PARTELUZ PAVILION | MATERIA Gustavo Carmona

Materia conceives the Parteluz (Mullion) as an artifact-made pavilion and place — a tool for the mapping of time, the dissection of light, and the embracement of shadow. The pavilion serves as a fragmenting filter of the surrounding gardens and the infinity of the sky. Its language expresses contrast and duality: object and void coming together in an intertwined fabric of contemporary spirit. Made with craft and distilled technique, the space invites reflection and contemplation.

The project embodies the appropriation of space and establishes a dialogue with the site through the use of light and shadow as the ever-changing event. The tectonics of the pavilion play on a repetitive strategy for the project to become a tool for capturing passing time more so than a building. Its main interest is the vocation and attention to craft and the use of a design strategy based on the repetition of simple tectonic assemblies

The pavilion was commissioned by Design Week Mexico and Museo Tamayo as a prelude to Mexico City´s World Design Capital event in 2018 which offers a diverse program of exhibitions, installations, and talks, turning the capital into a playground for innovation and debate. Parteluz has become a significant cultural intervention at the museum's gardens in Chapultepec Park, the capital’s biggest public park.

The pavilion consists of 70 columns of prefabricated white concrete, symbolizing the stereotomic character of Mexican architecture and its relationship with the earth. Their separation provides a dissection of the immediate context of the Tamayo Museum and Chapultepec Park. The columns, each 4,80-m high, are set in a curved layout around the user creating an intimate space. The columns are connected with double pine-wood beams which represent Mexican craftsmanship. The resulting fabric projects the changing shadows onto the surface of the columns.

We have tried to generate a tectonic language that speaks both about the permanence of the built environment and the temporality of its sensory qualities. It’s about creating a tool of perceptual and material change creating meaningful experiences for the users through architecture in an emblematic site of the City: Chapultepec Park. The construction of the pavilion was involved in the earthquake in Mexico last September that took the lives of hundreds of people, in some way it became a tribute to the vocation of the architects to follow ahead to adverse circumstances and to build spirit in the city.