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"Empapelanado la ciudad" 
  Empapelando la ciudad
(Wall-papering the City)
Eric Schroeder Vivas
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Competition Guidelines
Tren Uurbano: Universidad Station
About the Area
The Tren Urbano is a new star in our urban landscape. With time, we shall become aware of its revolutionary presence, and change our conventional image of the city by gazing at it from the train cars. A different city, at once fantastic and ordinary, will reveal itself to the train's passengers. Moreover, the Tren Urbano is a place, like the communities traversed by it. Passengers will use the train as an entry and exit point into daily life. To those who live in its vicinity it is a claimable landmark. Art proposed for this site must reconcile local character with the overall metropolitan scope of the route. Given the technical uniqueness of each station, proposed works should be limited to the sites specifically identified, which were selected after a thorough analysis of the operation.  
Aphorism

Gradually, the city has turned into a mass of reinforced concrete. In the name of urban growth, we cover the city with concrete, building walk-ups and shopping centers, while destroying the vegetation that helps us to breathe. This project addresses the possibility of recreating artificially the green spaces in the city by, paradoxically, using the same element that strangles it: concrete.  

Eric Schroeder proposes "wall-papering" places where no vegetation can grow due to programmatic reasons or specific materiality, in this particular case, the University of Puerto Rico Train Station. The papering consists of tiles once very popular in the island. The tiles function as a Caribbean mural or billboard. The material that has covered our floors for more than two centuries is taken out of its usual context to fill the walls of the station, offering the spectator a virtual respite.  
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