Samuel Ratensky Memorial Lecture: Tatiana Bilbao

The annual Samuel Ratensky Memorial Lecture was initiated by the AIANY Housing Committee in honor of Samuel Ratensky (1910-1972), an architect and NYC housing official who was responsible for major housing initiatives in the city from 1946 to 1972, and who served as a mentor to the many architects who worked in his programs. The lecture series honors individuals who, like Ratensky, have made significant lifetime contributions to the advancement of housing and community design. This year’s lecture honors Tatiana Bilbao of Tatiana Bilbao ESTUDIO who will present “Architecture: A Social, Common, and Public Language.”

Tatiana Bilbao ESTUDIO is a Mexico City-based architecture studio founded in 2004. At the core of the studio’s practice is an analysis of the context surrounding projects, which scale from masterplans to affordable housing typologies. A goal of the work is to both contribute to its surroundings while remaining flexible to absorb shifting needs. Tatiana Bilbao ESTUDIO pursues architecture through multidisciplinary perspectives. The practice promotes a collective environment with a diverse staff of architects, academics, and model makers. The working method uses hand drawing and iterative models to keep design and development rooted in spatial and not digital exploration. The studio’s architectural work includes: ESTOA, an institutional building on the UDEM campus that has received the special CEMEX Award on 2021; the Culiacán Botanical Garden; the Pilgrimage Route in Jalisco; a social housing prototype displayed at the 2015 Chicago Biennial that costs under $8,000 USD; three buildings of housing in Lyon la Confluence; a research center of the Sea of Cortez on Mazatlan; and, more recently, the Mexican American Cultural in Austin Texas and a Masterplan for the National Park La Huasteca.

In 2019, Tatiana Bilbao ESTUDIO was the featured architecture firm in the Architect’s Studio series of exhibitions hosted by the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. The studio’s work has been featured at the Graham Foundation, Chicago Architecture Biennial, Venice Biennale, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey, Museo Amparo, T-Space Gallery, and Centre Pompidou, among many other institutions. The firm’s most recent exhibitions were at SFMOMA and the Architekturzentrum of Wien in 2021, followed by Aedes Architekturforum of Berlín and the Danish Architecture Center in 2022.

Speaker:
Tatiana Bilbao, Founder, Tatiana Bilbao ESTUDIO

About the Speaker:
Tatiana Bilbao began her eponymous studio in 2004 with the aim of integrating social values, collaboration and sensitive design approaches to architectural work. The work of the office intersects with research allowing to design for diverse circumstances and in reconstruction or crisis scenarios. Prior to founding her firm, Bilbao was an Advisor in the Ministry of Development and Housing of the Government of the Federal District of Mexico City, during this period she was part of the General Development Directorate of the Advisory Council for Urban Development in the City.

Bilbao holds a recurring teaching position at Yale University School of Architecture and has taught at Harvard University GSD, AA Association in London, Columbia University GSAPP, Rice University, University of Andrés Bello in Chile, and Peter Behrens School of Arts at HS Dusseldorf in Germany. Her work has been published in The New York Times, Architecture and Urbanism (a+u), and Domus, among others.

Also, Bilbao has been recognized with the Kunstpreis Berlin in 2012, was named in 2010 as an Emerging Voice by the Architecture League of New York, the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture Prize by the LOCUS Foundation in 2014, as well as the Impact Award 2017 Honorees for Architzier A + Awards, the Marcus Prize Award 2019, Tau Sigma Delta Gold Medal of 2020, the Honorary Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) in 2021, the Richard Neutra Award in 2022 and lastly the AW Architect of the Year 2022.