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Tecoh (Architectural Commission)

I was commissioned to design a series of buildings to be used for seminars and conferences by the La Vaca Independiente Foundation, Mexico City. The given site, the small town of Tecoh in the Northern Yucatan jungle, contained the remains of a 16th century hacienda. Rather than removing the ruins, I chose to work with them. The result is a unique series of buildings and interiors in which the past and present intermingle, combining Mayan culture and modern design, local craftsmanship and computer-generated technology, natural landscapes and fantastical interiors. The project, ‘Tecoh’, was developed over a 6 year period, in which I worked with local craftsmen to fabricate the buildings, including all of its detailing (tiles, iron and wood work). My research, ‘Tecoh’, is an example of what has been termed in architectural discourse, ‘critical regionalism’ (Frampton 1983), in which spatial and formal elements from the local culture of the site inflect the design and fabrication of new buildings. The work sought to provide a series of sculptural-designs and architectural sensibilities rooted in the contemporary, while remaining tied to original geographical and cultural context. Each of the components was constructed individually, and I adopted a sculptural rather than architectural methodology. The rationale behind the sculptural approach enabled a creative dialogue to emerge with the Mayan pyramids in nearby villages. My research was the subject of an 180 page monograph ‘Jorge Pardo: Tecoh’ (Sternberg Press, 2012).