Teddy Cruz (born 1962 in

Guatemala City, Guatemala Guatemala City (, also known colloquially by the nickname Guate), is the national capital and largest city of the Republic of Guatemala. It is also the municipal capital of the Guatemala Department and the most populous urban metropolitan are ...

) is an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

urbanist Urbanism is the study of how inhabitants of urban areas, such as towns and cities, interact with the built environment. It is a direct component of disciplines such as urban planning, a profession focusing on the design and management of urban a ...

, Professor in Architecture and Urbanism in the Visual Arts Department at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Es ...

. Cruz studied at Rafael Landivar University in

, but moved to the United States at the age of 20, continuing his education at California State Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo, and the

Harvard Graduate School of Design The Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) is the graduate school of design at Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It offers master's and doctoral programs in architecture, landscape architecture, urba ...

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...

. Cruz is the founder and president of Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman, a research-based political and architectural practice based in San Diego. This is built in partnership with University of California, San Diego political theorist Fonna Forman. Cruz and Forman lead a variety of urban curatorial initiatives, including The Civic Innovation Lab in the City of San Diego to rethink public space and civic engagement; the UCSD Cross-Border Initiative to promote research and practice focused on regional territories of poverty; and the UCSD Community Stations, to foster corridors of knowledge exchange between the university and marginalized communities. Additionally, they collaborated with former Bogota Mayor Antanas Mockus to develop the Bi-national Citizenship Culture Survey, an unprecedented protocol that surveyed cross-border civic infrastructure, public trust and social norms. Their aim is to generate new shared urban policies between the municipalities of San Diego and Tijuana, as well as collaborative strategies for cross-border urban intervention. Cruz's architectural and intellectual projects have been exhibited at internationally renowned venues, including: the

Tijuana Cultural Center The Tijuana Cultural Center (CECUT) is a cultural center in the Zona Río district of Tijuana, Mexico. The center opened 20 October 1982, and accommodates more than a million visitors per year. Nowadays this iconic Tijuana institution has differ ...

Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) is an art museum in La Jolla La Jolla ( , ) is a hilly, seaside neighborhood in San Diego, California, occupying of curving coastline along the Pacific Ocean. The population reported in the ...

Carnegie Museum of Art The Carnegie Museum of Art is an art museum in the Oakland (Pittsburgh), Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The museum was originally known as the Department of Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute and was formerly located ...

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill, Minneapolis, Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in ...

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a Private college, private art school, college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mis ...

, Casa de America in Madrid, Spain, and Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

. Apart from his design work, Cruz's project at

UCSD The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing ...

, Community Stations, champions the mutual exchange of knowledge between universities and communities, the latter of which he feels have their own valuable resources and assets that are often overlooked.

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* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cruz, Teddy 1962 births Living people American architects Harvard Graduate School of Design alumni California Polytechnic State University alumni Rafael Landívar University alumni Guatemalan architects People from Guatemala City