Spain’s Cultural Center / JSª

Architects: JSª
Location: Mexico City, Mexico
Architect In Charge: Javier Sánchez
Design Team: Arquitectura 911 sc, Jose Castillo, Saidee Springall Juan Manuel Soler, Juvencio Nuñez, Pablo Zamudio, Edgar González, Gabriela Delgado, Gustavo Rojas, Domingo Granados, Mariana Paz, Jimena Antillón, Edith Razo
Project Year: 2012
Photographs: Rafael Gamo , Pedro Hiriat

Project Area: 4003.0 sqm
Renderings: Yair Urgarte, Israel Caballero, Gerardo Fonseca
Model: Edith Razo
Engineering: Gustavo Nieto
Engineering Supervision: Javier Sánchez Fernando Valdivia, Francisco Castañeda, Juan José Hernández, Sergio Mendoza
Structure: Colinas de Buen
Construction Management: Ingrid Ramos

The project to complete Spain’s Cultural Center (CCE) proposes enhancing and consolidating the spaces the CCE is already using for a diversity of events and exhibits. The current dynamics and cultural proposal of the CCE must be magnified, creating spaces, ways, forms or formats for artistic activities that at this time cannot be held here, where these activities can be carried out more efficiently and be more attractive.

One of the central ideas of the project is to form part of the urban fabric of Mexico City’s Historic Center, considering the CCE as a passage linking different zones and different cultural programs sponsored by the Historic Center. A person could cross from Guatemala street to Donceles street through the CCE, and make this crossing a walk through the exhibit sites, giving this interior passage a strong public dimension.

The program envisages several floors with flexible uses that can work as exhibit areas, conference rooms, for seminars, workshops, children’s activities, theatre, concerts and so forth. Reaching this objective, taking into account the complexity of the location for the project, is one of the most significant challenges.

The solution we propose is a structure that will permit having large areas without intermediate columns and with heights that go beyond 15 feet.

From the architectural point of view, the relationship with the historic context has represented another major challenge. To integrate the building to this context, one of which is contemporary and the other historic, we have proposed that the façades and the volumes respect the proportions of the streets and buildings that define them. Apparent concrete and Corten steel, with lattices and recesses, seek to replicate the colors and depth of the façades of the downtown buildings, always remaining faithful to the contemporary side of the project.