Alcova is heading to Mexico City. The independent design platform has announced its first Latin American edition, set to take place during Art Week in February 2027. The move marks the next step in Alcova’s international expansion after nine years of site-specific projects in Milan and three editions in Miami.
DESIGN
Founded in 2018 by Valentina Ciuffi and Joseph Grima, Alcova has built its identity around movement, temporary occupation, and the activation of spaces with layered histories. In Milan, the platform has occupied former factories, military hospitals, modernist villas, and industrial ruins, turning each location into an active part of the design experience. Its expansion to Mexico City continues that approach, placing experimental design inside buildings that carry architectural, cultural, and urban significance.
Mexico City arrives as a natural next destination for Alcova. Mexican designers and galleries have long played a visible role within Alcova Milan, while the city itself has become one of the most dynamic creative capitals in the Americas. Its growing design scene, contemporary art ecosystem, and strong Art Week calendar position it as a key meeting point for international creative exchange.
For its Mexico City debut, Alcova will work in partnership with Proyectos Públicos, the Mexico City-based platform founded by Pepe Islas. Known for its work across architecture, hospitality, and culture, Proyectos Públicos focuses on reactivating sites of historical value and creating new forms of public life through exhibitions, residencies, cultural programs, and large-scale activations.
Alcova Mexico City 2027 will unfold across three principal sites. Two of them are located in the Juárez neighbourhood, one of the central hubs of Art Week and an area shaped by residential, commercial, and cultural layers.
The first venue, Casa Palomar, is located on General Prim, a street lined with Porfiriato-era mansions that reflect Juárez’s early twentieth-century history as an aristocratic enclave. Built in 1920 and remodelled in 1932 by Carlos Obregón Santacilia, the house belonged to a pioneering obstetrician-gynecologist and his family. Its rooms, staircases, and courtyards will open to the public as a setting for contemporary design.
Nearby, Alcova will activate the Bucareli School, located on one of Mexico City’s oldest grand boulevards. Unlike the domestic scale of Casa Palomar, the school offers generous classrooms and circulation spaces designed for collective use. Together, the two buildings create a dialogue between intimacy and public life, allowing each site’s character to guide the works presented within it.
A third venue, Villa Reforma, will open as a parallel site fifteen minutes from Zona Maco. Designed in the 1950s by Francisco Artigas, the villa remains one of the few examples of his residential work outside El Pedregal. Its low horizontal structure, L-shaped plan, and expansive glazing connect interior space with the surrounding landscape. After years of vacancy, Lorena Vieyra restored the building to its original clarity. Today, it serves as a home for the activities of Piacere.
Across these three locations, Alcova Mexico City 2027 will bring together emerging and established exhibitors from Latin America and beyond. The edition will offer a space for new talent, independent practices, and fresh perspectives outside the mainstream design circuit.
With Mexico City, Alcova continues to grow as an itinerant platform shaped by place, architecture, and cultural exchange. Its first Latin American edition positions the city as the next chapter in a project that follows the evolving currents of contemporary design.
