Location:
Aguascalientes, Mexico
Year:
2019
Information
and images
collected from: Local project
Guggenheim Aguascalientes
(http://www.guggenheim
aguascalientes.com/)
ARTS
A
five-kilometer river trail that connects 5 existing open public spaces and one
proposed sculpture park along the city river “Río San Pedro”. The project
starts with the remediation of the Grease hill (Cerro de Grasa) and offers the opportunity
of becoming the main piece of integration between the river with the city. As a
result, the following landmarks will become part of ARTS: the autonomous
university of Aguascalientes, the 18th-century bridge “Antiguo Camino San
Ignacio”, the graveyard “Jardines Eternos”, the urban park “Paseo del Río” and
the island park “Isla San Marcos”. The selected locations will hold service
units with toilets, Wi-Fi and touristic information. ARTS proposes to transform this ecological hazard into the biggest urban
river trail in the region.
I
was born in the city of Aguascalientes. While I was growing up, I remember
being curious about the grease hill. It had an unfamiliar look for me, almost
as if it was from another planet. The first time, I asked my parents about it,
they told me that it was “coal” from an old oven. Because of its size, their
answer did not make sense to me and I decided to keep fantasizing about its
origins. After all those years of wondering, I never imagined that behind this
hill there was a hidden river. The grease hill was polluting the water but at
the same time it was helping to preserve it, this is the biggest empty piece of
land next to the river.
I
shared this memory because it makes a case for the urge of recovering this
space, to give it back to the city. After one hundred years of pollution, it is
time for this barrier to disappear, here lies the opportunity to design a great
pubic space that remediates and integrates the ecosystem of the Rio San Pedro.
A joyful project that merges nature and art through public space.