Tezontle

Tezontle founders Carlos H. Matos (b. 1983, Mexico City) and Lucas Cantú (b. 1982, Monterrey), who live and work in Mexico City, established their joint practice in 2015. Oscillating between the endeavours of an architecture studio and an art practice, Tezontle’s creations are grounded in an attunement to the ways the built environment reflects fragments of history, and are thus imbued with myths, constructs and inventions. Through intensive material experimentation, they have constructed a distinct imagery that gestures toward a bucolic utopia—at once modernist, pre-Hispanic and primitive. Their process includes combining found objects with self-made ones, generating innovative formal and material narratives. Their method is deliberately independent of scale, postulating that when scale is rendered irrelevant, the sculptural becomes architectural, and vice versa.

Matos and Cantú collaborated in the Architectural Association’s experimental concrete workshop “AAVS Las Pozas”, which took place every summer in the Huasteca Jungle, serving as a research platform aimed at forging links between craft and culture in the town of Xilitla, San Luis Potosí, MX.

Tezontle has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions at Friedman Benda, New York, US; the MARCO Museum, Monterrey, MX; LIGA, CDMX, MX; Museo Tamayo, Mexico City, MX; and in an off-site exhibition by PEANA curated by José Esparza Chong, presented during CONDO Complex, Mexico City, MX. Public works include “Tenaza”, a monumental sculpture commissioned for the XIII Havana Biennial in Havana, CU. They have participated in residencies such as La Casa Park, New York, US; Casa Wabi, Puerto Escondido, MX; and “Tu casa es mi casa” at Richard Neutra’s VDL House, Los Angeles, US, among others. They were also shortlisted for the Serpentine Pavilion in London, UK.