MODEL ARCHITECT, ALESSANDRO ARIENZO

After ten years, Mexico City-based architecture studio LANZA has made its mark on the country’s architectural landscape. Characterized by playful yet simple gestures, they have authored multiple exhibition design projects at Museo Jumex, created a wide collection of furniture, and recently completed the Community Culture Pavilion, a major public project at the heart of the expansion of Mexico City’s Chapultepec Park. “We’ve graduated from primary school — it’s like we learned how to write,” says Alessandro Arienzo, who co-founded LANZA with his partner Isabel Abascal in the mid-2010s. “Now we want to write books.” The firm has explored everything from furniture to urban design, renovations, and ground-up construction, and their extensive exhibition design portfolio links these various projects across scales. LANZA’s office is filled with models — every project has its own — which undergo surgical interventions throughout the design process. Having these models on their desks rather than buried in a server allows Arienzo and Abascal to look at their work from different angles, to gain a real sense of volume and light. And it goes without saying that it makes the design process more fun — Arienzo says it would be a nightmare to work without physical models. Drawing is also central to LANZA’s practice. A strong and clever concept can develop and transform without losing its essence thanks to a process that starts with naïf drawing — a clear gesture, and an insistence on simplicity. LANZA’s focus on drawing is mirrored in Arienzo’s other creative pursuits; his tattoo practice helped fund the firm in the beginning. “I like architecture because it’s about drawing, testing, and then drawing again,” says Arienzo. “If that was not a part of architecture, I would probably be doing comic books.”