Museo Municipal de Bellas Artes

The expansion of MMBA intends to intensify the inherent duality present within the existing building: a cultural institution that actively participates in its urban context, while maintaining a degree of autonomy as an object at the edge of a metropolitan park. Our proposal seeks to generate a new urban posture for the museum, a more integrated and less heroic one.

Continuing and questioning the classical heritage of modernist “white cube” architecture, the project offers a less pure logic, both formally and materially. The ‘L’-shaped addition is segmented diagonally to create more idiosyncratic silhouettes and provide natural light inside the galleries. The frail graphic vibration of the white-zebra-marble-striped surfaces disturbs just enough the solemnity of rationalist boredom.

The geometry of the building and new roof with diagonal cuts aims to provide a multiplicity of readings. As a result, the monolithic mass exists in pieces in relation to the human scale of the park. These pieces can be read as volumes stacked in the corners and as fused form between mass and void in the new access. Such pieces have as much relevance as the whole composition, which makes this tension a productive dichotomy in the spatial experience of the building, as well as within the context of the urban grid.