Lucho Marcial

OBJECTIVE

MUNA is at the center of the National Museum System designed to preserve, conserve, restore and connect the national archaeological heritage with our present living culture. This new infrastructure organizes three main programs: a Research and Conservation center with educational programs, Storage and technical areas, and public Museum areas with collections connected to social spaces: an auditorium, restaurant, library, and large flexible non-programmed rooms. The infrastructure builds physical conditions without barriers for seamless encounters between researchers, workers and visitors creating a platform for the exchange of knowledge intended for a larger Regional context. The architecture of the Museum proposes a system of spatially open and horizontal platforms vertically interconnected by a large 25m x 25m x 25m skylit void. A wide ramp at the perimeter of this flexible non-programmatic space connects the temporary exhibitions spaces at the entrance level to the main museum exhibition area underground. Visually this space connects all the exhibitions spaces with the social activities above; a place for installations and temporary interventions. Likewise the landscape project for the building’s second level and surroundings of native and local vegetation offers an ecosystem for improvised activities. The generous and open structure of the MUNA is essential if it is to offer the possibility for developing multiple museologies and museographies over time. In this way the museum plays a fundamental cultural role in the development of our contemporary national identity as connected to Peru´s historically varied landscapes: a project which includes our diverse identities for a collective sustainable future.

CONTEXT

MUNA is located to the west of the intangible area of the Archaeological Sanctuary of Pachacamac situated in the Lurin Valley, a territory that registers 3000 years of occupation that shows through its architecture a lengthy historical process of transformation becoming the primary pilgrimage center of the central coast connected to the Andes by the Inca road system. Today the archaeological pre-existences of this oracle coexist with the social fabric of the urbanizations of Lima South creating a new contemporary landscape. The Ministry of Culture promoted as public policy a national architectural competition to develop mayor new spaces for conservation, restoration, research, and exposure of our archaeological patrimony in coordination with cultural regional institutions. MUNA is conceived as a new Andean “kancha”, an infrastructure that integrates both ancient and contemporary landscapes; the Museum inscribes a flexible 126m by 126m quadrangular with a large interior void; a clear and compact volume in the existing arid hollow of this specific desert landscape. The intervention stabilizes and restores a degraded and vulnerable site by occupying a previously excavated area. This creates a public space between the Museum and the surrounding dunes without touching them or surpassing them in height. The general siting is non-hierarchical and treats all the orientations of the infrastructure equally: the four elevated outdoor platforms relate to the Archaeological Sanctuary of Pachacamac, the Site Museum, the Pacific, the Urpiwachak lagoon, the agricultural landscape, the desert tablazo, as well as the developing urbanizations of Julio C. Tello and Villa El Salvador.