Center for Film and Culture


This project looks to open the cultural institution to both the public and the context that it is situated within. By allowing the public to engage with the urban space of Mexico City and creating a new kind of landscape within the interior of the project, the cultural institution becomes a mechanism through which the city is both viewed and reflected. The legibility of the public hub through the facade creates space for the public participation that is vital to this program.


The main space of the project is the multipurpose room which sits above street level and in the center of the two exhibition galleries. These levels are intersected by the two theaters and their suspended volumes become an interactive landscape within the project. The interruption of the volumes allows both the formal performance of the theater spaces and the informal spaces of the public’s social performance to engage with the city context through the open facade.


Circulation skirts around the outside of the public floors, allowing the visitors to traverse the entire lot to observe the activities of the institute providing a complex view of this social condenser. The project ends with the void of the garden space which sinks down into the building, adding the landscape of the common Mexican courtyard type.


Spring 2017
Model photography by Nash Baker