Esoteric Survey

I tagged along with  arquetipo_de_cambio  again on her latest trip to Tijuana.  We visited the two campuses that make up the La Esperanza schools of Tijuana. Some of the buildings were designed by James Hubbell and built with his help, along with many other volunteers over the years. They adhere to Hubbell's style of organic architecture. The school was founded in 1989 and the campuses are both located in Colonia La Esperanza in Tijuana. The Jardin de Niños La Esperanza kindergarten and Colegio La Esperanza elementary school offer arts-based programs combined with academics.  As described on their website: The La Esperanza schools were founded to create a social institution in an unorganized, unincorporated, unrecognized yet highly populated area.  The recognition that Art and Music are elements that transcend class barriers led The Americas Foundation to create beautiful school architecture that everyone would appreciate and value.  Famous artists like Jam...

In the late 1960s Mexican architect Juan José Díaz Infante Núñez (1936-2012) designed an all-plastic modular house for farm workers in Mexico. The f iberglass-reinforced polyester shell made them easy to produce and to construct.  My friend Arquetipo de Cambio has discovered a number of them around the Tijuana area. This example is the best so far. It is currently being operated as an  AirBnB  by an architect in Tijuana. The structure has been at the current site since the 1990s. He has plans to remodel the interior, but in the meantime he was generous enough to let us in to check it out.   Photo:  Air BnB In Tlayacapan, Mexico, architecture firm PRODUCTORA constructed a house with shells the client had inherited.  Originally, they were from the family's 1970s weekend house. Side note: Some years back, a friend of mine found some of these just south of Tijuana. They have since been installed at another friend's house in Valle de Guadalupe.  ...

I joined  @arquetipo_de_cambio  while she was documenting historic buildings in Tijuana. Marissa grew up in Tijuana but has been living in Los Angeles for the last 15 years. Many extant structures still exist. However, in this rapidly changing city, more times than not the architecture from past decades is behind layers of change.  Hence the name of her project, the Archetype of Change.  We spent the day mostly in Centro, Chapultepec and this post centers around Colonia Madero or La Cacho. In the 1950s Tijuana became one of the fastest growing cities in the Western Hemisphere. This is when neighborhoods like Cacho started to develop. What it looked like in 1964. This is from a series of photos by San Diego photographer Harry Crosby.  More on Crosby, here . The open carport is covered up with a concrete block screen. Parroquia De Nuestra Señora Del Carmen (1955) by Architect Homero Martínez de Hoyos (1917-1998).  Felix Candela had a role in hiring Martínez d...