How Mexico City's Design Scene Is Separating Itself From the Pack - Architectural Digest

“Centro Histórico is layered with history,” says Carlos Matos of the Mexico City (CDMX) district where he and Lucas Cantú live and work. Together they make up Tezontle, a multidisciplinary practice named after the indigenous volcanic rock used for construction since the Aztec era. He means “layered” quite literally. The neighborhood in the city center—home to pre-Columbian restaurants, buildings of nearly every architectural style, and a dense network of hardware stores (“It’s like a big factory where we can source materials and get special things made”)—is actually built upon the ruins of Tenochtitlán, the ancient capital of the Aztec empire, invaded by Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés in 1519. That architectural patchwork serves up endless inspiration for the studio’s totem-like concrete sculptures and furnishings, which meld pre-Columbian aesthetics with contemporary material culture. As Matos, who grew up in CDMX, explains, “We see Mexico City as an archeological site that is still being unearthed.”

They’re not the only ones excavating inspiration in the Latin capital. In Mexico City, with a population nearing 9 million, a wealth of museums, and an internationally renowned art, food, and music scene, a rich design culture is thriving. (It was deemed the World Design Capital in 2018.) And now, as international design galleries open and creatives from near and far set up shop in the metropolis, the world is watching as the next chapter unfolds in a centuries-old history of making.

Founded in 2015 by Mexican architects Lucas Cantú (above left) and Carlos Matos, Tezontle is named after the indigenous volcanic rock used for construction since the Aztec era. The duo work at the intersection of art, design, and architecture, much like their predecessors Diego Rivera, Luis Barragán, and Mathias Goeritz. Totem-like sculptures and furnishings showcase material experiments, while ground-up residences in Oaxaca and Quintana Roo suggest a more elemental approach to living. Endlessly inspired by their neighborhood, Centro Histórico (a bustling city center, home to many hardware stores, built atop the Aztec city Tenochtitlán), their work melds pre-Columbian aesthetics with contemporary material culture. “We see Mexico City as an archaeological site that is still being unearthed,” says Matos. instagram.com/__tezontle_

Photo: Sophia van den Hoek

“It’s like a volcano that is about to erupt,” says Cecilia León de la Barra, director of ZONAMACO Diseño, the design arm of Mexico City’s contemporary art fair, since 2014. She traces the boom back two decades. When she graduated in 1999, with a degree in industrial design, things were shifting in Mexico City. New restaurants were opening (Pujol, Enrique Olvera’s hotspot, built around indigenous ingredients and often called one of the best restaurants in the world, opened in 2000), boutique hotels were popping up, and all of these new spaces required design. Now famous architects like Tatiana Bilbao and Frida Escobedo were setting up their practices. Pioneers like designer and architect Hector Esrawe were finding ways of making and selling their work that were different from the European model, where big companies commissioned designers and paid them royalties. In Mexico City, it was more D.I.Y. Independent practices proliferated. León de la Barra and some friends opened a shop called Mob, in 2001, that sold furnishings by local makers. “People started to know design, buy design, and also build houses,” she recalls.

By the 2010s a handful of platforms for showcasing design were emerging—ZONAMACO Diseño, Design Week Mexico, Abierto Mexicano de Diseño—and a new crop of young talents was gaining international attention. Their work was different. It didn’t quite mesh with the Eurocentric standards of industrial design, rather, it created a new language rooted in the handmade traditions of the country. The Dutch-Mexican designer Emma Gavaldon van Leeuwen Boomkamp began working with a weaving community in Oaxaca to create modern versions of traditional Mexican wool rugs and braiding sisal pieces, typically used for bags, into large wallhangings. Sisters Phoebe and Annette Stevens of Anndra Neen collaborated with traditional silversmiths from the Taxco region to bring their whimsical jewelry designs—and now, accessories for the home—to life.

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How Mexico City's Design Scene Is Separating Itself From the Pack - Architectural Digest
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