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René’s work in recent years explores the contemporary and future forms of the urban border between the United States and Mexico. René is a coauthor, with Fiamma Montezemolo and Heriberto Yépez, of the book, Here is Tijuana, published in 2006 by Black Dog, London. In 2018, he co-edited, along with Tito Alegría and Roger Lewis, the commemorative edition of the book A Temporary Paradise: A look at the special landscape of the San Diego Region, originally prepared by Kevin Lynch and Donald Appleyard (COLEF 2018).

His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, Santa Monica Art Museum, Mexico House at the Embassy of Mexico in Washington, DC, Shenzhen Architecture and Urbanism Biennial 2007 and the Central Society of Architects in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 2015, his research on the Experimental Housing Project (PREVI) in Lima, Peru, was part of the exhibition “Latin America in Construction: Architecture 1955-1980” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 2017, he directed Hyperloop West, a group that went on to become a semi-finalist in the global challenge competition organized by Virgin Hyperloop One. In 2017, Rene curated the Tijuana-San Diego exhibit space at the 2017 Architecture and Urbanism Biennial in Seoul, Korea.

Reorientar la formación profesional y activa de los que elegimos ser arquitectos, para volvernos a la arquitectura real, esa que no permite la dominación y control de un sistema que destruye, la que deja de ser esclava del poder y economía de unos cuantos que solo quieren llenar sus bolsillos para tener más poder, la que se aleja de los sistemas autocráticos que nos convierten reproductores y repetidores de modelos incoherentes, consumistas y poco éticos.  

Este modelo hegemónico destructor que domina la imaginativa responsable, ética y consciente, anula nuestra responsabilidad como arquitectos; por lo que, es necesario distanciarnos de estos modelos para hacer evidente la responsabilidad que tenemos desde nuestra disciplina.

No se trata de reaccionar impulsivamente en una dirección contraria,  sino de deconstruir y volver a construir en base a estos saberes y conciencia, una nueva visión para construir un futuro diferente, uno que nos permita inteligentemente disminuir, retrasar y si es posible, erradicar, la destrucción que hemos generado, revertir aspectos de deterioro, contemplar a los usuarios, el contexto físico, buscando el confort como un modo de dignidad que arrope a cualquier usuario para que se integre y se incluya en la responsabilidad y cuidado de su entorno. Así como, erradicar la discriminación y marginación que hemos creado en función de prejuicios sociales que tienen que ver con las condiciones económicas, políticas, sociales y culturales. Si podemos revertir la idea de la arquitectura como meramente intelectual e instrumental, lograremos crear estrategias para formarnos profesionalmente con un sentido claro de responsabilidad ética en la que somos encargados de construir un futuro diferente, porque si no hay futuro, no hay arquitectura.

Architecture + Urban Design

Based in Madrid, Edgar Gonzalez leads the Bachelor in Design program at IE School of Architecture and Design. He founded EGD Edgar Gonzalez Design, a Strategic Design Agency, where he serves clients as a strategic consultant specialised in applying design processes to complex problems and narratives. As, Editor-in-chief of edgargonzalez.com since 2002, one of the main reference websites about architecture and design in the Spanish speaking world, he is tuned in to news and trends in architecture and design throughout the world.
 
Especially interested in themes at the threshold of the architectural practice, he researches the relationships between new technologies and media for creative processes and contemporary cities.  He has served as guest professor and speaker in several universities and has been the curator and designer of several exhibitions and cultural projects. From 2000 to 2002 he worked as an architect at Zaha Hadid Architects in London and at Arquitectura Torres Nadal from 2002 to 2005. He also served as an editorial designer for the  Architectural Association London, The Economist and The Guardian.
 
Holds a Bachelor in Architecture ( ITESO University, Guadalajara, Mexico, 1996) and a M.A. in Complex Architecture  (Alicante University, Alicante, Spain, 2007).
 

Less is more, My firm is located in Querétaro, an important city in México.

For me, architecture has two ways of manifesting itself: Mimicking to go a little unnoticed, or contrasting with the environment, highlighting and saying that it exists with a new and functional design, it is for both reasons that I like architectural design, adding the appearance ecological design to coexist with the planet trying to avoid more pollution.