In Praise of Caves: Organic Architecture Projects from Mexico by Carlos Lazo, Mathias Goeritz, Juan O’Gorman, and Javier Senosiain is an exhibition spanning multiple galleries on the Museum’s first floor. It combines a selection of projects by these four artist–architects that explore the adaptation of natural structures to modern living, the practical and environmental benefits of moving underground, and how humanity might reconnect with the essential happiness of living in concert with nature. Under the broad rubric of organic architecture, these projects and site-specific installations reflect an alternative paradigm for approaching the relationship between human-built and natural environments that emerged in Mexico in the middle of the twentieth century. As the climate crisis accelerates, along with other signs that we have broken our relationship with nature, alternative visions have never seemed more needed.

Together with the ongoing exhibition Noguchi Subscapes, these projects will temporarily turn The Noguchi Museum into a subterranean environment as a metaphor for contemplating and perhaps reassessing our place in the world. 

About the Artist-Architects

Mathias Goeritz

Mathias Goeritz (b. 1915, Danzig, Germany; d. 1990, Mexico City, Mexico) was a German-born painter, sculptor, architect, teacher, and theorist. After emigrating to Mexico in 1949, Goertiz became a naturalized citizen of the country and an important figure in the postwar modern art scene there. Goeritz developed a principle of “emotional architecture,” advocating for the construction of expressive spaces designed to encourage collaboration, freedom, creativity, and empathy. Goeritz is most well known for his short-lived experimental museum, Museo Experimental El Eco (1953), his large-scale collaboration with architect Luis Barragan Five Towers (1957–58), and other monumental sculptures, which are considered precursors of minimalist primary structures.

Carlos Lazo

Carlos Lazo (b. 1914, Distrito Federal, Mexico; d. 1955, Distrito Federal, Mexico) was an architect and public official who, from 1952–55, served as the head of the Secretariat of Communications and Public Work (SCOP), overseeing state infrastructure projects. He designed the Banco de México building in the Port of Veracruz, oversaw the construction of Ciudad Universitaria of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), and created a series of habitable subterranean spaces, which he called “Civilized Caves,” including La Casa-Cueva de la Era Atómica (1948) in Lomas de Chapultepec, Mexico City. The program was to have included 110 homes dug into a canyon wall in the Belén de las Flores neighborhood of Mexico City, an ambitious public housing project which was to be never fully realized due in part to Lazo’s untimely death in an airplane accident.

Juan O’Gorman

Juan O’Gorman (b. 1905, Coyoacán, Mexico; d. 1982, Mexico City, Mexico) was an architect and artist, known for his early functionalist and later organic architecture and often surrealist paintings, murals, and mosaics that had nationalistic and anti-fascist themes. O’Gorman was committed to the integration of art and architecture, and, along with his friend and collaborator Diego Rivera, to creating a vernacular Mexican architecture. His most celebrated works include the Library of the National University in Mexico City (1951–53), which is adorned with a mosaic facade representing the history of Mexican culture, and his now destroyed personal home Casa O’Gorman (1948–54, demolished 1969) outside Mexico City that integrated the surrounding lava-formed landscape.

Javier Senosiain

Javier Senosiain (b. 1948, Mexico City, Mexico) is a renowned architect and historian. He is the founder and principal of Arquitectura Orgánica (Organic Architecture) in Mexico City, teaches an Architectural Design and Theory Workshop at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, and has authored numerous publications including Bioarquitectura (2002) and Arquitectura Orgánica (2008). A pioneer of organic architecture, he has devoted his research and practice to exploring the relationship between habitable space and nature. arquitecturaorganica.com

Exhibition Date: October 19, 2022 – February 26, 2023

Location: Noguchi Museum

9-01 33rd Road (at Vernon Boulevard)

Long Island City, New York 11106

Hours

Wed–Sun: 11 am–6 pm

Mon–Tue: Closed

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General Admission $12

Seniors (65+) $6 

Students with valid ID $6

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