We need to talk about Manuel: the perils of exhibiting Prestige

Architecture.

We will use the opportunity to exhibit architecture abroad to

further the implications of what indiscriminately exhibiting
projects might cause. We’ll refer to “Prestige Architecture” as
the work of architects who, by way of conferences, workshops,
publications and all sorts of visual communication engage with
a global audience. Naturally, there is nothing wrong in the
global dissemination of architecture. Architecture produced in
the southern hemisphere (and whatever is considered
“latinamerican”) is in much need of entering the mainstream
discourse, not by embracing and rebranding neoliberal
construction practices (Alejandro Aravena) but as broader way to
signal some problems about the manners in which construction and
design practices are financed.

The legal definition of “exhibit” is a document or other object

produced in a court as evidence. Mariana Botey has commented
that whether the conditions in which art is produced are just or
not, this is seldom a restriction for its circulation.
Similarly, architects that see their works built have to face
the most unfair and brutal side of wage labor. Sometimes there
is agency to intervene in these practices, and sometimes there
is complete willingness to further the injustice.

One of the most prominent corruption scandals in the last years

in Mexico involved the construction of a house whose clients
were, after a journalistic investigation, revealed to be former
president Enrique Peña Nieto and his then family. A good part of
the investigation came from what the architect Miguel Ángel
Argonés had intended to be kept as a private client. The house’s
plans and pictures were all available at Archdaily. What
prompted the investigation for the house was when former first
lady Angélica Rivera allowed Hello! Magazine inside the house
for a photo shoot, and a team of journalists asked themselves
“Where is this house and who paid for it?”

Archdaily plans and pictures of the project ended up becoming

exhibits for the journalistic investigation that led to the
selling of the house in a televised appearance by the first
lady. In other words, the visual communication of a project
became journalistic evidence for a corruption scandal that, it
can be argued, cost Peña Nieto’s Party, PRI, and the entire MO
of the political class, its defeat in last year’s election.

Some years later, a similar case happened with Manuel

Cervantes’, his Rancho Las Mesas project earned him the
Architecture League prize in 2015. After Duarte fled the country
to avoid criminal prosecution, Crevantes’ client for Las Mesas
turned out to be Javier Duarte. Duarte’s term as governor of
Veracruz, has non-ironically been referred to as the most
corrupt governor in history.

Manuel Cervantes has enjoyed popularity as a hardworking, hands-

on approach, wood beams, Las Mesas became the front cover for
his El Croquis number published in early 2018 (well after
Duarte’s eventual apprehension), accompanied by an essay by
Juhani Pallasmaa. This is Peak Prestige Architecture.

Cervantes’ work is the subject of a current exhibition in

Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso in Mexico, to be exhibited from
March to July. In other words, the commission of Las Mesas
continues to add prestige to a career that, due to the
atrocities by the mishandling of resources during Duarte’s
period as governor in the State of Veracruz, we cannot afford to
dissociate.
We see both cases as a consequence of how the discussion of
architecture suffers from a segmentation in classical media and
its overall irrelevance unless the size of the project is deemed
to big to turn it into a societal concern. By treating it as a
niche concern, architecture has no way of ever becoming
relevant. It only has Instagram for self validation.