Maestros de Arquitectura 2019: Hernán Díaz Alonso, Sci-Arc, HDA-x

As part of our annual Maestros de Arquitectura Lecture tradition, LA.IDEA hosted Argentine-American Architect Hernan Diaz Alonso to be our Maestros for this year on October 1st at the District Architecture Center.

Our night began with the Tertulia, an intimate and candid conversation moderated by LA.IDEA chairs Jose Leo Arango and Juliane Trindade. During this conversation, we got to know Hernan’s trajectory in the architecture education field to his current position at SCI-Arc. He recalls been surrounded by fascinating mentors such as Bernard Tschumi and Marcelo Spina during his education at Columbia University. His education came at a time when there was an evolution in digital technologies which expanded the interpretation of architectural theories at this institution. Furthermore, this technology and his deep interest in cinematography influenced Hernan’s unique designs as well as how to deliver these concepts to the public.

After tertulia finished, Hernan Diaz Alonso presented a lecture covering a large breadth of his work which have taken shape from built environments like the MoMa PS1 Museum courtyard installation to product design for Alessi and prototypes of health care fashion. His office HDA-X focuses as a creative agency pushing architectural thinking across multiple disciplines.

He began his lecture with an alternate to the famous Sullivan’s quote “Form follows function” to “Form follows form” and indeed this ethos was represented throughout the lecture in various of Hernan’s designs. The various projects shown in the lecture were brilliant brought to visualization by his understanding of current technology “as a form of art”. His architectural design takes on shapes and forms that are highlighted by sweeping curves and organic shapes that make a building come alive, even literally with moving parts such as his proposal for the Helsinki Guggenheim.

Speaking of literally, “Literal” as he mentioned in Spanish. Hernan also talked about designing for the literal, such as his example of designing with meat, a nod to his Argentine background, and designing installations literally in a meat texture reproduced in different shapes

He finished his lecture with his current active project which is a bridge in Mexico which will connect two towns separated by a river and improve the quality of life for its residents. This bridge, also acting like a park, will provide many spaces for gathering and act as an extension between the two town areas, and epitomizes his thinking of “design as a human right and not a luxury”