Mauricio Rocha's Architecture: Sensorial Experience and Ethical Principles

Mauricio Rocha, a Mexican architect formed at UNAM, delivered a lecture at Universidad Centro in Mexico City, presenting his career principles: interdisciplinary dialogue, material rigor, and a focus on sensory experience. Key projects include the School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (Iztapalapa, 2001), which uses tactile models, yellow handrails, braille fragments, and water channels for orientation; the Torre de los Vientos intervention with Gonzalo Fonseca and Pedro Reyes; the Mercado de San Pablo with stepped roofs; the Centro Cultural San Pablo as 'architectural acupuncture'; the Centro Cultural Los Chocolates defended by the community; the Pabellón Sonoro transforming bullet holes into windows; the Estudio Iturbide for Graciela Iturbide with brick lattices; the Museo Anahuacalli expansion, winner of the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize; and the new Cineteca Nacional in Chapultepec, reusing a former gunpowder factory. Rocha emphasized limiting materials, using local resources (critical regionalism per Kenneth Frampton), learning from carpenter expertise, and the concept of a 'distracted gaze' from Smiljan Radić. He advocates for humanist architectural education and defends design logic against political pressures.