Project • 2017
Buenos Aires Art Museum

Concept

This project is a design proposal for an art museum in central Buenos Aires. It derives its unique form from a carefully considered site response. The cultural program is split into four discrete volumes connected via a raised plaza that serves as a new civic space for the city. Beneath the galleries, street-level retail programs bring public life and urban activity to the site.

The exterior volumes are clad in an acid-etched glass that gives the museum an ethereal presence. The upper plaza spans the highway, creating a raised and enclosed public space that allows visitors to safely cross the highway.

Expanding the Site

Accommodating the ambitious program on the given site would have created a massing vastly out of scale with the context. To improve the project’s urban response, the site boundary is extended across the highway. This allows for a lower massing more in keeping with the context.



The Elevated Plaza

The gallery volumes are connected via a raised platform that is open to the public. Open gardens located between the gallery volumes create elevated open spaces that connect the interior civic space to the city beyond.

A restrained exterior and interior material palette emphasizes the building’s civic and spatial qualities and gives the project a simultaneously quiet and bold presence within the context of Buenos Aires.



Urban Response

The ground floor plan shows the retail spaces at grade, and also shows the existing highway encased in the building massing.



Elevated Plaza

The second floor plan shows the gallery spaces, the interspersed terraces, and the elevated plaza that forms the heart of the building.



Elevated Plaza

The illustrative section shows the encased highway, the waterfront, and the elevated civic space at the center of the design concept.