Mexico City gears up to host international architecture festival

The 2016 Mextropoli International Architecture Festival will be held March 58 in Mexico City, where events focusing on Spanish architect Rafael Moneo, winner of the 1996 Pritzker Prize, and Mexican Teodoro Gonzalez de Leon will be presented.

Both public and private institutions will participate in Mextropoli, which is designed to get people to think about the role of cities, Mexico City Culture Secretary Eduardo Vazquez Martin said.

“Reflecting on cities themselves is not just a recreational exercise, it’s also a strategic need,” Vazquez said in a statement.

Mextropoli is about giving society a place for dialogue and design, bringing in public, city and federal institutions, as well as diplomats, the culture secretary said.

Universities, cultural centers, museums, architects, urban planners and academics are among the others invited to participate in Mextropoli.

The seminars will be held at the Teatro Metropolitan, where more than 20 speakers, including Pritzker winners Moneo, who is based in Madrid, and Thom Mayne, an architect based in Los Angeles, will make presentations.

The Pritzker Prize, the most prestigious world architecture award, has been described as the Nobel of architecture.