne as a solar energy research center is the seed to the implementation of the project it rep-resents the foundational academic inception into the Gioia Tauro area.

Although major urban transformations are dependent upon hardly predictable variables, a schematic development sequence can be suggested. It responds both to reCitys requirements and to the global and continental plans it inserts itself in.

1. Pamphlet 2012

Print this document two-sided in an A2 sheet. Fold it as indicated. Distribute it wisely.

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3. CPVM 2020

Once academic spirit is established in the community, its offspring can be built. The CPVM consists of two straight, non-parallel lines that run through the seafront, rigging it for the leisurely; one starts in Gioia Tauro, the other in San Ferdinando. In elevation, the distance between the photovoltaic can-opy and the sea level is constant. The lines meet at the harbours cargo ship entrance; they bridge it rising towards a high point, signaling the entry and making a pedestrian connection between the towns.

Although major urban transformations are dependent upon hardly predictable variables, a schematic development sequence can be suggested. It responds both to reCitys requirements and to the global and continental plans it inserts itself in.

4. Happy Bull City 2030

As an urban center to the three towns, Hap-py Bull City is built with containers using a custom-designed crane that runs through the Strip that connects Gioia Tauro with Rosarno and its corridors on electrified rails powered by the CPVM. As mentioned before, its main vocation is academic, it is to be Italys capital of solar energy harvest-ing, and a connection to the Maghreb for the worlds shared power grid. Its key policy is total inclusiveness. Its productive aim is de-lightful innovation.

5. Let it sprawl/Pedestrian town 2040

HBC grows without urgency, depending on the resources that become available. A multimodal transportation grid supports its growth. No strict regulations upon the land use are to be set but the ones derived from the logics of the plain, the port, and the power plan: offices and commerce - near the port; housing distances itself from it; each built unit provides the energy it con-sumes. On the three towns, motorized and non-motorized transportation is divided in independent grids.

6. Profit 2050

Once the development has reached certain stability, and the circuital, reciprocal influ-ence between CPVM and HBC the first provides energy to the new city, the second provides visitors to the seafront ensures the integration of neighboring elements, it can begin to share with the power grid. With energy turning into the futures currency, the Happy Bull City can start to live off its solar energy production, and its inhabitants, just as the ones from other cities around the world, may live in idle curiosity ever after.

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CREDITS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

All texts written by Eric Omar Camarena Martnez

All images produced by E.O.C.M., except:

El Eco Expansion presentation sheets by Ricardo Agraz Arquitectos.

El tren painting by Jos Mara Velasco.

Entrance motifs and and service units by Tatiana Bilbao S.C.Minor basins by Jonathan Estrada.

Charro! movie poster property of Warner Bros.

Painting of Porfirio Daz found at http://profa-tere.blogspot.com/2011/06/actividad-5-epoca-de-la-revolucion.html; credits unavailable.

Drawing of Fray Antonio Alcalde found at:http://www.cirugiahcg.com/pagina/historia; credits unavailable.

Animal figures painted by Deedee Cheriel. Reproduced under the art-ists permission. Collaged by E.O.C.M.

All photographs taken and edited by E.O.C.M., except:

El Eco photographs obtained from Juan Ignacio Castiellos archive; credits unavailable.

Birds-eye views (on pages 11, 19, 32, 43-45) taken by Carlos Rod-rguez Bernal, edited by E.O.C.M.

Nonalco-Tlatelolco photo, by Guillermo Zamora, edited by E.O.C.M.

Still from MGMs The Night of The Iguana.Historic photo of Porfirio Diaz, on Enrique Krauze and Fausto Zern Medinas, Porfirio. El destierro., Mxico, Clo, p. 39.

New York and Canadas forest taken by Ral Camarena, edited by E.O.C.M.

Portrait taken by Minerva Bolaos, edited by E.O.C.M.

All sketches drawn by E.O.C.M., except:

El Eco plan/diagram drawing by Mathias Goeritz.

Whole strip collage drawn by the entire class.

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