Public space and poetic living. The case of Museo Experimental El Eco

Abstract

This article, inscribed within a broader investigation of public space and poetic living, analyzes Museo Experimental El Eco, one of the masterpieces of modern architecture in Mexico, where the architectural space participates actively in the presentation of diverse artistic manifestations and the public’s emotional, aesthetic, and sensitive experience. “El Eco,” a project embedded in the San Rafael neighborhood in Mexico City, was designed and built between 1952 and 1953 by Mathias Goeritz, a grand plastic artist whose work ranges from the field of graphics to urban sculpture. With his great recognition as an artist and a critical vision of modern architecture, Goeritz is presented with the opportunity to shape an architectural project with few programmatic constraints, his understanding of architecture, which, in turn, condenses in his famous manifesto of emotional architecture. The article presents an analysis of the architectural spatiality of this work, focused on the experience of the place and supported by the compilation and study of the background information, visits, tours on different days, photographic shots, and preparation of the respective plans. Goeritz, like the great artist he was, is able to approach architecture as the result of the meeting of emptiness and matter so that the body’s emotions and sensations in the space flow to structure the very meaning of architectural creation.