Teddy Cruz, (USA) will give the final Public Talk in the Arts Council’s Extending Architecture initiative, which is managed by Create.

Architect Teddy Cruz and partner Fonna Forman  of Estudio Teddy Cruz and Forman  will be in Cork in April as part of a fresh initiative from Arts Council to extend learning about architecture and to spread new ideas from key international practitioners and thought leaders in the area of architecture and urbanism. The last speaker in the Extending Architecture series    is a global influencer – Teddy Cruz – architect and urban activist – who has worked for years on the Tijuana borders of Mexico. Given the charged debate in current US elections , Cruz’s take on urbanism could not be more timely. Cruz is a man , passionate and committed , as the preface to his popular TEDtalk avers,  ‘Teddy Cruz asks us to rethink urban development from the bottom up’

Early booking is advised. To book a place for the public talk: https://extending-architecture-estudio-teddy-cruz-forman.eventbrite.ie

This event is organised in association with the National Sculpture Factory, Cork & Create, Dublin (national development agency for creative arts)

International practitioner biographies

Extending Architecture – more details 

http://www.create-ireland.ie/extending-architecture/extending-architecture

Estudio Teddy Cruz + Forman (San Diego – Tijuana)

Teddy Cruz, Professor in Public Culture and Urbanization, UC San Diego

Fonna Forman, Director, UC San Diego Center on Global Justice

Co-Directors: The Cross-Border Initiative

Teddy Cruz is a Professor of Public Culture and Urbanization in the  Department of Visual Arts at the University of California, San Diego, where he is founding Co-Director of the Center for Urban Ecologies. He is known internationally for his urban research on the Tijuana / San  Diego border, advancing border neighborhoods as sites of cultural production from which to rethink urban policy, affordable housing, and civic infrastructure. Recipient of the Rome Prize in Architecture in 1991, his honors include representing the US in the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale, the Ford Foundation Visionaries Award in 2011, and the 2013 Architecture Award from the US Academy of Arts and Letters.

Fonna Forman is a Professor of Political Theory at the University of California, San Diego and founding Director of the UCSD Center on Global Justice. She is a political theorist best known for her revisionist work on Adam Smith, recuperating the ethical, social, spatial and public dimensions of his political economy.  Current work focuses on theories and practices of global justice as they manifest at local and regional scales, and the place of civic engagement in strategies of equitable urbanization.  She presently consults on social and economic rights for the Commission on Global Citizenship, to advise United Nations policy on human rights.

Together they direct the Cross-Border Initiative, and partner on many projects focused on social justice and the city, with a special emphasis on informality in Latin American cities. From 2012-13 they served as special advisors on Civic and Urban Initiatives for the City of San Diego and led the development of its Civic Innovation Lab.

They are presently co-investigating a Ford Foundation-funded study on citizenship culture in the San Diego-Tijuana border region, in collaboration with Antanas Mockus and the Bogota-based NGO, Corpovisionarios.

Extending Architecture Training in the Training in practices of engaging the public with architecture

An Arts Council training and professional development initiative, managed by Create

As part of its policy and commitment to the public’s engagement with architecture, the Arts Council is introducing training for cultural practitioners with an interest in programming, exploring and sharing the cultural and artistic value of architecture with the public. 

In many architectural practices, arts centres, galleries, festivals, civic venues and public spaces around the world, dynamic practitioners are seeking to broaden out the field of architecture beyond the design and construction of buildings alone. This is redefining ideas of architecture, space and place. These examples of ways to engage the public with architectural practices and the presentation of architecture open out a sense of architecture as a platform for collective conversations about the kind of world we live in today.

Over a series of three training sessions participants will have the unique opportunity to work with and learn from renowned international practitioners, Todo Por La Praxis (Madrid), Kate Goodwin (London), and Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman (San Diego). Exploring new attitudes, views and opinions on architecture and the built environment internationally and locally, participants will attend an evening keynote lecture and then undertake a day long interactive training session with these highly sought after practitioners. 

National Sculpture Factory, Albert Road, Cork T12 KXOO