Pablo Meninato, PhD is an architect, architectural critic, and educator whose research focuses on the
conception and development of the architectural project. He is the author of Unexpected Affinities
(Routledge, 2018), a book that proposes a historical reassessment of the concept of architectural ‘type’
and its impact on the design process. The book examines affinities between tactics of the readymade—as
conceived by the artist Marcel Duchamp—and typological displacement, a question that reassesses
correspondences between contemporary art and architecture. In his current research, Meninato
investigates how various contemporary architects are developing new and original urban design tactics
that enhance the quality of life in informal settlements across Latin America. His lecture, entitled Informal
Architecture and Urbanism in Latin America, explores the following:
Beginning in the second half of the twentieth century, most Latin American countries experienced
unprecedented mass migration of impoverished people moving from rural areas to informal settlements
located at the urban periphery. Dr. Meninato will present how several contemporary architects across Latin
America have been developing urban interventions that significantly depart from conventional
approaches to architecture and planning. In this lecture, he will concentrate on the tactical initiatives
developed by Teddy Cruz on the San Diego-Tijuana border, Roberto Jáuregui in the favelas of Rio de
Janeiro, Flavio Janches within the informal settlements at the urban periphery of Buenos Aires, Alejandro
Echeverri’s work in the barrios of Medellin.
This research contributes to a forthcoming book (co-authored with Dr. Gregory Marinic, University of
Cincinnati DAAP) provisionally titled “Formalizing the Informal, New Urban Design Tactics in Latin America”.
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