Centro Cultural Tijuana: The Latest Architecture and News

When drawing, lines are fundamental elements of composition. They delineate space, outline structures, and define boundaries. When it comes to maps and borders, the line acquires a particular meaning, as this "simple" graphic expression marks a powerful division between regions, setting the beginning or the end of a territory. This line has a profound meaning at the limit between Mexico and the United States, where it constantly blurs and questions the border. In these places, multiculturalism is a daily occurrence, with a continuous negotiation of boundaries present in all aspects of life. The dynamic of these borders involves design and the generation of a complex network of interactions and collaborations.

Rather than being divided into Tijuanenses on one side and San Diegans on the other, this particular region stands out as a community whose essence harmonizes with a deep legacy of cross-border collaboration, rather than being seen as cities separated by a line. As the first binational designation in the history of the World Design Capital (WDC) program, the Tijuana-San Diego region shares a common interest in addressing urban, social, and economic issues through design. Thus, via conferences, policy summits, and workshops, the region seeks to enhance the catalyzation of ideas through its designation.

Designed by architect Pedro Ramírez Vázquez and Manuel Rosen Morrison, the buildings that make up the Tijuana Cultural Center constructed at the end of the 20th century, are now an urban landmark with a singularity so evident that it could only be understood in a city as peculiar as the one that houses it. We present to you on this occasion an approach to architecture with modern, nationalist, and iconic touches that at some point were part of the national emblem within the horizons of a Mexico like that of 1982.

In October 1982 in the city of Tijuana, Baja California, the facilities of what we now know as the Tijuana Cultural Center (Cecut) were inaugurated. That moment could probably evoke scenes inspired by movies like 'The Belly of an Architect', where examples of 18th-century Parisian architecture by Étienne-Louis Boullée are revisited in modern times. The shapes, scale, and arrangement of the volumes of the complex recall in the construction of the Cecut, how modern anti-historicism opened the possibility for a construction like this one, almost reaching the 21st century.

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