UTSA architecture speaker series, Nov. 5: Renowned architect Derek Dellekamp
Derek Dellekamp
Derek Dellekamp
Share this Story(Oct. 30, 2014) -- The UTSA College of Architecture, Construction and Planning (CACP) Speaker Series continues with internationally renowned architect Derek Dellekamp, the founder and director of the Mexico City firm Dellekamp Arquitectos.
His lecture, "Poetic Pragmatism," will be presented free and open to the public at 5:30 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 5 in the Buena Vista Street Building Aula Canaria (1.328) on the UTSA Downtown Campus. Free parking will be available in UTSA parking lot D-3 under Interstate 35.
Dellekamp will discuss the creative process utilized by Dellekamp Arquitectos during the firm's 15-year history, a personal philosophy he calls "poetic pragmatism." Dellekamp employs a rigorous research methodology to find unique solutions for the specific conditions of each project. He believes that architecture's ultimate purpose is to draw from the many layers of reality it addresses to devise an equation capable of balancing these specific conditions in the final form of the building.
Dellekamp cares greatly about the limitations of an architectural problem because he believes constraints should be converted into opportunities -- his architecture responds to a concrete reality, creates room for experience, and is defined through the lens of the observer. Just as multiple meanings are expressed by the poetic word, a real-world building effortlessly conveys the multi-layered narrative that is specific to its creation.
"We would like to put forth this 'sense of the effortless' as a primary ground for architecture," writes Dellekamp in his essay, "More Is Effort-less: Or the Question of Poetic Pragmatism in Architecture," which was published in the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture magazine, Platform: Poetics of Building, spring 2013 edition. "To us, the 'arch-builder' emulates the ease of the poet when aware of the balance between the pragmatic and the poetic, not as an 'either/or' exclusion, but as an integral 'and/or' complex that minds the dynamic equation between 'a couple of words' and 'a ton of brick.'"
Dellekamp is part of a new generation of Mexican architects who are rebuilding and transforming their country's architectural scene after the economic crisis of the 1980s. Forbes magazine named him as one of the 100 most creative Mexicans in its December 2013 edition, and he was honored in 2009 with the Architectural League of New York's Emerging Voices Award.
In 2010, Dellekamp Arquitectos project for the Route of the Pilgrim in Jalisco was selected to be part of the Collection of Architecture at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The firm was included in Wallpaper magazine's annual Architects Directory as one of the 101 most exciting new architecture practices in 2007.
Dellekamp studied architecture at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, where he earned his degree in 1997. He established Dellekamp Arquitectos in 1999. He participated as a visiting professor at the UT Austin School of Architecture in 2012 and at Rice University's School of Architecture in 2011.
In spring 2014, he was a visiting critic for Jose Castillo's workshop at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Dellekamp has participated in several national and international conferences and events, and his work has been published and exhibited in Mexico, Greece, Austria, Switzerland and Italy, among other locations. Dellekamp Arquitectos participated in the Venice Biennale in 2008, 2012 and 2014.
Next in the UTSA CACP Speaker Series: Feb. 4 -- Michael Gabellini of Gabellini Sheppard Associates, New York City
The lecture series brings design professionals from around the world to UTSA to share their expertise on a variety of topics with the local community.
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For more information, contact Nicole Chavez at 210-458-3121.
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