Lorena Darquea, House VGA, 2015. Architects: Diseño Norteño.

Tijuana has always been an eclectic city, a poetic expression of how chaos is the logical order in which Mexico survives. It is a city that exhales the contrast between the best and the worst, between resourcefulness and mediocrity. The history of the city has always been attached to its inherent nature of being one of the busiest borderlines in the world. Through its veins millions of legal and illegal merchandise is in transit each day. It has always been a hub; a pit stop for immigrants who seek the American dream and hope that one of the many “polleros” that proliferates in the city can help them achieve the promised land. This reality is reflected in the landscape. The city is located in the middle of a mixture of dry land, small mountains, and a concrete wall that divides Mexico and USA.
The architecture of the city has been ephemeral for many years, made by people who are in transit, inhabitants who do not consider it their city. However, they will never leave, these people from the most distant places with the most complex life stories and a tremendous will to keep moving. The city feels like a stop to somewhere else, somewhere better where the sun is less harsh and the concrete softer. Tijuana has been built over broken dreams, violence, and ambition
In the past decade, the city suffered a most horrific crime wave, and the inhabitants and the world got to see the worst of humankind materialized in the Narco Cartels. The city witnessed a mass exodus of those who would not wait to see how crime, corruption, and impunity take the best out of them.
For those who stayed and held the wave, they grew stronger and wiser. Among those who stayed and are betting towards building a new Tijuana is Diseño Norteño, a couple of talented architects whose work got inspired by the cultural clashes that Tijuana has to offer. Fortunately, the city is stabilizing, the citizens are regaining control of the streets, and those who left are coming back.
The portfolio that Diseño Norteño has assembled since its foundation in 2013 sets a deliberate contrast with the surrounding structures. The use of local materials and techniques is a staple in their work, but in a way that defies the status quo in local housing standards. Diseño Norteño fights to create an architectural identity for the city, to create an amalgam of the variety of cultures that coexist in this Kafkanian location.
The architectural photography presented in this exhibition demonstrates the beautiful contrast that has been created with the projects presented by Diseño Norteño and Tijuana.
In the photographs I tend to exhibit the ugliness, sadness, and lack of aesthetic sense in the constructions in Tijuana, and how it becomes a poetical expression when combined with the projects of Diseño Norteño that show the experiences and details their projects provide for the user.
The projects captured are a reflection of the misfit’s drive to make a statement, of their willingness to fight, to evolve, to transform their environment, and to take control of the situation not being victims of it; and that, that is Diseño Norteño.