National Museum of San Carlos, Extension , Mexico City

Located in the heart of Mexico City, the project consists of the expansion of the Museo Nacional de San Carlos to an adjacent lot, it also detonates a small urban intervention linking the museum and the expansion with a plaza and, more importantly, to the city.

The intervention is guided by 4 principles:\nRespect: adding a new sober, hermetic element with pure geometries, mullions bringing in the north light, and using materials that aspire to have a dignified aging, it aims to give all the protagonism to the preexistence.\nThe museum as public space: by leaving an open plan first floor completely connected to the plaza, a gesture done through outing walls extracts some of the public program elements of the museum and incorporates them to the plaza.\nRoof revitalization: a service volume is extracted in the rear part of the building; it comprises all the systems and a restaurant. This way, the roof is liberated, and its use is activated.\nLinks with the past: after thorough research of Tolsá’s work, certain principles of his architecture emerge, by designing the extension with those in account, the new building generates bonds with its predecessor and honors the Spaniards creation. The project is based on the following: proportions in the golden ratio, symmetry, proportion top floor 2:1 ground floor and composition around a central courtyard\nThe urban intervention consists of intervening Ramos Arizpe street, this bridges two strong cultural corridors that come from the city’s center. The sidewalks are widened for businesses, cultural spaces and pedestrians; as well as adding a bicycle lane and reducing traffic to just one car lane.\nThe museum now functions through a vertical module located in the joint between the old and the new buildings. At the ground floor, we have all the public spaces as well the storage facility for the museum´s collection. The first floor is entirely exhibition, the second holds offices, workshops and a large auditorium, and the third the restaurant and a terrace overlooking the plaza.\nThe project is the result of a long and difficult research work, The enthusiasm behind it comes from the relationship we build with the past, how the context around our work defines us, the realization that we must cherish and understand it in order to blend with it, rather than replicate it. How by looking sharply into the past we can create a better future.