SIEMBRA

SIEMBRA

CDMX, Mexico, 2022

A HOMAGE TO CORN AND THE CULINARY ROOTS OF MEXICO

Newton 300, Polanco
2022

SERVICES

ARCHITECTURE/INTERIOR
PRODUCT/INDUSTRIAL/FURNITURE
VISUAL IDENTITY
STORYTELLING

Andrés Mier y Terán and Regina Galvanduque have created an integrated design, architecture, and visual identity concept for the gastronomic project of the chefs Israel Montero and Karina Mejía.

MEXICO CITY. SEPTEMBER 2022. The encounter of ancestral wisdom around one of the basic and most important foodstuffs in Mexican cuisine is the keystone of Siembra, the new project by the studio MYT+GLVDK that celebrates corn, traditional farmers, and artisans.

Created by chefs Israel Montero and Karina Mejía, Siembra was established in 2019 as a tortillería, corn mill, and neighborhood taco shop, located in the Polanco district of Mexico City. It soon became a laboratory for gastronomy that forged close links with farmers, cooks, guest chefs, and all those passionate about Mexican cuisine. Led by Andrés Mier y Terán and Regina Galvanduque, the project now embarks on a new phase to revitalize the architecture, design, identity, and merchandising of Siembra Taquería, while developing a new space to be known as Siembra Comedor, which will offer two new areas with a restaurant and a large-scale tortillería.

This exercise, in full creative engagement between MYT+GLVDK and the chefs Montero and Mejía, is an initiative that extols the roots and the sense of community and cooperation, in order to promote and recognize the work of the peasant farmers of Tlaxcala, producers who guarantee the traceability of the red, black, and white varieties of corn used to make tortillas.

For the Siembra concept, Mier y Terán and Galvanduque were inspired by historical motifs such as pre-Hispanic sculpture, deities, and allegorical works related to agriculture, together with 20th-century visual characters, including artistic reinterpretations of the nationalist and brutalist movements, such as the monumental works of sculptors Oliverio Martínez and Luis Ortiz Monasterio, known for the Monument to the Mexican Revolution and the Monument to the Mother, respectively. The visual identity and merchandising of Siembra were developed from these sources and the basic components of the cultivation processes. The logo is drawn with a typography that evokes the volumes and proportions of the great pre Colombian monoliths, as does the work of illustrator Marina Corach, who expressed in drawings the wisdom of the seed and the ancestral method that the farmers have passed from generation to generation to work the land. In developing the interior design, natural textures were added as a reference point for the autochthonous origins of the nixtamalization process and its traditional tools: metates, molcajetes, and morteros.

In both spaces, Siembra Taquería and Siembra Comedor and Tortillería, the atmosphere is designed on the basis of rustic materials, which include recinto morado stone from Hidalgo, tzalam wood, palm, concrete and clay from Atzompa, all in a chromatic harmony that recalls the diverse hues of different varieties of corn.

At Siembra Taquería the service bar is the principal piece of furniture, paying homage to the traditional taco restaurants once found in every district of the city. Around it, diners comfortably enjoy the simplicity and peerless flavor of the tacos de

carnitas, the lobina al pastor, the alambre tacos with shrimp and octopus, sopes de picaña, and tamales.

Siembra Comedor and Tortillería is a restaurant with an open kitchen, the better to appreciate the alchemy of the transformation of corn into different recipes and dishes. Its stoves share space with the tortillería, where new combinations are prepared using quelites, saffron, beets, and guajillo chilli, among other ingredients. The concept includes an area for the direct sale of produce, including antojitos and homemade salsas, together with organic products and cheeses.

The interior design incorporates pieces recovered by Galvanduque in Dolores, Hidalgo, and furniture and objects produced through collaborations with a number of Mexican artisans.

Notable among these is the basketwork of the Martínez sisters of Tehuacán, which blends with the tropical wood used in the main spaces; a series of unique lamps with structures based on corn cob leaves; glassware from Xaquique, a studio specialized in blown glass techniques; and the menaje, which introduces a carefully curated set of elements conceived by Ayres and Onora. In addition, the curtains exhibit the work carried out by La Colmena, a project of the Javier Marín Foundation at the San Pedro Cultural Center, in Uruapan.

At Siembra, the chefs Montero and Karina Mejía invite you to rediscover corn, the heart of the country’s cuisine and the authentic flavor of Mexico.