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Architects: Estudio Herreros
- Year: 2024
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Photographs:Cecilia Gil
Text description provided by the architects. MALBA PUERTOS, the new outpost of the capital institution in Escobar, is not a typical museum but a combination of architectural and landscape actions aimed at creating a gravitational center for artistic and cultural life in the northern region of Buenos Aires Province. At MALBA PUERTOS, three unavoidable interests converge to understand the course of the present: art as a mechanism for questioning the contradictions of the times we live in; the fragility of nature as the basis of our relationship with the world; and attention to communities whose histories, often ignored by the orthodox cultural environment, must be rewritten.
Faced with such a request, the architecture by Estudio Herreros, in collaboration with Bulla in landscaping, FloraEstudio in the industrial production of equipment, and Torrado Arquitectos as the local firm, could not propose a traditionally urban "building" with rigidly defined boundaries and hierarchical organization. Even the conventional idea of a museum seemed inadequate for a place that aspires to be more of a random gathering space than an orderly visit. Thus, Malba Puertos is a transparent, porous, and democratic construction that blurs its limits, merging exhibition with learning, archival work with indigenous cultures, interior with exterior, and, notably, it doesn't even have a main door.
MALBA PUERTOS is a layering of three exhibition models that go beyond the conventional museum, rarely sharing the same project: an outdoor sculpture circuit that seeks to connect the surrounding urban enclave with contemporary art and highlight the invaluable nature reserve of the lakes; a geometric forest framing a plantation of alder trees, with clearings acting as open-air exhibition rooms; and a set of three pavilions and three plazas forming the heart of the project, deserving a more detailed description.
A large roof of 2,500 m² rests on three pavilions, which house: an exhibition hall with a small bookstore and design shop (600 m²), a visitable art storage area with an educational space and café (500 m²), and a fully glazed volume containing a permanent sculptural installation by Tucumán artist Gabriel Chaile (350 m²). The pavilions are light-constructed prisms with a repetitive perimeter steel structure and opaque concrete panel sections. Their simplicity, isotropic character, industrial feel, and natural integration of visible installations dilute the usual solemnity associated with museum entrances and tours.
The large roof is made up of a grid of solid-web steel beams topped by a sea of translucent domes, casting enigmatic light onto three plazas—one open to the city, another to the lake, and a third to nature. These plazas are intended as exhibition, leisure, and programmable spaces, hosting anything from markets and performances to outdoor cinema, exhibitions, or festivals. The architecture creates the space and infrastructure that makes the multi-format miracle possible, extending into the natural corridor of the "Forest Rooms" that house the outdoor exhibition spaces surrounded by alder trees.
The ritual of "visiting" a museum turns into "inhabiting" the ambiguity of open or enclosed space. Children and teenagers receive the most attention, with programming aimed at them. For them, the architecture makes the art storage accessible, usually hidden and mysterious, so they can understand the importance of an art collection as a living chronicle of their history. The space is equipped with appropriate technologies for educational activities, including collective actions, screenings, lectures, workshops, etc., alongside intensive programming of the areas under the large roof.
MALBA PUERTOS is a manifesto about 21st-century institutions and how to rely on architecture’s transformative capacity to expand artistic practices to all social groups, breaking down any elitism.
