Quinta Montes Molina Cultural Heart / MATERIA

12 months :
2022
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Lead Architect :
Gustavo Carmona

Textual content description supplied by way of the architects. This challenge paperwork a part of the unique “Quinta Montes Molina” premises and belongings, situated in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico. The home used to be at the beginning inbuilt 1906 and changed into an architectural icon and brand of Paseo Montejo, essentially the most infamous road within the town wherein many of the early-century homes have been constructed all through the sisal increase.


In 2000, the home started conserving vital social occasions in its gardens. In 2006, it additionally opened as a museum, exhibiting all of its artifacts, authentic furnishings, and artistic endeavors. In 2015, Materia used to be commissioned to design a pavilion for containing social and cultural occasions, whilst integrating new structure into the present construction. The pavilion used to be therefore awarded the Silver Medal on the 2015 Structure Biennale of Mexico Town.


This difference sparked a transformation within the vocation of the home, main the circle of relatives to turn out to be an establishment with a job in opposition to tradition and neighborhood. In 2016, Materia used to be commissioned to design a car park in the back of the valuables. A chain of grasp plan research and analyses printed a bigger alternative to generate price and make bigger the home’s legacy and be offering. Materia proposed a Cultural Heart that took 6 years of making plans, trade modeling, finance, design, and building. A chain of travels and key visits to an identical museums in america ended in a deeper figuring out of the techniques and areas that have been required for everything of the challenge whilst setting up related connections with like-minded establishments.

The challenge is about in the back of a line of present previous bushes, supporting the purpose of now not being an object, however relatively a sequence of areas intertwined by way of portals and thresholds. The columns and porticoes body perspectives of the gardens, pavilion, and area, making a central courtyard that envelops a public house. The architectural language consists and expressed by way of the construction, speaking its tectonic meeting and developing surfaces to obtain gentle and the projection of shadows in an ever-changing herbal surroundings. All prefab concrete used to be made in the neighborhood in collaboration with regional aggregates. The stone could also be local to the realm. The paintings of finds, joinery, and element within the concrete acts as a reinterpretation of the decoration of the home, whilst testifying to its mounting and fabrication way.


The internal program features a sunken artwork gallery, a cafe, a book place (opening Fall 2022), workshop areas, places of work, catering galley areas, and an artwork cinema (2024). The artwork gallery serves as a transitional house between the gardens and the cultural middle´s plaza. It additionally holds an external terrace on its roof. Carving this house into the bottom helped keep the gardens’ id and open house round the home and pavilion, whilst additionally offering a passive method to arrange herbal gentle and internal cooling.
