Twelve days before Tatiana Bilbao, founder of the Mexico City-based Estudio Bilbao, was scheduled to speak at Columbia University’s Manhattanville campus, GSAPP announced a suspension of its spring 2020 public programming and postponed her talk indefinitely due to the novel coronavirus outbreak. On March 24, NYRA correspondent Alissa Lopez Serfozo connected with Bilbao virtually to discuss what she had intended to present. Speaking from her home in Mexico City, Bilbao touched on her theory of housing, current designs for a monastery in Germany, rethinking the welfare state, and her interest in cooperative systems.
What were you planning on saying at your now-canceled lecture?
I wanted to speak about my design practice, but from the perspective of my current interests, and to critique my work to understand what we’ve done and what we’ve been searching for in terms of equality.
I was involved in the Women’s March in Mexico about two weeks ago. After the lecture I gave in Oaxaca [as part of the Acto de Protesta Lec…