The Nervion, Buidling 2. 2000

THRESHOLDS BY MAURICIO RODRIGUEZ ANZA

By Gabriel Esquivel

Columbus , Ohio September 2001 

In the 21^st century architecture exhibitions are framed for their subversions and or extensions of the tradition of that particular event. In “Thresholds”, an exhibit where the frame of architecture is exposed, reconstituted and redefined, the question becomes; what do we expect out of this operation?  The answers are multiple and complex, first the frame can become an instrument of connectivity to operate within the architectural image recognizing the importance not only of the materiality and tectonics but offers the possibility of establishing a system of views and spatial extensions into the landscape or territorial image. The where and when architecture starts and territory begins is dissolved. It is within this connection of images that the series of “Thresholds” become crucial moments as far as offering the possibility of a new perception, specially by the way Mauricio Rodríguez Anza has documented his work, as moments of a larger system, which has nothing to do with image as style but as the dialogue between the idea of interiority and exteriority and the importance of this moments in space and time. At this instance is where the intellect can join two worlds what was left behind and what is about to be entered, always with the potential for an argument of reflection, speculation or sequence.

“Thresholds” is not only concern with fundamental questions of architecture. But on another level this work outlines the possibility of the future of the architectural practice, as a systemic application of the frame in several instances not only technologically speaking, but in terms of engaging all kinds of programs whose events could be coded with different material and tectonic applications.

The enormous importance of Mauricio Rodríguez Anza’s work is not only because some kind of extension within the precedents of modernity, whether Mies or Barragán, but moves forward to the exploration and the investigation of architecture as an act of intelligence.