Pavilion for the Museum of Architecture Buenos Aires

LOCATION: Recoleta. Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

 

PROJECT

Pablo Barría Urenda

Matías Imbern

Pablo Roquero

Felix Raspall

 

TEAM

Andrés Acosta

León Carpman

Julio Casaccia

Federico Iocco

 

YEAR 2013

 

DESCRIPTION:

 

METROPOLITAN IMPRINT

The Museum of Architecture (MARQ) is in a privileged location within the urban fabric of the City of Buenos Aires, acting as an entry point to the most important cultural circuit. The project for the new pavilion proposes a building that highlights its metropolitan character, through a design with strong and unique identity. The pavilion establishes a dialogue with the historic building while seeking to become a referential point in the city.

The project aims to strengthen the 70 meters facade on Libertador Avenue with a communicating device, as well as to give a technological answer to the relationship between the inner space, outer space and the urban environment. The proposed building is conceived as a sequence of sections that mutate along the facade to accommodate the different programmmatic variations, growing within the perimeter indicated to accommodate the covered area and negotiating with the street-views to the building historical.

The emphasized horizontality of the proposed piece relates to the speed of Libertador Avenue and contrasts with the verticality of the historic building. The crowning of the last one (the water tank of the original building) is enhanced through a perforated metal cladding backlit, melting it with the pavilion during the day and acting as an urban lighthouse overnight, visible from a wider area due to the border condition in which the Museum is placed.

 

PROGRAMMATIC FLEXIBILITY

The ability to reconfigure the pavilion is a key to accommodate different programmatic demands and diversify audiences' attraction. Two elements structure the proposal in this regard: the side walls, designed as a flex-front glass system, which allow opening gradually till encompass all its panels; and in the inside, a blackout curtain that organizes different partitions and light-shading effects of the inner space through its movement.

The core of the cafeteria is positioned on the rear of the site, thereby facilitating the longitudinal connection between the historic building, the new pavilion and the park. The staircase emerges as a vertical-translucent space for exhibitions, solved with the same technology as the new pavilion. Its skin creates openings from which the connections with the existing building appear.

 

TECHNOLOGY

It is the intent of the proposal to radicalize the use of steel-framing, understood not only as a structural system hidden inside the walls, but also as an element of aesthetic expression and spatial configuration. Thus, the metal structure is highlight through the use of translucent materials for the enclosures. The facade also facilitates the permeability between the museum and the city. As an alternative means of power generation, the project is provided by solar panels on the roof of the service block.

 

LANDSCAPING

The landscape is articulated as programmatic bands that range their characteristics and facilitate different forms and intensities of uses such as permanence, light traffic, heavy traffic, vehicular traffic and/or public meeting. Their arrangement is designed in strict relationship to the program of the pavilion, with some sectors offering complementary areas, such as the auditorium in the East sector (semi-hard pavement for heavy use), or the zone adjacent to the cafe in the central volume, intended to support a longer-use area.