Individuals can come together to reshape the fabric of neighborhoods in non-traditional ways, according to architect Teddy Cruz, who presented his lecture titled "Creative Acts of Citizenship: Performing Neighborhoods," in the Rockefeller Center on Tuesday.
While working along the Tijuana-San Diego border, Cruz found social and architectural inspiration among the decaying towns. He sought to radicalize and "revisualize" the border towns in order to provide support to their communities.
Cruz cited several conflicts along the border, particularly those between the rich and poor. These points of social friction serve as springboards for architects to find new forms and processes of structure, he said.
"Conflict can be an operational tool to rethink practice," Cruz said. "It's a kind of forensics of urbanization."
Tijuana and San Diego have a dynamic relationship because people in Tijuana build structures using the waste of San Diego, Cruz said. Garage doors from San Diego are used to construct entire houses in Tijuana, and car tires are sometimes stacked to form walls. The very different yet interdependent realities of San Diego and Tiujana two cities just 20 minutes apart from each other create a stark juxtaposition, he said.
"I was seduced by the power of these images," Cruz said. "This is trans-border recycling, and the debris of California has been transferred to help slums."
Cruz said he approached factory managers with plans for better, more stable structures for Mexican neighborhoods surrounding factories.
"I called it a portable, new Babylon," Cruz said. "These homes are in precarious environments, and some are usually washed away with the first rainy season."
Cruz highlighted the importance of the community's role in designing and redesigning spaces, especially in regions that have been spatially reconfigured due to an influx of immigrants. To highlight the reconfiguration of space, Cruz showed the audience a small house that had been transformed into a Buddhist temple. The house-turned-temple was no longer a static object, but a "micro socio-economic system," he said.
Cruz also spoke about his interest in re-evaluating citizenship beyond issues of documentation.
"It's a creative act that allows the reconfiguration of behaviors and spaces," Cruz said. "Immigrants have a different idea of land use and density and zoning."
In this sense, land density is not restricted to simply making the most use of land, but can be measured in the amount of social exchange per acre for example, through the presence of social spaces, flea markets and street vendors, Cruz said. Families in these neighborhoods shape their land to reflect the social and economic needs of their region.
By dispersing small individual homes across large areas of land a departure from the dense structures that populate metropolitan areas these neighborhoods are also able to provide affordable living.
Cruz showed the audience his representation of "McMansions," or luxury suburban residences, which have become a large part of the ideal American home. Cruz's "McMansion," exhibited at museums throughout the nation, is a small plastic model home placed in a box of mirrors. The image repeats into infinite space, epitomizing the monotony of traditional suburban landscapes.
Alternatively, citizens can come together to create new plans for their neighborhoods, Cruz said.
"The mythology of the American dream of ownership has become unsustainable," Cruz said. "We need to rethink ownership, and rethink how a small house can become a small village."
Cruz is well-known for his research on the Tijuana-San Diego border and most recently received the Ford Foundation Visionaries Award, which recognizes leaders' efforts to improve economic opportunities. He is currently a public culture and urbanism professor at the University of California, San Diego, where he co-founded the Center for Urban Ecologies.
"Creative Acts of Citizenship," the 2011 Hoffman lecture, was co-sponsored by the comparative literature department, the geography department and the Hood Museum of Art.
