The work of Tatiana Bilbao Estudio is known for material experimentation and contextual sensibility. A lesser known aspect, is the importance of the landscape dimension in the studio’s work. Since its establishment in 2004, the studio’s work has been grounded in the concept of the other, incorporating marginalized populations that reigning political, economic, and intellectual oligarchies seldom acknowledge. Parks and gardens, once the spaces of the privileged have been the works through which the studio’s landscape work seeks to incorporate the other, conceptualizing recreation and urban leisure as key tenants to a healthy public life. The concept of landscape in the studio’s work is expanded from its association merely with green spaces and pristine nature, to the environments constructed by groups or individuals of their ideological, historical, and imagined existence. The Botanical Garden in Culiacán aimed to reactivate the public realm in a city whose social fabric had been damaged due to the presence of organized crime and narco trafficking. Subsequent work, like the ongoing construction, in Lyon La Confluence seeks to expand Lyon’s urban identity by reclaiming areas previously designated for industrial use. Upcoming work such as the Museum of Contemporary Art in Arévalo, Spain attempts to reinterpret the city’s historic legacy as a platform it can use to become a regional cultural center. This discussion will look at the past, current, and future work of TBE in redefining landscape which incorporate the other, examining how the work of the studio constantly aims to negotiate between the project and its context and how they engage.

Tatiana Bilbao

Tatiana Bilbao Estudio

Through a multicultural and multidisciplinary office, the work of Tatiana Bilbao tries to understand the place that surrounds us in order to translate its rigid codes into architecture. It tries to regenerate spaces in order to humanize them as a reaction to global capitalism, opening up niches for cultural and economic development. Her work includes a Botanical Garden, a master plan and open chapel for a Pilgrimage Route, a Biotechnological Center for a Tech Institution, a house that is built with 8,000 USD, and a Funeral Home. Tatiana was the recipient of the Kunstpreis Berlin in 2012, the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture Prize in 2014 as well as being named an Emerging Voice by the Architecture League of NY in 2010. Her work is part of the collection of the Center George Pompidou in Paris, France, and the Carnegie Museum of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago. Has been visiting professor at Yale School of Architecture, Rice School of Architecture and Columbia GSAPP. Her work has been published in A+U, GA House, Domus, and The New York Times, among others.


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