Teddy Cruz Biography

Born in Guatemala City, Teddy Cruz is known worldwide for his metropolitan research of the Tijuana-San Diego border, growing border immigrant neighborhoods as sites of cultural production, from which to rethink urban policy, cheap housing and civic architecture. His examination of this geography of dispute has motivated an education and practice that came from the originality of this bicultural region and the combination of design production, theoretical research, and education. His implementation and investigation gathers knowledge from across the fields of visual arts and public culture, political theory and urban policy, urbanism and architecture, environmental and social practice, and moderate the interface between top down institutions (foundations, universities, governments) and bottom-up environmental, cultural and socio- economic intelligence inserted in communities. At Rafael Landivar University, he began studying architecture in Guatemala City and followed through with his studies at California State Polytechnic University San Luis Obispo (B.Arch, 1987) with a year of schooling spent in Florence, Italy under creator of avant-garde group Superstudio, Christiano Toraldo DiFrancia. In 2000, he founded his San Diego research-based architectural practice, estudio teddy cruz after completing his architectural education at Harvard University GSD (M.Des.S. 1997). He was founding director of the LA/LA Latin America / Los Angeles studio, an experimental workshop at SCI-Arc in Los Angeles from 1994 to 2000. At Woodbury University, where he began the Border Institute (BI) to further research on cross-border urban dynamics in the San Diego-Tijuana region, he was Associate Professor of Architecture from 2000 to 2005. In 2010, he co-founded the Center for Urban Ecologies with urban curator Kyong Park in the Visual Arts Department at the University of California, San Diego where he is currently a Professor of Public Culture and Urbanism. In 2013, he also co-founded the Blum Cross-Border Initiative with Fonna Forman, a political theorist. He is also a special advisor to the City of San Diego on Urban and Public Initiatives. He has tutored several seminars and design studios in the universities in the US and abroad, including the Ecole Special D’Architecture in Paris, City College in New York City, Architectural Research program at Goldsmith’s in London, GSD at Harvard University, the University of Anyang, South Korea, the University of Auckland in New Zealand, the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam, the Metropolis program at the CCCB in Barcelona and the Public Interest Design program at Portland State University. He has also taught at recognized cultural institutions such as Australia and the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, Tate Modern in London, the Museum of Modern Art in Sydney, as well as reputable keynote lectures like the 2013 Istanbul Art Biennial, the TED-Global in Edinburgh and the L’Enfant Lecture by the American Planning Association.

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