All through its historical past, Mexican structure has manifested a sure diploma of historic self-awareness and a priority for id. Diego Rivera and Juan O’Gorman’s Museo Anahuacalli in Mexico Metropolis is a very intriguing case. Anahuacalli is one in all a number of initiatives developed throughout the mid-Twentieth century that illustrate a debate over the appropriateness of modernism for Mexican structure. The current enlargement by Taller Mauricio Rocha introduces a recent elaboration on this wealthy architectural dialog.
As in lots of different international locations, Mexico noticed an growing skepticism of modernism amongst its architects within the Nineteen Forties, with World Warfare II casting lengthy shadows throughout the guarantees of technological progress. Whereas the machine aesthetic was initially embraced as a instrument for the postrevolutionary nationwide undertaking, a extra experimental language ultimately emerged in an try and work in dialogue with Mexico’s territory and id—particularly the heritage of pre-Columbian cultures.
Maybe no different house stimulated the nationalistic creativeness of this time just like the Pedregal de San Ángel. On this immense and desolate lava subject, intellectuals akin to Rivera, Luis Barragán, and the painter and author Dr. Atl (Gerardo Murillo Cornado) envisioned an city improvement that may materialize the nation’s distinctive fashionable id. To this finish, in 1945 Rivera printed his prescriptions for the urbanization of Pedregal. Within the subsequent few years, probably the most outstanding architects of the time led the development of the Nationwide Autonomous College of Mexico’s (UNAM) spectacular campus, often called College Metropolis, and Barragán initiated the undertaking of the adjoining upscale Jardines del Pedregal neighborhood. In Barragán’s imaginative and prescient, Pedregal would, as recounted in Keith Eggener’s Luis Barragán’s Gardens of El Pedregal, “present sanctuary from an aggressive fashionable world, with house for meditation and the cultivation of non secular values.”
Rivera acquired a plot of land close to the jap fringe of the lava subject, initially aspiring to create a ranch. In the end, he determined to construct Anahuacalli, an arts heart that would come with workshops, efficiency areas, and a repository for his sizable assortment of pre-Columbian artifacts, in addition to a small ecological reserve. Enlisting the assistance of architect Juan O’Gorman, Rivera labored on the Anahuacalli till his loss of life in 1957. O’Gorman, Rivera’s daughter Ruth (additionally an architect), and different collaborators accomplished the primary exhibition constructing and 4 secondary constructions in 1964.
These buildings, organized round a central plaza, manifest Rivera and O’Gorman’s eschewal of modernism in favor of an eclectic language that some, together with O’Gorman himself, have described as natural (acknowledging the affect of Frank Lloyd Wright). The large, symmetrical volumes are clad in volcanic rock and incorporate varieties and angles paying homage to Aztec or Zapotec constructions. In the primary constructing, the designers launched such distinctive options as corbel arches, slit home windows coated with onyx, show cabinets and cupboards manufactured from stone, and experimental tilework strategies that O’Gorman would later make use of for the murals of UNAM’s Central Library and his personal cavelike home in Pedregal.
In the present day, the Anahuacalli not solely showcases Rivera’s curiosity in pre-Columbian cultures but additionally hosts a wide range of exhibitions and creative occasions. Nonetheless, these buildings have been inadequate to deal with the gathering of greater than 40,000 objects that Rivera amassed over his lifetime, and Rivera’s imaginative and prescient of an arts heart was by no means correctly realized. For these causes, a contest was launched in 2016 for an enlargement and renovation. The successful proposal by Mauricio Rocha opened to the general public within the fall of 2021. Rocha informed AN that he confronted the problem of dialoguing with the present buildings and the distinctive panorama and thus being in dialog with Barragán, Rivera, and O’Gorman.
The enlargement consists primarily of three new volumes that match the peak of the unique secondary buildings. These are constructed northwest of the present advanced and organized round a second, smaller plaza. The centerpiece is a brand new accessible storage facility for the museum assortment, whereas the 2 others home a dance studio, workplaces, workshops, and different multipurpose areas.
Whereas Rivera’s buildings rise on an excellent platform across the sunken plaza, the brand new ensemble highlights the tough terrain. Rocha’s single-story volumes seem to take a seat gracefully on the lava formations in a approach that echoes lots of the first homes constructed at Jardines del Pedregal. In Rocha’s thoughts, the brand new buildings are ships floating on a sea of lava. (It really works: Anahuacalli, in Nahuatl, means “home surrounded by water.”) The brand new plaza and the hall connecting it to the primary advanced appear to be plinths which have been solid into the bottom—or, persevering with Rocha’s metaphor, like sections of a pier. These gestures produce a captivating dialogue between the clear orthogonal constructions and the rugged panorama.
Not like Rivera’s airtight constructions, the brand new buildings keep a refreshing openness to the outside. That is achieved primarily by an exterior lattice manufactured from vertical stone slats, which evoke Rivera’s slit home windows. Upon coming into (or, relatively, boarding), one quickly sees the buildings as articulations of horizontal and vertical planes, inside patios, and corridors. The impact is of ever-partial interiors, subtly wrapped by the latticework that modulates the daylight and frames beautiful views of the panorama. Barragán’s phrases, plucked from Eggener’s e-book, appear becoming right here: “A panorama that’s held and framed with a correct foreground is price double.” The patios reveal a decrease stage the place the concrete foundations merge with the volcanic rock. Ash wooden doorways and black metallic railings full the fabric austerity and formal rigor.
These are qualities that characterize Rocha’s bigger physique of labor, as does the play of rectangular prisms produced by vertical and horizontal planes, every spaced out by fragments of panorama. His Heart for the Blind and Visually Impaired in Iztapalapa (2000) and Faculty of Visible Arts of Oaxaca (2008), two of his most celebrated works, show comparable preparations. This recurrent technique manifests an insistence on producing inside areas imbued with the outside. As in these initiatives, the Anahuacalli enlargement affords a a lot richer expertise than steered by the easy orthogonal plan. On this approach, structure is conceived as an expertise of panorama and lightweight. In his personal phrases, “structure will not be quantity, however void.”
The undertaking additionally entailed renovating smaller current buildings, which expands the present library, reorganizes the employees’s services, and provides a ticket counter and restrooms by the doorway. Whereas the brand new volumes really feel impartial from the unique advanced, maybe the enlargement is most fascinating, as the 2 architectural epochs collide right here. There may be an evident congruity not solely of supplies however of aesthetic sensibilities. When requested about references, Rocha mentions the likes of Robert Smithson, Gordon Matta-Clark, Akira Kurosawa, and Andrei Tarkovsky relatively than different architects. It’s no coincidence that an architect whose personal work extends to set up artwork and ephemeral interventions could be chosen to elaborate on the unconventional experiment of two artist-architects. On this sense, Anahuacalli stands as a witness to the sensibility of those and different Mexican architects throughout generations.
Gabriel Villalobos is a professor of structure historical past and principle in Mexico Metropolis. He holds an MDesS from the Harvard Graduate Faculty of Design. His analysis focuses on the a number of dialogues between artwork and structure throughout the Twentieth century.
Mauricio Rocha might be a keynote speaker at AN’s Facades+ occasion in Los Angeles on November 3.