Latinx representation amongst designers based in the United States lacks a central identity and collective power. This is due to our rich diversity of backgrounds, which include United States- and Latin American-born designers with unique migratory, citizenship, and educational histories. While this diversity is a strength, it simultaneously creates difficulty for building a shared community. Exploring the theme, “What is Latinx identity?” this event reconciles the individual and shared experiences of Latinx designers. Hosted at the Architectural League of New York, the symposium organizes a series of conversations that interrogate what this identity means to architecture, creating a platform that foments exchanges across multiple communities. Latinx people represent about twenty percent of the composition of the US population. Yet, representation for architecture students, scholars, and professionals all fall below half this figure. This symposium addresses these disparities by providing a space for reflection, interaction, and solidarity-building amongst Latinx and other minority design communities.

Liz Gálvez is Mexican-American. She is a registered architect, educator, and director of Office e.g. She received an MArch from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a concentration in history, theory, and criticism of architecture and a bachelor’s degree in architectural and philosophical studies from Arizona State University. Her work focuses on the interface between architecture and environmentalism through an examination of building technologies. She is co-organizer of Latinx Coalition Chats. Gálvez has taught at Yale School of Architecture, the Rice School of Architecture, and at the University of Michigan, where she was the 2018–19 William Muschenheim Fellow. Her writing has been published in Thresholds, Footprint, Pidgin, Plat, and Pool. Her work has been exhibited at MIT, the Hohensalzburg Fortress in Austria, the University of Michigan, the Space p11 Gallery in Chicago, the Farish Gallery at Rice University, and at the University of Virginia. Recently, she was awarded the 2021 Architectural League Prize and the 2022 SOM Foundation Research Prize.

José Ibarra is a Venezuelan designer, researcher, and educator whose interdisciplinary work focuses on the intersection of architecture and environmental uncertainty. He is co-organizer of Latinx Coalition Chats. Ibarra is assistant professor of architecture at the University of Colorado Denver, founder of Studio José Ibarra, and cofounder of House Operations and AWP. Currently, he serves as a member of the 2022–23 Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) Research & Scholarship Committee. Through his teaching, design work, and writing, Ibarra generates multifocal ways to redefine design amidst social unrest, environmental degradation, and climate crisis. Together with Caroline O’Donnell, he coedited the book, Werewolf: The Architecture of Lunacy, Shapeshifting, and Material Metamorphosis (AR+D, 2022). Ibarra was the Urban Edge Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee during 2019–20 and an assistant professor of architecture at the University of Virginia during 2020–22. Most recently, he was awarded the 2022 ACSA New Faculty Teaching Award.