Soumaya Museum / FR-EE
Address
Mexico City, Mexico
Program
Museum
Client
Fundación Carlos Slim
Status
Complete
Cost / Floor area
16,000 m2 / 172,222 ft2 ²
Calendar
2005 - 2011
Team
Fernando Romero and Mauricio Ceballos with: Matthew Fineout, Sergio Rebelo, Omar Gerala Félix, Laura Domínguez, Herminio González, Ana Medina, Ana Paula Herrera, Ignacio Méndez, Mario Mora, Juan Pedro López, Guillermo Mena, Libia Castilla, Raúl García, Manuel Díaz, Alan Aurioles, Ana Gabriela Alcocer, Luis Ricardo García, Iván Ortiz, Tiago Pinto, Olga Gómez, Hugo Fernández, Kosuke Osawa, Francisco Javier de la Vega, David Hernández, Jorge Hernández, Joaquín Collado, Mariana Tafoya, Eduardo Benítez, Pedro Lechuga, Thorsten Englert, Luis Fuentes, Luis Flores, Rodolfo Rueda, Víctor Chávez, Max Betancourt, Wonne Ickxs, Dolores Robles-Martínez, Sappho Van Laer, Ophelie Chassin, Elena Haller, Abril Tovar, Diego Eumir Jasso, Albert Beele, Homero Yánez, Cynthia Meléndez, Hugo Vela, Susana Hernández Aparicio, Gerardo Galicia, Alberto Duran, Camilo Mendoza, Dafne Zvi Zaldívar, Cecilia Jiménez, Ángel Ortiz, Raúl Antonio Hernández, Alma Delfina Rosas, Wendy Guillen, Raúl Flores, Daniel Alejandro Farías, Jesús Monroy, Saúl Miguel Kelly, Iván Javier Avilés, Jacqueline Hernández and Cesar Pérez.
Photos & copyright
Yannick Wegner
Adam Wiseman
Prizes
2013 Architizer A+
2012 Spark Award
2012 American Property Awards 2011 WAF Finalist, Barcelona 2010 Travel + Leisure,
Best New Museum
Text description provided by the architects.
Context
This new fine-art museum and architectural icon in the heart of Mexico City served as a catalyst for urban and community regeneration. It attracted more than 1 million visitors in the first year with flexible spaces for permanent and temporary exhibitions on all scales.
The Museo Soumaya is home to an art collection of nearly 70,000 works, dating from the 15th to mid-20th century, including the second largest collection of Auguste Rodin sculptures. The design of the museum reflects the desire to create a new publicly accessible cultural institution for all.
Rising 150 feet at the heart of a new cultural and commercial district, Plaza Carso, the building’s form, a rotated rhomboid supported by 28 curved steel columns of varying size and shapes, is clad in a skin of 16,000 hexagonal mirrored-steel elements. These reference the traditional, colonial ceramic-tiled building facades in Mexico City, and give the Museo Soumaya a different appearance depending on the weather, time of day and the viewer’s vantage point.
A 7-ring structural system creates cantilevers on multiple sides and stabilizes the museum’s continuous 6-level promenade of exhibition,presentation and communal gathering space. On the top level, visitors enter a column- free exhibition hall filled with natural light. In addition to the galleries, the Museo Soumaya includes a 350-seat public auditorium, library, restaurant, gift shop, and offices.
