Estudio Herreros is in charge of the renovation of the Latin American Art Museum of Buenos Aires

This remodeling of the Latin American Art Museum of Buenos Aires (MALBA) is part of a new trend of museums, in which public spaces acquire a special role and connect with the city. The project's author is estudio Herreros, an architectural firm in Madrid responsible of important works in the art world, such as the Edward Munch Museum in Oslo or the exhibition areas of the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid.

MALBA is part of the contemporary art museums of new generation which assume that the museum concept itself has transmuted energetically, from the classical art archive to an authentic social condenser in which all citizen groups want to be represented.

According to Juan Herreros and Jens Richter, partners of estudioHerreros, the first condition that MALBA must attend is to be inclusive, receptive and friendly to a citizen who does not want to know about barriers or elitism. The city must enter to the museum and the people must find an environment that is familiar to them, to make them understand that has been designed for them. In short, contemporary art is nothing more than the creative expression of people who have the same concerns as citizens.

Juan Herreros and Jens Richter

In this dialogue between visitors and art, the moments of contact with the building play a crucial role: crossing the threshold, buying an entrance, leaving a coat in the wardrobe, receiving information or learning to use an audio- guide. It is also part of the experience to feel like a privileged client of a store that offers references from the art world, souvenirs or the perfect gift, as well as having a drink in their informal cafeteria or relaxing in their restaurant. People will no longer go to MALBA only to see exhibitions, but for to many other things.

For this purpose, estudioHerreros has resorted to a set of very everyday materials, close to industrial aesthetics or DIY, to manipulate them with simple assembly operations, which convey the message that it could have been built by oneself. The project unifies in a single open space all the activities; prior to or after the visit to the exhibition halls. With a continuous floor that recalls the concrete of the sidewalks, on which a series of small wooden constructions are distributed, profiles of steel and aluminum and little else.

This aesthetic and constructive code extends to the counters of receipt and sale of tickets, the shelves and exhibitors of the store or the large tables run of the cafeteria, but also to other smaller pieces such as benches, stools, chairs or stools that make up a series of furniture studioHerreros for MALBA that introduce a domestic character in the space between the city and the exhibition halls.

Juan Herreros defines the project as “a large installation built entirely in dry that does not intend to compete or affect the original building, but stimulate the interest of visitors for contemporary art through the reduction of the solemnity that these places usually offer and which many visitors feel that the content of the building does not go with them.”

Source: estudio Herreros

Photography: ©Javier Agustín Rojas

Visit the estudioHerreros website