Mauricio Rocha

The first monograph of Rocha's work positions the Mexican architect for a wider international audience.

Mauricio Rocha
Humberto Ricalde, Osvaldo Sánchez, Carlos Jiménez, eds. Arquine, 2011. (260 pp., US $35)

This monograph of Mexican architect Mauricio Rocha, starts off with a cluster of essays in which the authors, architects Humberto Ricalde and Carlos Jiménez, curator Osvaldo Sánchez, and editor of Arquine Miquel Adrià, highlight different aspects of the architect's work from the vantages of their own fields of play. In these introductions, Rocha's background as the son of the well-known photographer Graciela Iturbide and the architect Manuel Rocha, play a prominent role; not only situating Rocha as a part of the Mexican cultural left but also explaining the continuous relation with the fields of photography and the visual arts which has guided his work from the start of his career. As a result, the book is organized as a selection of nine architectonical projects interspersed with artistic projects or smaller installations in a way that—without pigeonholing them—certain fundamental themes emerge in Rocha's work. As Umberto Ricalde states in his essay, these themes can best be summed up through a series of verbs; the architecture of Mauricio Rocha engages with the pre-existing conditions of the site and endeavours to excavate, to turn over, to contain, to heap up, to compact, to replace, to empty, to densify, etc., …

<i>Mauricio Rocha,</i> published by Arquine. — *Mauricio Rocha,* published by Arquine.

At first glance, the architectural projects shown in the book bring to mind the early stack pieces by Richard Serra produced at the end of the sixties. In those bare arrangements of piled and leaning primary materials, like House of Cards, One Ton Prop (1969) and Inverted House of Cards (1969) from the Skullcracker Series, the abstract syntax of lines, rectangles and geometric volumes are brought in tension with the physical presence of raw matter. While the former have an abstract timeless and mathematical essence, the latter are earthly, eroded, worn out and marked by their history and context. The simple stacking of one material on top of another, or the pressure of one leaning piece against another, constitutes the principal method to establish physical relations in between the solid elements, creating unalloyed geometries of repetitive components. At the same time the deep surfaces generate an alternative reading through which the abstract composition is linked to the worldly cycles of life and death. As in the work of Serra, construction through elemental gravitational strategies and the use of untreated matter play a key role in the work of Mauricio Rocha.

Maybe we can find the most exemplary sample of this approach in the geological stratum retained in the massive walls of the School of Visual Arts, a project for a university faculty in Oaxaca. This key piece in the contemporary work of Rocha's 'Taller de Arquitectura' (the name of his studio) sets forth an architecture that not only uses unconventional, humble and 'found' materials, but also displays a tectonic composition in which the assembling of different materials, residuals of formwork and bare detailing play leading roles.

The simple stacking of one material on top of another, or the pressure of one leaning piece against another, constitutes the principal method to establish physical relations in between the solid elements, creating unalloyed geometries of repetitive components.

The thick walls made out of rammed earth, as if they were solidified archaeological sections cut straight out of the planet's crust, organize a severe composition of interlocking courtyards and volumes for the classrooms and ateliers. The ethical attitude displayed in the project—the idea to do more with less, the focus on local materials and the use of a low-tech construction logic—manifests a reasoning that finds wide appeal in an era of global crisis. However, Rocha's work is situated far away from contemporary flirting with eco-logics or bottom-up community-based strategies; rather, just as in the work of Serra, the poor—or should I say povera?—aspect of Mauricio's work is definitely chic and intellectual. Both in the arenaceous masses of the school in Oaxaca, and in the shiny metallic boxes of the Oztotepec municipal market the architect displays beyond his rational constructive interests, a profound knowledge of contemporary art and compositional strategies. His artistic projects on view in the book, with clear references to Gordon Matta-Clark, Tadashi Kawamata, Robert Smithson, Santiago Sierra, and others, only reinforce that in this artistic stance we can find the true core of his work.

Because all the descriptive texts of the projects are written in third person, we only hear the voice of the author at the end of the bookwork, in a conversation with one of the editors, Javier Barreiro. In this dialogue, with the somewhat pedantic title Each Project is a Pretext to Continue Thinking, the architect talks about the tactility and sensorial aspects of his building. While we architects might grin tight-lipped when we see one of our colleagues stroking the walls when visiting a new architectural icon, you might forgive this gesture when doing so in Rocha's constructions. The complexity and depth of the rough surfaces used in most of his buildings seem able to concentrate the full history and culture of a place in plain matter. This decisive attention to the tactility of the materials used might find its origins in one of Rocha's first major realized projects: a Centre for the Blind and Visually Impaired in Iztapalapa, one of the most disadvantaged and highly-populated areas of the Mexican capital. The centre, with a Salk Institute-like layout, compensates for the lack of visual experience of the architecture by its users, with a smart set of sensorial guides to lead the sight-impaired through the complex. This goes from special codes integrated into the formwork of the exposed concrete to water canals which produce specific sound at junctions, temperature differences between the shaded and the sun-exposed areas, and aromatic plants.

Published after more then 20 years of work, this first monograph of Mauricio Rocha shows a mature and sensible architect who has managed to establish an expanding practice with thorough work and serious reflection. He thus situates himself along the line of contemporary Latin American architects like Rafael Iglesias in Argentina or Smiljan Radic in Chile. The local recognition and praise Rocha has received in recent years with the golden medal at the XI Mexican Architecture Biennale, as well as the first prize at the prestigious XVII Panamerican Biennale of Quito, is therefore more than justified; the presentation of this book should make his work cross the borders of Latin America and give him the wider international attention he certainly deserves.

Wonne Ickx is cofounder of PRODUCTORA, a Mexico City-based architecture studio.

Mauricio Rocha

The first monograph of Rocha's work positions the Mexican architect for a wider international audience.

Latest News

Latest on Domus