Museo Soumaya, Sculptural Building in Mexico, Architecture, Architect, Photos

Soumaya Museum Mexico

Mexican Building design by FREE | Fernando Romero EnterprisE, Mexico

24 Oct 2014

Soumaya Museum

Design: FREE | Fernando Romero EnterprisE, Architects

Museo Soumaya

Soumaya Museum, Mexico

Address: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra 303, Granada, 11529 Ciudad de México, Distrito Federal, Mexico

Phone: +52 55 1103 9800

photo : Yannick Wegner

Museum buildings tend to be conceived either for maximum functionality – acting as neutral containers for art – or as iconic structures that represent a city at a particular historic moment.

photo : Yannick Wegner

The Museo Soumaya was designed as both: a sculptural building that is unique and contemporary, yet one able to house a collection of international paintings, sculptures, and decorative objects dating from the fourteenth century to the present.

The exterior of the building is an amorphous shape perceived differently from every angle, reflecting the diversity of the collection inside.

The building’s distinctive façade is made of hexagonal aluminum modules facilitating its preservation and durability.

The shell is constructed with steel columns of different diameters, each with its own geometry and shape, creating non-linear circulation paths for the visitor.

The building encompasses 20,000 square meters of exhibition space divided among five floors, as well as an auditorium, café, offices, gift shop, and multipurpose lobby.

The top floor is the largest space in the museum, with its roof suspended from a cantilever that allows in natural daylight.

The Museo Soumaya is a private museum in Mexico City. It is a non-profit cultural institution with two museum buildings in Mexico City – Plaza Carso and Plaza Loreto.

It has over 66,000 works from 30 centuries of art including sculptures from Pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica, 19th- and 20th-century Mexican art and an extensive repertoire of works by European old masters and masters of modern western art such as Auguste Rodin, Salvador Dalí, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo and Tintoretto.

It is considered to be one of the most complete collections of its kind. The museum is named after Soumaya Domit, the wife of the founder of the museum Carlos Slim, who died in 1999.