Teddy Cruz

October 17, 2009 - Teddy Cruz, Professor of Public Culture at UCSD and owner of Estudio Teddy Cruz, returns to Friends of San Diego Architecture with another provocative presentation.

Born in Guatemala, Cruz graduated from Cal Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo and holds a masters degree from the Harvard School of Design. In 1991 Cruz won the Rome Prize in Architecture, and in 2004-2005 Cruz received the James Stirling prize for Border Postcard: chronicles from the edge, a project exploring new urban strategies spanning the international border of San Diego-Tijuana.

Cruz has built a national reputation for his designs of innovative mixed-use developments in San Diego communities with three award-winning projects: Casa Familiar, a San Ysidro church transformed into a community and residential center with a plaza and open air Mercado; La Maestra Family Clinic in City Heights--a small, non-profit health center serving African and Southeastern Asian refugees and Latino immigrants which includes a play area and a job placement center; and Housing Corridors, a San Diego mixed-use plan for addressing urban sprawl by integrating housing, jobs and the community. He is a "breaking ground" architect who is popular on the lecture circuit and is often called upon by other architects and universities for advice on turning overlooked and unused space within a dense, urban neighborhood into a live-able, workable environment.

Opting out of a conventional practice--hyper-design, style, and formalism--Cruz chose to build his practice on experimentation in marginal areas. He proclaimed, "At the moment when the world is burning, some of us in our profession need to look at other ways of doing things."

A Question: Can Teddy and other like-minded individuals convince our local politicians and the general public that we need to take a long hard look at the economic, social and political changes taking place in our society, change our mind-set and find real solutions for future generations?