Casa Wabi documents one of Mexico's most architecturally ambitious cultural foundations — a Pacific coastline complex where Tadao Ando's 312-metre concrete wall anchors contributions from six other internationally significant architects and artists.
About This Book
Founded by Mexican artist Bosco Sodi in 2013, Casa Wabi is simultaneously an artist residency, gallery, living quarters, classroom complex, and public space — a programme whose ambition is matched by its architecture. Tadao Ando's structural spine, a 312-metre-long concrete wall, organises the site, while contributions from Alberto Kalach, Alvaro Siza, Kengo Kuma, Gloria Cabral, Solano Benitez, Jorge Ambrosi, and Gabriela Etchegaray extend it. What makes this foundation genuinely distinctive is its material honesty: palapa-style palm leaf roofs blur the threshold between interior and exterior, while parota wood and marmolina ground the complex in regional craft traditions. Under director Carla Sodi, Casa Wabi operates as both a world-class architectural destination and a working model for creative intervention in economically marginalised communities.
Key Features
- 236 pages of documentary photography, architectural drawings, and critical text on the foundation's built works and programme
- Text by Bosco Sodi and Martino Stierli
- Structures by Tadao Ando, Alberto Kalach, Alvaro Siza, Kengo Kuma, Gloria Cabral, Solano Benitez, Jorge Ambrosi, and Gabriela Etchegaray
- Published by Rizzoli Electa, 2013
What You'll Discover
- How Tadao Ando's 312-metre concrete wall functions as both infrastructure and conceptual anchor for a sprawling multi-architect campus
- The role of vernacular building materials — palapa palm leaf roofing, Mexican parota wood, and marmolina — in dissolving the boundary between inside and outside
- How a single foundation reconciles a world-class architectural programme with direct community benefit in an economically depressed region
- The curatorial logic of assembling seven architects from distinct traditions — Japanese, Portuguese, Mexican — within a coherent spatial and philosophical framework
About the Author
Bosco Sodi is a renowned Mexican artist and the founder of Casa Wabi. Martino Stierli is a scholar who contributes critical writing to this volume.
Specifications
- Format: Hardcover
- Pages: 236
- Dimensions: 31 x 25.5 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9780847847839
- Publisher: Rizzoli Electa
- Publication Date: 2013
Perfect For: Architects and designers interested in site-responsive practice, cultural infrastructure, and the intersection of contemporary art and architecture in Latin America.