Good times for Mexican architecture! While Tatiana Bilbao has made a name for herself in Europe, Frida Escobedo, who is more discreet, will complete the 2018 pavilion of the Serpentine Gallery in London.

37-year-old Frida Escobedo likes objects which are not static, as installations but also temporary pavilions, being an artist as well as an architect. She freely defines herself as a “pata de perro”, a dog’s paw. This Mexican expression describes people who like to wander up and down streets. The streets of Mexico City are noisy.

In contrast, her studio, a stone’s throw from the Paseo de la Reforma, is silent. She strives to avoid all forms of chaos here. Frida Escobedo took up the museum spaces of the French FRAC Centre Region in 2017 and the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture in New York with large skeletal forms. A macabre Mexican fantasy? Structural imagination! The architect unveils the invisible frames of monumental sculptures along the Ruta de la Amistad (the Route of Friendship) created in Mexico City for the 1968 Olympic Games.

In 2012, she restored and extended the workshop of the famous mural painter David Alfaro Siqueiros. The young architect used these multicoloured explosions to design a sober and dark architecture.

Read this article of Jean-Philippe Hugron in the issue n°424 of L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, still available in our online shop.