Telcel Theater, México D.F.
Ensamble Studio 
Telcel Theater, México D.F.

Telcel Theater, México D.F.

Ensamble Studio 


In Aztec culture, the Dovela – stone of air or sun – is a basalt monolith that is offered to divinity, and sometimes placed in a complex with a topography of terraces. It addresses the four elements, and with its powerful symbolism expresses the intangible nature of things, something to which the best in architecture also alludes. This metaphor has been the inspiration for the new Cervantes Theater in Mexico City, which is surrounded by an ensemble of monumental constructions led by the Soumaya Museum – a project financed by the magnate Carlos Slim –, and which unlike them prefers to be in the background. It manages to do this by hiding underground, creating in the subsoil a series of platforms that form a sort of public cavern. The only element rising from the ground is a sculptural pergola that doubles as the Dovela, the stone of air that is offered to the sun and which lets light shine into the depths of the theater underneath. From this Dovela, formed by plates of calibrated steel that seem to defy gravity, the public space spills onto a half-buried foyer from which one can proceed to the cascade of levels forming the innards of the building. The architectural promenade ends at the deepest level, almost thiry meters below ground, where the actual theater hall is, with its stage and performance of a time frozen and recreated...
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Arquitectos Architects
Ensamble Studio

Autor del proyecto Author of the project
Antón García-Abril

Equipo Team
Javier Cuesta (arquitecto técnico building engineer), Débora Mesa, Elena Pérez (arquitectas asociadas associate architects), Alba Cortés (directora de proyecto project manager), Joaquín Gallegos, Alba Beroiz, Jaime Alcayde, Cristina Moya, Juan Ruiz Antón, Tomaso Boano, Federico Letizia

Promotor Developer
SGAE – Grupo Carso

Constructora Construction company
INPROS

Estructura Structure
Colinas de Buen

Superficie construida Floor area
11.500 m²

Fotos Photos
Roland Halbe