The new home of the Panama Museum of Contemporary Art will occupy part of an area previously designated for an aborted large real estate project. The lot is therefore already excavated approximately six meters deep, and has a ready to use foundation slab.
The brief called for exploiting these initial conditions to accommodate a large functional program, including nearly 1,500 square meters of exhibition space, workshops, event rooms, offices, and ten stand-alone shops, as well as a parking lot for approximately 90 cars.
The architectural concept we proposed is based on a pattern of isosceles right-angled triangles, spaced 7.1 meters apart, extending across the entire building area. From the grid in the plan, a forest of 10.6-meter-high hollow and blind prisms emerges, slid upward at various heights. Despite its geometrically rigorous, refractory and bulky appearance resembling a basalt formation, the building is designed to be extremely porous. On the ground floor, the raised modules open up continuous passageways that swallow up the surrounding public space. On the upper floors, the exhibition spaces, articulated by the triangular plan pattern, are flooded with natural light from the concentric skylights that crown each prism, and occasionally flow into green patios invisible from the outside. The complex unfolds around a central void, leaving the commercial spaces facing the street and concentrating the cultural functions on the ground floor of the courtyard. The exhibition galleries occupy the two upper floors, crowned by the cafeteria that targets the sea, overlooking the popular Boca de Caja neighborhood.
