A Conversation with Rozana Montiel

The College of Architecture and the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize will host Mexican architect Rozana Montiel on March 24. Montiel is the founder of her eponymous practice, whose work has received the 2018 MCHAP.emerge award.

Montiel’s practice specializes in architectural design, artistic re-conceptualizations of space, and the public domain, and on a wide variety of projects in different scales and layers that range from the city to the book, the artifact, and other micro-objects. Research and experimentation are fundamental to the studio in every project, attempting to recover social construction in city making. Projects generate multiple spatial narratives that propose an architectonic discourse congruent and specific to each project, and whose critical inquiry is founded in rethinking the texts and subtexts of a space, as well as the design tools used in spatial representation.

Of her many works, Montiel's project Common Unity was recognized with the MCHAP.emerge. It is a public space rehabilitation project in the center of a housing complex in the municipality of Azcapotzalco in Mexico City.

Initially, outdoor areas in the complex were divided up by walls, fences, and barriers; Montiel sought to permeate those barriers as they were inhibiting access to public space. Working with residents of the complex, who contributed to the design of the new space, the studio added multiple covered outdoor spaces to facilitate gatherings and parties, while interventions like blackboards, climbing walls, handrails, and nets brought new activities to the common areas.

The lecture will begin at 5 p.m. CST and is accessible via Zoom (passcode: 300085).