in an exclusive interview, the spanish artist discusses helen fowler o’gorman’s overlooked legacy, the possibilities of architectural fiction, and why a sculpted leaf can have an attitude.

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ÁLVARO URBANO REVISITS CASA CUEVA AT MUSEO JUMEX

An architectural history can begin with the person tending the garden. In Helen, at Museo Jumex in Mexico City, Álvaro Urbano approaches Casa Cueva through the botanical imagination of Helen Fowler O’Gorman, the artist who shared the house with her husband, artist and architect Juan O’Gorman. Built in the mid-20th century in Pedregal de San Ángel, the home brought architecture into close contact with the surrounding terrain and vegetation. Urbano draws its histories into an installation where sculpted plants, geological references, and architectural memories occupy the same uncertain present.…