On the border. Essay about Antoine Predock drawings

Date: 2017
Author: Eduardo Delgado Orusco
Publisher: Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus Sonora Norte
Pages: 146

 

Doctor Eduardo Delgado Orusco first came to North Sonora Campus of Monterrey’s Tec more than ten years ago. He came in a Teaching Exchange through his University in Spain at that time. We’ve been in contact with him since then, with a greater or lesser extent, and last year 2015, a new visit was set up in our Campus within the program of Tec’s Monterrey Academic Leaders.

During this second visit we made a series of strategic initiatives within which the proposal of a Research Project on Architecture in Arid Zones could be highlighted.  This action pursued an ambitious rethinking of the ways of thinking and, consequently, urbanizing and building in our region. In the forced search for references for this work, almost immediately, the powerful figure of Antoine Predock was placed on the table. Although born in Lebanon (Missouri, 1936), immediately after finishing his studies at Columbia University (New York) Predock established his professional studio in Albuquerque (New Mexico) .

Although unequivocally committed to architectural modernity, his work is linked to the particular climatic, technological and some other conditions of his state of adoption. From there Predock has travelled and built all over the planet –this publication is a good proof of this- but throughout his work it is possible to trace an air, a patina, linked to New Mexico, to a very arid region and that, therefore, shares start-up conditions with our State of Sonora.

But today we focus on his drawings. The graphics is always a way of understanding and appropriation of reality. Predock draws to understand the landscapes he faces, retaining the passage of time, slowing it down with regard to other more modern forms of modern representations such as photography. In that process the American architect exchanges values with the territory –he builds it – offering something of his memory, of his original landscapes. That is why we are very interested in Predock. Because through his eyes, his way of looking at things, we can learn from all the territories, from all the architectures visited and drawn by him.

Today we publish this selection made by the architect Delgado Orusco who, from his adoption landscape -Aragón in Spain, another region where the arid is dominant – resonates with Antoine Predock’s drawings and world.

North Sonora Campus of Monterrey’s Tec is proud to introduce the work and figure of Antoine Predock in Mexico, thus building up a necessary bridge with our Northern neighbour, doing it also between his works –his gaze – and the whole world.