Kell Muñoz Architects design for a new Fine Arts Center in
Edcouch-Elsa, Texas evolved from a significant community
conversation involving teachers, students, parents, museum specialists,
performers, arts administrators, foundation administrators, historians,
activists, cultural geographers and the firm to discuss an appropriate way to
convey the community's history, heritage, hopes and aspiration through an
important civic building.
From various focus
group sessions and working in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution, Kell
Muñoz Architects researched the rich "corrido" tradition of this part
of the border.
A corrido is both a historic and contemporary format of
story-telling used over generations in Latino culture. A corrido has a highly defined structure and
formulaic motif that distinguishes it from other more mundane "canciones"
or songs. Edcouch-Elsa ISD has its own
"Football Corrido" called La Maquina Amarilla, or the Yellow Machine,
which plays every Friday night on the local radio station during the season.
La Maquina Amarilla became the point of departure for a
conceptual architecture that in tradition is tied to the simple forms of the
garages and auto shops that dot Highway 107 as it runs through the town. This “corrido” is connected to international
modernism, but it's most important gesture is the 300 linear feet of murals
that imbed identity in the building and give voice to the community itself.
Inspired by the patterns of sound waves of specific,
important corridos, The Corrido of Edcouch-Elsa is an attempt to tell the story
of artistic achievement and cultural negotiation in a community that is woven
together in a very unique manner. It
blurs the line between architecture and folkloric tradition in a "Mestizo
Fashion" that is symbolic of our country's demographic shift.
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