PROJECTS

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.