El Péndulo Library / Aizenman-Arquitectura

Save this picture!

+ 19

Save this picture!

Text description provided by the architects. The San Angel Branch of the Péndulo Bookstore Chain was commissioned by the Instituto Cultural Helenico, to complement it’s cultural complex of theatres and humanities school, and to create a cultural hub in the southern part of Mexico City. The project emerges from a pre-existing raised “plaza” in the front of the site and works around a large ash tree and an imposing palm. The building borrows from the theatre the concept of “stages” or platforms at different levels, where from you can see and be seen, all within a large “hangar” like space.Multiple activities coexist in these “stages”: bookstore/design store, restaurant and lounge bar, all surrounded by two levels of books, and unified bellow a wooden pergola.