Museum for the AFIP

Memory

Recognition and consolidation of spatial units

The building has a rich and complex spatial structure, consisting of the connection of spaces of different scales. Unlike an open plan, it is important that they are not invaded by the appearance of elements foreign to their formal genesis.

Three large spatial units are recognized:

A-The Basement: composed of the Subsoil, the Ground Floor and the First Floor. (deep floor)

B-The Foyer, which includes the grand staircase that links the Ground Floor, the First Floor and the Second Floor.

C-The great Central Space, which begins on the Second Floor, the latter being the true piano nobile of the building's structure.

Based on this recognition, we operate in the different spatial units, consolidating their character and enhancing their essence.

The idea is not to force the link between the Base Unit and the Central Space. The structural decoupling, the particular character and the impossibility of light reaching it due to the distance to the terrace, make it unnecessary to empty the slab of the Second Floor as a link.

It is understood, on the other hand, that precisely the large staircase of the lateral Foyer acts as a connecting element of the aforementioned spaces.

Understanding the upper floors as plants around a cloister, there is a void that provides light and ventilation, which in turn provides spatial unity.

However, the basement floors, with a completely different spatial structure, are much deeper and therefore less luminous in their core. These floors are treated in a particular way by the project through the incorporation of a volume of flexible uses, thus consolidating their centre, freeing up the perimeter for the location of activities that need light, and becoming a source of illumination.

The void that connected the upper levels is now a volume that can only be partially seen from each level. Thus, it is discovered through its path, becoming a connecting device for spaces.

This intervention thus generates a situation of similar hierarchy in both cases through an opposite operation: whether through the appearance of full or empty spaces; natural or artificial light, in both cases an element generating luminosity and spatial cohesion is obtained.