Center for Culture and Arts of the Lakeside

The state culture ministry asked for an existing auditorium to be reworked and extended into a cultural centre, part of a programme to spread culture across the region. The site is on the shore of the country’s largest lake, home to a large community of foreign residents. The Mexican design team wanted the building to tell part of the place’s cultural history and studied the founding myths of an indigenous people whose main sanctuary lies on an islet in the lake.

In geological time the lake was part of a fjord of the ocean, divided by volcanic activity. The myths speak of the lake’s emergence through drying, when a goddess sank her staff into the seabed, lowering the water and raising the islet. The project draws on these stories of land and water.

The new spaces are built in brick around shaded courtyards and gardens, with arched openings, a reading room with tall shelves, and a long reflecting pool, linking the renovated auditorium to the town.