Description provided by designers.
Arte Abierto Baja is a new public art gallery offering a permanent addition to the cultural life of Baja California Sur, where the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of California meet against a rocky coastline that is home to a biodiverse mix of vegetation including desert shrublands. Designed by Sordo Madaleno, a third-generation family-run Mexican architecture studio, Arte Abierto Baja introduces 180-square-metre open-air space for viewing contemporary works of art by Latin American and international artists.
Its sunken design, set four metres below grade, is accessed via a 17-metre gently sloping, semi-covered ramp integral to the building’s form. The arrival journey is choreographed to quieten the senses and transition visitors from the mixed-use hustle and bustle above. Upon arrival, visitors enter the open-air gallery, suspended between the sky above and the surrounding arid landscape.
Set within five-metre-plus high gallery walls, Arte Abierto Baja is designed for exhibiting large-scale sculptures and site-specific installations. The gallery’s pigmented, bush-hammered concrete surfaces are timeless and tactile, adding a sense of permanence that encourages visitors to dwell and contemplate. The building’s raw materiality embeds into its desert context.
“We wanted Arte Abierto Baja to be an experience that responds to the beauty of the Baja landscape,” saysFernando Sordo Madaleno. “The arrival sequence is choreographed to heighten the senses — there’s this moment of compression as you descend and then, at arrival, an expansion to the elements. The architecture becomes a frame for the landscape, and the landscape becomes a canvas for large-scale art.”
Arte Abierto Baja sits within a wider six-hectare masterplan for Animà Village, also designed by Sordo Madaleno. The design concept the Village has been to create a walkable human-scale neighbourhood with a strong public realm and generous planting. It’s defined by a series of six terracotta pavilions and six open-air squares interspersed with lush desert-adapted gardens that provide shade, cooling and wellbeing within a climate that often reaches temperatures of up to 36°C. Overall, Sordo Madaleno’s approach at Animá Village has been to introduce a permeable organic townscape within an area that has over recent years been blighted with urban sprawl and gated communities.
Javier Sordo Madaleno De Haro adds: “Arte Abierto Baja offers something the region has rarely had — a moment for cultural reflection away from the commercial energy above. Inaugurated with an installation by Abraham Cruzvillegas, it is both a celebration and an offering to the community.”
Related: Chris Watts and the Archibald Prize in Sydney
