Client: Museo Amparo

Overview

The installation 3i019 appropriates the modular structure and atmosphere of the Amparo Museum’s architecture. The foyer of the Museum constitutes an axis that concentrates the modular conception that dominates the design of the building and that we find in the walls, floors and ceilings, elaborated from a square grid. This structure relates – and unifies – the different spaces, giving coherence and fluidity to the different construction materials. The installation expands and projects this modular structure until it becomes a subtle reticular tissue that fills the ample empty space, making it seem as if the walls and the floor were leaving their “flat conformation” and transforming themselves into space. From the sky hang cords on which are held, at different heights, white tubes that repeat some of the lines of the walls and floor, replicating the geometric “structure” in an uncertain way thanks to the counterpoint of the lines. These cords placed at different heights suggest the modular design without repeating or reiterating it, but evoking it from autonomous and separate lines. This elements forms an open structure, a rain of lines, an expanded grid that is dispersed and arranged to provide enough space to allow for mobility and interaction.

Goals

Several objectives were pursued simultaneously in the design of this installation. First, to thematise the modular structure of the building by expanding it transparently into the void, through the suspension of light materials creating a condition of "unstable equilibrium" that optimises constant movement (the power of transformation) as a counterpoint to stability. Secondly, to convert this modular structure in movement into a kind of "skin" that manages to coherently unify the different spaces and places in the building, and that by occupying the entire space of the foyer, extending to the ceiling of the cafeteria, can be seen from the entrance, the intermediate floor and also the floor leading to the roof and cafeteria.

Process

The proposal for the installation of the foyer of the Museo de Puebla was drawn up after a visit to the site. Based on the plans, materials and structural characteristics of the building, sketches were made and the feasibility of its execution was evaluated before submitting the final proposal. Subsequently, the Museum's production team contacted its contractors and we began to work as a team; evaluating the materials to select the most suitable ones, and making decisions to optimize the assembly system.

Additional Information

Photography & video: Fernando Montiel Klint, Magdalena Fernández. Renders: Juan Manuel López-Zajía.