Originally published in Patio Magazine, 2021

Dear Vecino,

I had the opportunity to meet you when I was a child, when my understanding of the city was limited to just a few blocks around my house. Our neighborhood was my whole universe, I was able to identify the bakery of Don Pedro in the corner and the miscellaneous shop behind my house— I knew almost everyone in my street and everyone knew I was Doña Rosa’s daughter. I miss those years when the streets were my playground and an extension of everyone’s living room. After my family and I moved out of our beloved neighborhood, I lived in different areas that were all very similar. There are buildings instead of houses, cars are parked in parking lots, kids play in the parks or playgrounds, and everything looks more homogenous. It’s hard to believe that my childhood neighborhood and my current neighborhood coexist in this city, they give their back to each other and don’t communicate. As I grew older and was able to comprehend the full extension of the city, I realized the periphery is full of neighborhoods like ours and it keeps growing. Farmers, immigrants, and people affected by big monopolies in the countryside or terrorism move to big cities and occupy affordable neighborhoods like ours.

Some years ago I decided to study architecture. In school, I learned about the different styles of architecture like classical, greek, gothic, and modern architecture. I also learned to design habitable spaces based on the user’s needs or expectations. There are milliard shapes, textures, materials, colors, etc. that can be used to create esthetically balanced spaces. After being involved in architecture as a student and as a professional, I keep wondering where the architecture and urbanism of our neighborhood fit in the architectural discourse. The academic world and public institutions have set up a language of codes that are defined by function, organization, typology, and phasing of spaces which classified the architecture of our neighborhood as informal settlements, progressive housing, or rough constructions. These codes reduce and simplify the real scope and essence of our “popular” neighborhoods, even though they are crucial for the understanding of Latin American cities. What is the role of these houses that seem to be forever under construction? Is there any architectural or esthetic value in the colorful facades with their geometrical shapes, the ornamental window/door bars, or the hanging plants?

These informal settlements are not a remarkable work of creativity or inventiveness, they are a reflection of our social, economic, and political undeniable reality. A big portion of the population has found a home in these neighborhoods that are an alternative to the formal market which they can’t afford due to their economic situation. I still don’t understand why “popular” neighborhoods are understood as disorganized, incomplete, and picturesque constructions. By walking in our streets, you and I know that facades are a tool of communication that speaks about our neighborhood’s expression of what “popular” means. Popular is heterogeneous, changing, and progressive which differs from the standardized, repetitive, and static social housing projects. Those planned projects built by public or private developers have anonymous clients, and the constructions are finalized as they have to be sold. What they don’t know is that our ever-changing houses narrate our daily lives. The program and spacing have no end, they are a result of economic and social efforts that families work for throughout the years. At the beginning of the construction families accommodated the primary services and spaces, later they added complementary spaces which represented new family needs or dreams.

Popular architecture is a unique language that is not a trend, a style, or a typology. It has broken any code or standard mandated by architectural official theories by materializing multiple expressions that don’t fit into formal urbanism. The informal and formal urban growth in Latino cities should be one comprehensive “barrio” that welcomes diversity and that flavorous and colorful “sabor” that represents us, don’t you think?