“Today, we stand before a new facade, one more for Mexico City,” and one more for LIGA, an independent platform in Mexico City promoting Latin American contemporary architecture. Buenos Aires–based architects Juan Campanini and Josefina Sposito have transformed LIGA’s facade with a dynamic installation for what is the platform’s 37th exhibition. On the other side: Facade on Dr. Erazo reinterprets Mexico City’s landscape as a fragmented fabric of “recognizable parts,” as opposed to an indivisible and uniform entity, a project description stated.
Located in the seemingly inconspicuous Colonia Doctores neighborhood in Mexico City, LIGA’s venue is veiled by the new temporary facade decorated with white and beige stripes that is seeming out of place with the neighborhood’s industrial surroundings. Colonia Doctores, has recently emerged as a hub for the city’s burgeoning contemporary art scene, which has seen art galleries pop up inside warehouses.
Campanini and Sposito’s installation for the facade of LIGA is meant to be seen from the street and experienced inside the gallery. However, the Mexican designers’ intellectual proposal lies in the in between: “an immaterial space where experience and perception challenge the idea of a boundary between the exterior (public) and the interior (private),” the description added. The Argentine architects, who run an eponymous firm, both engage with the tradition of describing, constructing, re-observing, re-describing, reconstructing to create thoughtful spaces.
Capanini and Sposito gained inspiration for this latest commission from Juan O’Gorman’s City Landscape of Mexico City (1949), using it as guide through for the reimagining of a facade to offer a renewed look at the surrounding city environment.
The Argentine duo’s installation is a testament to LIGA’s vision as they rekindled the debate of the “thin line that divides public space from our private environments,” and the relationship between architects and their creation once it becomes available to the public. By encouraging multiple understandings of their discipline, they stay true to LIGA’s mission of addressing architectural explorations through the eyes of Latin American artists. LIGA was founded in 2011 by the Mexican architecture firm PRODUCTORA in an effort to forge connections with the region’s architects through events, exhibitions, and other programming.
On the other side: Facade on Dr. Erazo Street will be on view at LIGA 37 from September 7 through January 2024.
