MUSEUM MODERNIST
By Aric Chen photograph by kevin
Trageser
From boutique hotels and high-end
condominiums to the proposed Guggenheim in Guadalajara,
architect Enrique Norten is combining art and living in one
global package. So what will his Guggenheim look like? Anything
but Bilbao.
If art is becoming that most overused of
clichés — a lifestyle — then architect
Enrique Norten is well placed to give it a crisp new
expression. As the Mexican-born principal of TEN Arquitectos,
based in New York and Mexico City, Norten is a devoted
Modernist in the international mold; unlike his celebrated
compatriots Luis Barragán and Ricardo Legorreta, you
won’t see him lingering on the Mexican vernacular. Yet
with its bold geometries and abstract patterns, his work bears
the traces of other Latin American masters — think Oscar
Niemeyer or Carlos Raúl Villanueva. Indeed, from
condominiums and hotels, like his trend-setting Habita Hotel in
Mexico City, to museums — most notably, a proposed
Guggenheim in Guadalajara — Norten’s work is
infused with hard-edged drama. You can take the architect out
of Latin America, it seems, but you can’t take the Latin
American out of the architect.
Recently, Whitewall visited Norten in New
York at his Flatiron District office, where his business is
booming: other current projects include the Fayetteville Museum
of Art in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and the renovation of
the Chopo Museum in Mexico City; master plans for Rutgers
University and New Orleans; and hotels and apartment buildings
in New York, Mexico City, Miami, and San Francisco. In his
cramped quarters, Norten told us why museums and boutique
hotels make happy bedfellows, why we should look to Latin
America (while not pigeonholing him as a Mexican architect),
and the reason his Guggenheim won’t look anything like
its counterpart in Bilbao.
WHITEWALL: Your firm is called TEN
Arquitectos. But there’s only one of you.
ENRIQUE NORTEN: I started out in Mexico as
Taller de Enrique Norten, or Studio Enrique Norten in English.
But it was too long, so people in the office shortened it to
TEN. People always ask me who the other nine are, and TEN is
also the last three letters of my last name. But it’s
just a coincidence.
WW: Being based in New York and Mexico
City, do you see a growing North-South dynamic?
EN: I wish it were stronger. I’d say
we’re one of the very few firms working North-South. Many
friends of mine in architecture always do East-West, going
either to Europe or Asia, but very few go North-South. I think
it’s very important for a country like the U.S. to look
more carefully to the South. They are our natural partners;
we’re all Americans. It’s the Americas.
WW: So what’s keeping everyone?
EN: I don’t really know, but I think
it’s just that the conservative government that
we’ve had in this country in recent years has preferred
not to look that way, which I think is a huge mistake.
WW: Let’s talk about your art
museums. The first question, naturally, is whether the
Guggenheim Guadalajara is actually going to happen.
EN: Absolutely.
WW: That’s a little hard to believe,
given the Guggenheim’s post-Bilbao track record in
getting other Guggenheims built.
EN: I understand. But you know that once
the Guggenheim finishes a competition [to build a new museum],
it’s in the hands of the local foundations, who are the
ones who need to make it happen. I’m not concerned about
the Guggenheim. And I’m very hopeful and feel positive
that the guys in Guadalajara will pull it off. The land has
already been transferred to the foundation, and that’s a
really good sign.
Winter 2008
