mextropoli international architecture festival in mexico city

from the 22-26 of march arquine magazine will present mextrópoli, an international architecture festival in mexico city. for further information on the different events and the participants visit the mextrópoli website.

—
following text from arquine:

a series of exhibitions, festivals or architectural biennales serve to reflect and imagine scenarios. when we show and discuss architecture out of it´s place it becomes an act of imagination and eventually a laboratory. these events serve to put in a collective ‘drawing board’ other people’s experiences and personal needs. in a way, the task of published and exposed architecture is to combine ideas with images. it must suggest the form of our desires with examples which are not only possible but achievable. lately there has been the necessity to generate a design culture more linked to society, being able to present architecture, beyond walls and ceilings, made of content, experiments and experiences by generating events in multiple locations provocations for urban walks.

if a congress gathers, a festival celebrates. with fourteen congresses in it´s history, arquine has build a culture and in a crowded theater we generate neural accelerators that have evolved into a festival. we pretend to exceed the limits of our architectural discipline spilling into the metropolitan board. at the same time, critic’s questions help us to orient how we think about architecture’s direction.

to creatively transform the city not only the participation and complicity of the society its needed, the commitment of those in charge of managing the city is also required. in partnership with the mexico city government, arquine proposes mextrópoli, the first international festival of architecture and the city, a festival that encourages and promotes urban values and works as a link between citizens and architects , designers , urban planners , sociologists , anthropologists , artists and politicians. mextrópoli will be an event where we can test for a few days what a desirable metropolis could be.

mextrópoli involves institutional partnerships organized by mexico city urban management agency, which will gather academic partners, schools of architecture and international and national media that will communicate this collective experience concentrated in mexico city downtown.

mextrópoli is organized around four main actions:  to listen the most prominent actors in the international and national architecture scene. to activate the reflection of shared experiences through conferences, presentations , exhibitions, discussion panels, workshops, walks through the city, cycling tours and other events that allow us to rediscover the city. to expose proposals , experiences and current issues of the city and architecture. to promote mexico city as an important reference of architectural culture in the continent. lectures of leading architects, critics and artists will be complemented with urban dialogues between planners, writers and former mayors of cities who transformed their own cities wit design.