mauricio rocha wins MCHAP for anahuacalli museum expansion

mauricio rocha selected MCHAP winner

Taller | Mauricio Rocha‘s expansion and renovation of the Anahuacalli Museum in Mexico City has been awarded the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize (MCHAP) for 2023. The prize is presented biennially by the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) College of Architecture, and recognizes architectural excellence in a built work in the Americas. The jury commended the winning design for establishing a ‘sensitive, open dialogue with the existing Anahuacalli Museum, conceived by the artist Diego Rivera in the 1940s and realized over the following decades in collaboration with the architect Juan O’Gorman.’

images © Rafael Gamo | @rafaelgamo

mauricio rocha celebrates the museum’s historic context

Completed in 2021, the project by Taller | Mauricio Rocha establishes a respectful and open exchange with the pre-existing Anahuacalli Museum. The original museum was planned by Diego Rivera in the 1940s and then brought to life over the course of the following decades with the assistance of architect Juan O’Gorman. The architects led by Mauricio Rocha showcase the cultural and ecological value of the work and the surrounding volcanic landscape, located in Pedregal de San Ángel in Mexico City.

Juror Julie Eizenberg, principal at KoningEizenberg Architecture says: ‘The way the museum extension mingles with the landscape speaks volumes about where architecture is headed, and the way it honors the past is fearless, heartfelt, and original.’

the anahuacalli museum expansion

Taller | Mauricio Rocha’s Anahuacalli Museum expansion comprises three buildings — a workshop, offices, and storage — as well as a walkway that connects these new structures with the museum’s original building. What’s more, the project repurposes several existing structures and remodels select elements of the museum’s exhibitions. The intervention acknowledges the unique heritage of its context, and provides fresh public spaces and opportunities to discover Rivera’s pre-Hispanic art collection.

Jury Chair Sandra Barclay praised the ‘subtle relationships’ that the extension creates with O’Gorman and Rivera’s structures, which originally imagined the site as a ‘City of the Arts.’ ‘At the same time,’ she says, ‘the project radically transforms the complex, revealing the qualities of the ecological reserve that contains it and creating a dynamic space open to the community.’

showcasing the volcanic landscape

The expansion’s integration with the Pedregal, a unique lava field landscape formed by the Xitle volcano eruption 2,500 years ago, was highlighted by the jury. The new buildings’ bases made of volcanic stone reference both the original structures and the ground below. Taller | Mauricio Rocha’ intervention further allows the landscape to extend beneath these additions, emphasizing its presence and inviting visitors to experience it. Barclay explains: ‘Mauricio Rocha proposes a typology of independent and permeable volumes that connect to the existing plaza’s floor and the rugged and uneven topography of the natural lava flow.‘