Villa Floresta: Morphosis, Tijuana and the Beginning of a Practice

Associate Professor of Art, Architecture + Art History Marcel Sanchez Prieto, MArch, is a co-editor of Villa Floresta: Morphosis, Tijuana and the Beginning of a Practice, the first book in the new Transborder Living series published by Arquine. The series documents often-overlooked architectural and urban histories across the Mexico–United States borderlands.

"There are almost no architectural publications about Tijuana, even though the city has always been a place of experimentation," explains Sanchez. "Villa Floresta lets us tell one of those stories and read the border not as a dividing line but as a space of negotiation, adaptation and exchange. It's the first of many histories I hope we can recover before they disappear."

This first volume focuses on the history of five houses on the outskirts of Tijuana, with introductions by Felipe Orensanz and Marcel Sanchez Prieto and texts by Todd Gannon, Thom Mayne, Michael Rotondi and Livio Santini, alongside historical writings by Esther McCoy and Dan MacMasters.

"To document that story in the architects' own words and to launch a whole series around these overlooked histories is deeply meaningful to me as a scholar and as someone committed to this region," says Sanchez. "What excites me most is that this book begins to fill a real silence."

The book is available through the publisher, Arquine or through Artbook.