Oscar Hagerman: Sillas de México
October 11, 2025–June 21, 2026

“Industrial design teaches us to look for original forms, but the greatest wealth lies in creating a universe that belongs to people and making them feel it is their own.” – Oscar Hagerman

For over fifty years, architect and designer Oscar Hagerman has created furniture and buildings in harmony with the material, aesthetic, and social visions of the rural Mexican communities with whom he works. Although lesser known in the United States, Hagerman’s career as a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, has impacted generations of architects and designers in Mexico. Together with his wife, the educator Dora Ruiz Galindo, Hagerman has dedicated his life to studying the traditions of rural Mexican architecture and has worked collaboratively with communities throughout the country to support their continuation.

For Sillas de México–his first institutional solo exhibition in the United States–Hagerman has selected examples of four of his chair typologies. These include the Arullo, which he designed in 1969 and refined and produced with workers of the Cooperativa Don Emiliano, a carpenters’ cooperative in Nezahualcóyotl City, located in the eastern outskirts of Mexico City. Equipped with this design, Hagerman invited cooperative members to make and sell their own furniture using his designs as templates, a practice that continues with various communities today.

Additional chair types in the exhibition are the Colibrí, Maya, and Ruiseñor, all of which are exhibited on a natural fiber petate hand-woven by master craftsman Nacho Morales and installed alongside five of Hagerman’s design drawings. 

Oscar dedicates this exhibition to his wife Dora María and his children for being by his side all these years.

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About Oscar Hagerman
The son of a Swedish father and Galician mother, Oscar Hagerman was born in La Coruña, Spain, in 1936 and came to Mexico when he was 15 years old. He received his degree and accreditation from the Faculty of Architecture of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in 1961. In 1982 he started working with the Center of Studies for Rural Development, (CESDER) in Zautla, Puebla, training indigenous youth in the design and craft legacies of their cultures.

In recent years he has worked on the University of the Environment (UMA) project—founded by architects Cano and Vera—in the community of Acatitlán near Mexico City. In 2007, the government of Holland awarded him the Price Claus Prize for his work resolving conflict through culture. As a fellow of the Art Creators System of Mexico’s National Fund for Culture and the Arts (FONCA) since 2010, Hagerman has researched and proposed solutions for low-income housing in different parts of Mexico. Hagerman holds a Doctor Honoris Causa from the Ibero-American University of Puebla and Mexico.

Acknowledgments
Oscar Hagerman: Sillas de México is made possible with support from Christopher Hill and Enrique Olvera. Additional support has been provided by the Chinati Foundation’s Board of Trustees and Director’s Circle. Special thanks to kuriminzutto.