Muestra 14
Letters to the Mayor ● Curated with Storefront for Art and Architecture

Design to power

Curatorial text by Monoambiente Espacio de Arquitectura & Diseño Experimental

Letters to the Mayor comes to Monoambiente after a very politicized year in Argentina. The 2015 elections have drawn a new political map for the country, and for the province and city of Buenos Aires.

Acting as a catalyst, Monoambiente has discovered in this collaboration with Storefront for Art and Architecture the possibility of fracturing the classic relationship between architecture and politics by reversing the logic of the relationship between the one who proposes and the one who executes.

Through this exchange, we attempt to empower the discipline of architecture by enabling architects to take part in the first moment of the discussion rather than act as constructors of what has been decided previously.

We believe in architecture and design as tools of transformation and we attempt to bring them to the cultural –and, in this case, political—scene of our city and of our region.

Letter to the Mayor is our first political commitment along these lines.

About Storefront for Art and Architecture:
Storefront for Art and Architecture (Storefront) advances innovative and critical ideas that contribute to an understanding and appreciation of the built environment and public life. Through exhibitions, events, and other public programming, Storefront provides alternative platforms for dialogue and collaboration across disciplinary, geographic, and ideological boundaries.

The boss’s desk

By Grupo Bondi

Promises kept
promises not kept
light a candle
make a request
say a prayer.
Layers on layers on layers
blur the (original) shape and shape a new one,
like a ghost but also like a shell that isolates you
soft, waxy and combustible.

The Common

By The Rock  Instrument Bureau

What belongs to everyone. What everyone awaits.

Values that are obligations, portrayed with the simplicity of the images that represent them in a google search.

The Brick that is Home.

Metaphors for the public domain that intend to become the reminder of those values.

Reminder.

When you see a brick, work for access to a home.

GCBA in Monoambiente

As part of the exhibition #14 we developed Escuela de Gobierno (School of Government), in which we invited different areas of the Government of the City of Buenos Aires.

Through this exchange between politicians and architects we seek to give power to the discipline, meeting through letters at the primary moment of discussion.

The meeting was attended by the Secretary of Transport, headed by the Secretary of Transport Juan José Mendez, the Undersecretary of Sustainable Mobility, headed by Paula Bisiau and the Directorate General of Urban Regeneration Works, headed by the architect Juan Vacas.

Conference Carlos Minguez Carrasco at Monte

As part of the exhibition #14, a series of conferences were held at MONTE, within the framework of the Ciclo Colaboratorio de Galería Monoambiente. The lecture – Letters to the Head of Government, given by Carlos Mínguez Carrasco (Storefront for Art & Architecture), was the first in this cycle.

Carlos Mínguez Carrasco talks about the history and principles of Storefront for Art & Architecture, covering the most important events of the gallery, up to Letters to the Mayor.

In the form of letters written by architects to their mayors, Letters to the Mayor aims to bring innovative ideas and visions of the city to decision-makers and vice versa. The exhibition rescues the role of the architect as a civic figure representing the interests and aspirations of society and attempts to reinsert him or her into the political plane as an agent of consultation, forming part of the processes of construction in the city.

Letters to the Mayor began in New York City in 2014, at the initiative of Storefront for Art and Architecture, with a collection of letters from different international architects addressed to their respective mayors.

Countdown: 100 days

Every government that takes office enjoys a “honeymoon”. It is a period to implement the government’s programme as fully as possible, in which society has a certain amount of hope for the new administration that takes office. It is often said that the first 100 days of a President, a Governor or a Mayor are decisive for the rest of his or her mandate. During this “honeymoon”, their popularity, leadership, and ability to influence public policy are of paramount importance, as the guidelines they draw up, both inside and outside the government, will influence their entire term in office.

The return of Monoambiente was a countdown to Exhibition #14, which was inaugurated 100 days into the government of Head of Government Horacio Rodríguez Larreta.