Alvaro Alvarez

Alvaro Andres Alvarez Bustamante opened his art studio in 2020 while living in the border of Tijuana and San Diego, after working for a year helping his mother’s business. Prior to this, he worked in New York City for five years as a designer and project manager on various construction projects, including an Edition Hotel and 15 Hudson Yards. Alvaro graduated from Cornell University in 2015 with a Bachelor of Architecture, specializing in hospitality and the application of neuroscience to architecture. Alvaro’s college years included working part time at the Statler Hotel for four years during semesters to help pay for college and to learn more about hotels firsthand. He spent a summer driving with colleagues through Europe researching museums and lived in Rome during the Fall while taking design, drawing, and photography classes. Alvaro spent other summers in Mexico, researching abandoned skyscrapers in Rosarito’s coast and volunteering to build an urban canopy in Camino Verde. As a high school teenager, Alvaro presented to the California Senate education committee on ways to improve his community in Hemet, CA. This was only 5 years after moving to the US and learning to speak English at 11 years old. Though he was born in San Diego, CA, Alvaro lived his childhood in Tijuana, Mexico, experiencing a wonderful perspective of two different worlds.