Architecture + Art : Crossover and Collaboration

Teddy Cruz and Pedro Reyes
15 June 2009, 7.00pm

Teddy Cruz and Pedro Reyes
Chaired by Sarah Ichioka, Director, The Architecture Foundation

Teddy Cruz and Pedro Reyes have a history of collaboration that extends back several years, including the 'Conflict Resolution' exhibition for the San Francisco Art Institute in 2008. Their shared investigations into design strategies for social transformation in globalized times propose a new synthesis for art and architecture. Their 'micropolicies' examine how to resolve the urban, in sites ranging from the borderlands between Mexico and the USA to post-conflict Iraq, treating the later as a case-study in conflict, mediation and facilitation.

Research into 'top down' versus 'bottom up' planning and action, and informal and alternative solutions, see the two combining their respective disciplines knowledge into a search for solutions at an urban level, and proposing a new relationship between art and the public.


Image: Manufactured Sites, 2008.
A system of modular frames and parts developed by Cruz's studio, enable the construction of informal housing from waste materials. Courtesy Estudio Teddy Cruz.