The new building of the Museum of Latin American Art in Buenos Aires (MALBA) opened on 22 September in Belén de Escobar, a municipality 45 kilometers from the Argentinian capital. After a joint intervention in the public areas of the museum, which has now been in existence for 23 years, the Spanish architecture practice estudioHerreros has again worked with the local firm Torrado Arquitectos, this time for MALBA to be able to properly showcase its growing collection. The complex is designed on the idea of an ambiguous space, a construction which is porous, transparent, flexible, devoid of boundaries and hierarchies.

The project superposes three exhibition models: a forest of alders with clearings that act as exhibition galleries; a circuit of outdoor sculptures; and an ensemble of three pavilions interspersed with plazas that, under one same roof, form the heart of the project.

This large roof protects the three pavilions. The spaces therein include: an exhibition gallery and a store; a visitable storage place for artworks, a multipurpose hall, and a café; and a glazed volume which permanently harbors a sculptural installation by the Tucumán-born artist Gabriel Chaile. The pavilions are prisms that present repetitive perimetral structures of steel supports and cement panels.

Pierced by three large trees, this same roof – perforated and formed by a grid of steel beams – lets light into three plazas which, in the manner of an open museum, accommodates a variety of events, educational activities, and exhibitions.

Completing the sequence of the lake-museum-forest axis are parterres to regulate humidity, tanks for rainwater reuse, and photovoltaic solar panels.

Photo: Estudio Bulla