Hasta La Ideas

The founder of New York design gallery Chamber has described the “dehumanising and degrading” ordeal of being turned away by US border patrol when he arrived in the country last week.

Juan Garcia Mosqueda – originally from Argentina but a legal US resident for the past 10 years – spoke about his experience in a letter to friends and colleagues, titled The Visible Wall.

The gallery founder and curator was denied entry into the US on 24 February 2017, when he was interrogated under oath and eventually forced onto a flight back to Buenos Aires 14 hours later.

During this time, Garcia Mosqueda was denied access to legal counsel, deprived of food and kept under surveillance while he went to the bathroom.

“The procedure was dehumanising and degrading every step of the way,” he wrote. “This 36-hour nightmare is nothing but clear evidence of a deeply flawed immigration system in the United States, carried out by an administration that is more interested in expelling people than admitting them.”

Garcia Mosqueda studied in the US and has worked for various companies in the country. He opened Chamber in New York’s Chelsea neighbourhood in September 2014. He will not be able to attend the gallery’s next show opening, which is on Thursday.

Since President Donald Trump took office in January 2017, travel into the US by non-citizens has been limited and immigration rules have been tightened.

The president is attempting to enforce restrictions preventing citizens of seven countries in the Middle East and North Africa from entering the US, and is also ploughing ahead with his plan to build a wall along the American border with Mexico.

Those who have protested against these moves include a plethora of US tech companies and several prominent American architects, while the AIA released a statement calling for fair and impartial immigration policies.

Read Garcia Mosqueda’s letter in full below:

The Visible Wall

Dear Friends,

This past Friday, February 24, 2017, I was denied entry into the United States — the nation where I have been legally residing for the past ten years. The procedure was dehumanizing and degrading every step of the way.

After being escorted to the secondary inspection premises, I was brought down for interrogation where I was questioned under oath and threatened with the possibility of being barred from entering the country for five years.

The border patrol officer denied me the right to legal counseling, arrogantly claiming that lawyers had no jurisdiction at the borders. Shortly after my sworn statement was delivered to the chief officer in charge, they informed me that I was not permitted to come into the country and, therefore, would be forced onto the return flight to Buenos Aires later that evening.

During the following fourteen excruciatingly painful hours, I was prohibited from the use of any means of communication and had no access to any of my belongings, which were ferociously examined without any warrant whatsoever. I was deprived of food. I was frisked three times in order to go to the bathroom, where I had no privacy and was under the constant surveillance of an officer.

Finally, I was escorted by two armed officers directly onto the plane and denied my documents until I reached my destination, Buenos Aires.

This thirty-six hour nightmare is nothing but clear evidence of a deeply flawed immigration system in the United States, carried out by an administration that is more interested in expelling people than admitting them.

I was educated in America, worked at prestigious design entities, and, now, as you all know, own a gallery which employs Americans and non-Americans alike. Chamber supports architecture and design studios in the United States and abroad.

I own several properties in New York and have collaborated in numerous projects with architects, contractors, and construction workers to bring to life projects around the city. We have created a network within the creative industries that span all disciplines and media that help individuals sustain their practices and do what they love.

We proudly carry the New York flag to every fair that we do and every project we initiate across the globe. We self-publish books printed in the United States. And, needless to say, we pay considerable federal and state taxes that help fund many of the societal aspects that fuel the American engine.

Although I am not an American citizen, Chamber is an American product that I hope adds to the cultural landscape of the country. The gallery was conceived in alignment with the same idea of inclusion that was found in the streets of the Lower East Side (where I live and was denied access to) not so long ago: a melting pot of all nationalities and religions, importing ideas from abroad to a culturally embracing metropolis.

We have worked with over 200 artists and designers, from Tokyo to Los Angeles, from Amsterdam to Santiago, in our less than three years of existence and rely heavily on social mobility to get our message across and display the works that we want to show.

To my American friends, I urge you to contact your congressmen and push for immigration reform. Push for a system that does not alienate, intimidate, and bully foreigners but that, on the contrary, welcomes and encourages citizens from all countries to want to keep investing in and contributing to your wonderful country.

This coming Thursday, I will not be able to celebrate the opening of our newest show, Domestic Appeal, which my team and I worked hard to conceive, and will not be able to meet some of the incredible participants that are traveling to the United States to take pride in displaying their creations in one of the most culturally relevant cities on the planet.

Please come see it, have a glass of wine, and enjoy it on my behalf!

Hope to see you all very soon,

Juan Garcia Mosqueda
Buenos Aires, Argentina

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American firm Graham Baba Architects took cues from rural vernacular architecture while conceiving the headquarters for the Washington Fruit and Produce Company, situated in an area dotted with farms and warehouses.

The office campus is located in the town of Yakima, in an agricultural region in central Washington known for its apples, hops and wine. The 30-acre (12-hectare) site is surrounded by golden hills and fruit-packing warehouses.

To help block outside noise, the team created earthen berms using soil excavated during the construction process. They also added a long wall made of board-formed concrete panels.

“Tucked behind landforms and site walls, this courtyard-focused office complex provides a refuge from the noise and activity of the industrial processing yards nearby,” said Graham Baba Architects, a Seattle-based firm.

The campus consists of volumes organised around a verdant courtyard. Intended to develop a natural patina over time, the buildings feature exposed wooden columns, vast expanses of glass, and siding made of reclaimed barn wood.

The architectural design was influenced by one of the client‘s favourite old barns and is meant to embody an “utilitarian agricultural aesthetic”.

“The deep agricultural roots of both the company and location underlie the simple design concept and attention to detail throughout the project,” the firm said.

The main building is composed of bars topped with roofs made of weathering steel. Deep overhangs and high-efficiency glazing help mitigate solar heat gain in the summer.

A detached pavilion houses a dining room with a 30-foot-long (nine-metre) table, where employees and farmers gather for communal meals.

A parking area leads to the courtyard, which is bordered by the berm and concrete wall. A walkway then connects visitors to the building’s main entry on the north.

“Crossing the courtyard via a boardwalk, the visitor is embraced by a fully glazed facade, punctuated by a series of wood columns that march across the building in regular intervals,” the firm said.

The 18-foot-tall (five-metre), glue-laminated structural columns reveal the physics of the building and enable interior spaces to be column-free.

Inside the main building, which is L-shaped in plan, the sales department was placed in the shorter volume to isolate noise and enhance privacy. The remaining workspaces occupy the longer volume.

Private offices line the southern side of the building and feature walls sheathed in barn wood. Conference rooms are contained within wood and glass boxes.

The team sought to create a clean look by using minimal furnishings and a restrained palette of colours and materials. A raised floor system hides cables and cords.

Custom up-lights illuminate the ceiling, which is defined by exposed girder trusses and rises 20 feet (six metres) at its highest point.

“The open feeling of the structure is reinforced by keeping furnishings low and allowing them to float within the space,” the architects said.

Ample glazing brings natural light into the building, while also enabling outward views. “Everything is curated to create a peaceful environment in which to work,” the team said.

Other projects in Washington include the transformation of a century-old barn by MW Works into a rural family retreat.

Photography is by Kevin Scott.

Project credits:

Architecture and interior design: Graham Baba Architects
Team: Brett Baba, design principal; Hill Pierce, project architect; Jenn LaFreniere, project manager
Interior design: Interior Motiv
Structural engineer: MA Wright, LLC
M/E/P/fire protection engineer: ARUP
Landscape architect: The Berger Partnership
Lighting designer: Brian Hood Lighting
Contractor: Artisan Construction
Structurally insulated panel roof: Premier SIPS
Glu-lam: Selkirk Timberwrights
Glazing: Pacific Window Systems
Custom furniture fabrication and white oak paneling: Stusser Woodworks
Interior custom woodworking: Millwork Preservation

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This is the second piece of furniture I ever built. It’s a duplicate of Gerrit Rietveld’s Red & Blue Chair, designed in 1919. I built mine in the early ’90s, before the internet, and I found a book in the library that had a drawing very similar to the one below:

From that I broke out an architect’s scale and was able to reverse engineer the dimensions, then construct the chair. I was shocked at how comfortable it is, being made out of hard wood; the ergonomics are just perfect.

For the frame Rietveld used beech, which I couldn’t get my hands on, so I milled some Poplar down. For the seat and backrest I used the same material he had, plywood (1/2″ in my case). I painted mine blue and purple because I thought it looked better.

When I was building it, one thing I couldn’t tell by looking at the diagram was how the seat and backrest were connected to the frame. I ended up drilling directly through them and into the crossmembers, then gluing in dowels. It was a real hack job; not only ugly, but they broke when a heavyset friend of mine sat in the chair and I had to reglue them.

I recently did some online searches to find out how they were originally joined, and could find nothing. In every photo I see, the seat/back joinery is obscured.

But the other day I passed the Cassina showroom in SoHo. They’ve licensed the chair and have one on the floor. I went inside and the staff ignored me while I got down on my hands and knees to peer under it and see how both were connected. I was dying to know what wondrous, magical joinery technique Rietveld had employed.

I was surprised to find it was nothing more than L-brackets, the kind you get for a few cents at your local hardware store, that were slightly bent to suit the angle. Here’s what I mean:

Anyways, I couldn’t find this information online, so now I’m posting it in the hopes that the next person who searches for it will find this. I cannot legally recommend that you knock the chair off, but if you want to build one for your own edification it’s fun and you will be surprised at how comfy the chair is to sit in, even for long stretches.