Iturbide Studio Photograph by Rafael Gamo
architecture, but I told myself to never forget to cross different lines. I love to do interventions like ephemeral architecture. For me, they are a good exercise in using different ideas and philosophies. When I finished my degree, I did what any young artist would do. I would go to abandoned houses and art galleries just to make things. The important thing for me was to have that exercise, to create a dialogue not only with other architects but also with sculptors, musicians, contemporary artists, and curators. These conversations get you to other places. At the same time, I think that it is also very important to work with the preexistent. People should know how to work with something that was already there or the readymade. They have to ask how they can get something new out of something that was already there. I have never gotten far from art because I always wanted to stay close to it. I like to think that I can blur the line between architecture and art and have the liberty to do anything with my both my process 92
MAURICIO ROCHA
and work. For me, my architecture is like art. It is always about the strategies and never about the form. What messages do you intend to communicate with your architecture? On one hand, the program is very important. Whether you are making a studio for an artist, a school, an intervention, or a public space, what I communicate is the dignity that is found in the atmosphere. You need to make an experience for the people that will inhabit the space. It is important to understand how a place feels when you are there. Sometimes my architecture may go unnoticed at first, but when you walk inside you can feel the atmosphere, the materiality, and how the density of feelings changes from one space to another. Although architecture is three-dimensional, it is not about the form. It is about the materials you choose and how you use them in a contemporary vision.