For the Arpafil Competition teams were asked to revitalize an historic neighbourhood in the Centre of Guadalajara. Guadalajara is Mexicos second biggest city and is known as a very traditional city: its urban structure is based on a historical grid introduced by the Spaniards at the time of the Conquista. To be able to create new quality public areas in the city, we decided to elevate one of the city building blocks. The new floating building provides the City of a new Centre for Dance and Audiovisual Media: a complementary new department of the University which is distributed through the historical centre. The elevated urban block allows us (1) to create a new reference point in the monotonous and isotropic urban structure (2) to establish a dialectic relation between the historical plaza and the newly created public plaza (3) create views (´new perspectives´) over the very horizontal texture of the existing city (establishing a relation with existing monuments such as the Cathedral). We believe that the city of Guadalajara needs powerful interventions in the neighbourhoods surrounding the actual centre of the City, to convert the city from a unicentral into a pluricentral urban network. The new Centre for Dance and Audiovisual Media could be a first step into this development. We obtained honourable mention.
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This project appeared on europaconcorsi home page slideshow dedicated to mexican architecture. The series was realized in cooperation with Derek Dellekamp. We thank him for his help, kindness and professional advice.
