1. Portrait of Eduardo Terrazas
Lorena Wolffer
Eduardo Terrazas (Guadalajara, Jalisco, 1936) is a Mexican creator who has
taken an interest in contemplating and reflecting on the world as he passes
through. For over forty years, he has worked on an array of disciplines in
order to understand and reflect on a changing reality, always proposing
alternate methods for inhabiting and being, or additional modes for
relating to one another, or new ways of gazing.
An architect by training, his Bachelor’s degree is from the National School
of Architecture of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (1953-
1958), and his Master’s, from Cornell University in New York (1959-1960).
But his endeavors also include painting, drawing, design, curating and
urban and regional planning. Terrazas sees his transit through these
disciplines as different pathways that nevertheless run parallel, like the
media he recurs to in order to approach concerns that range from
philosophy to the social sciences. A diverse, multi-faceted artist, he defends
a critical and analytical stance based on connections between various
realms of knowledge.
His broad artistic production includes works as heterogeneous as
Possibilities of a Structure (1970-1980), a pictorial investigation of the
characteristics that allow a structure to be infinitely developed and
transformed; or the exhibition Panels, held in the Palace of Fine Arts of

2. Mexico City in 1972, which explores the technique used by the Huichol in
collaboration with the artisan Santos Motoaapohua de la Torre de Santiago.
The exhibition Not knowing you existed and unable to explain you,
completed together with the artist Arnaldo Coen in 1975, showed shop
windows from downtown Mexico City at the Benjamin Franklin Gallery.
Terrazas then completed an exhibition of artisan installations for the Mobil
Oil offices called Multiplications: Everyday Museum (1987), in which he
manifested his interest in crossing the borders between art and Mexican
folk culture through the re-contextualization of everyday objects. He also
created the communications, design, and identity program for the 19th
Olympic Games together with Beatriz Trueblood (1966-1999). While it is
true that a great deal of his art has not been shown in established art
circles, needless to say he is a tireless artist with an extensive catalog of
works.
His concern for understanding the contemporary world has led him to
collaborate with thinkers and designers like Iván Illich and George Nelson
and to found in 1980 the Tepoztlan Center, a space for reflection on
pressing issues of the day, together with economist Víctor L. Urquidi –who
was, at the time, President of the Colegio de México.
Terrazas authored the architectural design of the Cintermex exhibition and
convention centers in Monterrey, ExpoTampico in Tampico, and four
cultural centers located in Tamaulipas: Ciudad Victoria, Tampico, Nuevo
Laredo, and Reynosa. He also designed the Embassy of France in Mexico,
the American Express building and the Technological Museum of the
Federal Commission of Electricity. Moreover, he was charged with the first

3. stage of remodeling Terminal 1 of the International Airport of Mexico City,
and has projected different residences both in the capital and in the state
of Morelos.
Terrazas has taught at the University of Columbia (1963-1965) and the
University of California at Berkeley (1972). He was a General Commissioner
of the Mexico Pavilion at the New York World Fair (1964-1965) and Director
of the Mexican team that collaborated with the government of Tanzania in
the master plan for their new capital, Dodoma (1976-1977). In Mexico, he
was Technical Director of both the National Institute for the Development
of Public Housing and Community (1970) and the Institute of Urban Action
and Social Integration (1971). Likewise, he was charged with the design of
urban furnishing, signage and public space for the boulevards known as
Axes in Mexico City (1978-1979). He carried out a regional plan for central
Mexico with the capital and its metropolitan area as strategic center,
including the states of Morelos, Puebla, Tlaxcala, Hidalgo, Querétaro, and
the rest of the state of Mexico. He has given conferences internationally in
various countries, including India, Pakistan, the United States, Columbia,
and Chile.