González-Virgen, Miguel Alejandro

Miguel Alejandro González Virgen was born in 1964 in Colima. He completed his college at Harvard University, obtaining in 1988 his Bachelor of Arts (BA) from Harvard College with magna cum laude honors. His major field of study was Visual and Environmental Studies. In 1991 he received the Master of Architecture I (M Arch I) degree from the Graduate School of Design of Harvard University. From August 2013 to October 2017 he lived in Belgium, where he undertook the research leading to a doctorate (PhD) in Art History from the Catholic University of Leuven. Miguel González Virgen began his professional activity as an architect in 1991. That year he worked in the New York office of famed architect Paul Rudolph. Between 1992 and 1993 he was a designer at the office of Norihiko Dan in Tokyo, Japan. In 1994 Miguel had his first academic appointment when he became professor of architecture at the Tecnológico de Monterrey, Monterrey campus. In 1996, he joined the design firm of Escala Internacional in Monterrey, while he kept his teaching at the Tecnológico de Monterrey. Later, between 1998 and 1999 he was in Zürich, Switzerland working in the architectural firm of Christoph Oberholzer-Stephan Gasser, helping to develop different cultural and design projects. Back in Mexico, he joined the University of Monterrey in 2000 as an Associate Professor of Architecture. In 2003 he established his own architecture design office in Monterrey, although he would soon become better known as one of the most relevant art critics of his generation. In 2004 he wrote the book 'Of Games, The Infinite and Worlds: The Work of Gabriel Orozco,' a critical analysis of the work of one of Mexico's most important artists. The book was published by the Douglas Hyde Gallery of Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. During this period he was in charge of writing the texts for the XI, XII, XIII and XIV editions of the 'Cemex Building Prize', as well as contributing to other editions produced by Cemex. Between 2006 and 2011 he was Director of the Visual Arts Program at the Centro de Estudios de Diseño de Monterrey (CEDIM) and in 2008 he was invited to be a member of the Academic Council of the Vancouver Film School. He was also a member, between 2013 and 2015, of the Visual Arts Advisory Council of Conarte, in Nuevo León. From 2013, Miguel González Virgen arrived in Belgium to carry out his doctoral project at the Catholic University of Leuven (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven), where he received his PhD in Art History with the dissertation 'Artistic Research in the Visual Arts: Definitions and the Quest for Paradigms.' Beginning in 2018 until the spring of 2021, he maintained a freelance activity as an architect and art critic in Colima. In 2021, the Centro de Investigación, Innovación y Desarrollo de las Artes (CEIIDA) of the Universidad de Nuevo León published Miguel González Virgen's book, 'Investigación Artística y Vanguardias: Paradigmas y Estrategias Actuales,' the Spanish edition of his doctoral dissertation.