Ampliación Museo de Arte de Lima MALI

The set of elements that make up the project is very clear: three pieces above ground - access pavilion to the gallery, access pavilion to the classrooms and library, and the courtyard - and three underground - gallery, classrooms and interior garden -. Each of the above-ground elements has a direct link to each of the underground ones. As if it were a mirror image of each other. The Paseo Colón pavilion is reflected in the exhibition gallery; the library pavilion in the classrooms; and the jacaranda patio in the interior garden. This arrangement of the pieces evokes the paradigmatic image offered by the pictorial romanticism of the pavilion over the grotto; the classical element, with its severe order, and the organic construction, with its sensitive order.

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The ensemble has two elements that, like filters, mediate between the exterior and interior experience, but also between the classical and organic dimensions that characterise the project. One of the filters mediates between the powerful rhythm of the buried structure and the exuberance of the interior garden, and takes the form of a large glass panel that illuminates the gallery and the classrooms. The second filter is the elongated skylight, a contemporary version of the Lima teatina, which connects the jacaranda patio with the interior garden, capturing the light and bringing it deep into the new wing of the MALI.

In the deepest stratum of the geology generated by the new MALI, we propose a large, diaphanous and flexible room that offers the order of modernity and classicism to build a space with the capacity to accommodate the multiple visions of contemporary art. It is a space illuminated by a canyon of light that looks out over the surface, a crack covered by vegetation that builds an exotic and specific space in contrast to the mute and universal space of the exhibition gallery.

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Next to the current MALI building, we propose an open-air space, an area of its own that resolves the closure of the Parque de la Exposición and generates a specific atmosphere formed by a jacaranda tree forest. This courtyard, which evokes the tradition of the Lima courtyard, is the foyer of the Park and MALI, allowing visitor traffic to be managed by directing them towards the different entrances to the different uses of the new building. The pavilions that house these entrances receive light and views from the same place, the courtyard, which gives them meaning and enhances the value of the new intervention.

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