As part of the exhibition program of the Museo Experimental El Eco, the open call for the Eco Pavilion 2020 was launched, inviting professionals practicing architecture in Mexico to engage in a dialogue with the museum's space. This edition marks the 10th anniversary of the Eco Pavilion, a competition launched in partnership with Buró-Buró to provide a platform for architectural production focusing on experimentation and spatial reflection.
The competition involves creating a temporary intervention within Mathias Goeritz's “emotional architecture,” which will host two months of activities combining visual and performing arts, music, and panel discussions stemming from the form and themes proposed by the winning design. The guest curator for this edition was architect Javier Senosiain (Mexico City, 1948), a professor at the UNAM Faculty of Architecture known for organic architecture projects—or “bio-architecture,” as he calls it. His work is underpinned by the idea of a harmonious continuity between nature and cultural creations, often drawing inspiration from animal or plant forms.
The curator proposed taking as a starting point what could be considered the first pavilion—or temporary architectural space—that El Eco had: Mathias Goeritz's snake. This primary structure of zoomorphic inspiration was not only sculpturally integrated into the space, but also into the cultural context, as it activated specific connections with pre-Hispanic Mexican history. Although the snake is no longer in the museum's courtyard, its absence allows this space to now be a site for carrying out diverse projects.
Museo Experimental El Eco
Based on these premises, contestants were invited to reflect on architecture's ability to work simultaneously and harmoniously with cultural and natural contexts, whether by employing analogies between organic and architectural forms or by integrating symbolic resources.
On January 29, 2020, a jury composed of architect Javier Senosiain, artist Damián Ortega, architect Miquel Adrià, and members of both Museo Experimental El Eco and Buró-Buró, met to review the submissions and deliver their final verdict. On January 31, the project CRONOBOROS by TANAT | Diego Rivero Borrell was announced as the outright winner. A special mention was awarded to the project “El huevo y la serpiente” (The Egg and the Snake) by ESCOBEDO SOLIZ + Annik Keoseyan. This project proposes a large-scale sheet metal intervention to establish a relationship with Goeritz’s snake and the proposed curatorial line, which is also evident in the choice of materials and forms that dialogue with the museum's architecture.
CRONOBOROS is an intervention that proposes transforming the museum's courtyard into a reflecting pool of water and rocks, where both the elements that make up the site (walls and tower) and the surrounding elements, such as the jacaranda tree, the sky, and the sun, can be reflected in an image that echoes their shapes and colors. In this sense, it aims to create a space that celebrates transformation and temporality as inherent characteristics of nature and its link to human life through contemplation and artistic expression.
- Museo Experimental El Eco
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This article was written by ArchDaily Team. The translation is powered by AI.
