Cocktails & Conversation: Frida Escobedo and Enrique Norten, Hon. FAIA

Cocktails & Conversation is a series of dialogues about design that joins an architect with a critic, journalist, curator, or architectural historian to discuss current architecture design issues. This special program will have Frida Escobedo sit down with an interviewer as they discuss her career over a custom cocktail that the audience can make from the comfort of their home. 

Speaker:
Frida Escobedo, Founder, Frida Escobedo Workshop

Interviewer:
Enrique Norten, Hon. FAIA, Principal, TEN Arquitectos

About the Speakers:

Since founding her workshop in 2006, Frida Escobedo has developed an approach based on the idea that architecture and design represent a crucial medium for asking questions and debating social, economic and political phenomena. Under this premise, art, both contemporary and historical, serves as a starting point for the development of each project. Challenging the traditional boundaries of the architectural discipline, the workshop's creative output operates on a wide range of scales, addressing the context of each project and using architectural elements as tools for negotiation and consensus.

Enrique Norten, Hon. FAIA, is a Mexican architect and principal of the design firm TEN Arquitectos (Taller de Enrique Norten Arquitectos). He graduated from the Universidad Iberoamericana with a degree in architecture in 1978 and obtained a Master of Architecture from Cornell University in 1980. In 1986, he founded TEN Arquitectos in Mexico City, initiating a lifelong commitment to architecture and design. In February 2008, Enrique Norten was presented with the Excellence in Architecture and Design Award by PODER-Boston Consulting Group Business Awards, and in 2007 obtained the Legacy Award from the Smithsonian Institution for his contributions to the US arts and culture. In 2005 he received the Leonardo da Vinci/ World Award of Arts by the World Cultural Council and was the first Mies van der Rohe Award recipient for Latin American Architecture in 1998. Enrique Norten has lectured all over the world and is a regular speaker at the Urban Age Conference, dedicated to shaping the thinking and practice of urban leaders and sustainable urban development through a worldwide investigation into the future of diverse cities around the world.

Throughout his career, he has balanced the practice of architecture with a constant participation on international juries and award committees such as the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition in New York City and the Holcim Awards for Sustainable Construction. In 2006 he was appointed member of Deutsche Bank's Board of Trustees and on successive years he has become a board member of the Mexican Cultural Institute of New York and the Americas Society/Council of the Americas. Enrique Norten holds the Miller Chair at the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia since 1998. He has held the O'Neil Ford Chair in Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin, the Lorch Professor of Architecture Chair at the University of Michigan, and the Elliot Noyes Visiting Design Critic at Harvard University.

Enjoy the talks, then buy the book!
From 2012 through 2018, the AIANY Architecture Dialogue Committee’s Cocktails and Conversation series has hosted some of architecture’s most interesting and provocative practitioners to discuss what informs their designs. These conversations have been collected into a book intended to inspire and delight its readers. You can purchase a copy here.