El Mirador

About This Project

El Mirador

Shopping Mall / Quilmes / 2006

(Published in Summa+ Nº85)
In a typical corner, immersed in the traditional city fabric, two houses built in the mid-20th Century have become emblematic of the city: they are part of its collective memory and a symbol of the past.
The project intends to preserve these historical icons while adding a new building whose morphological characteristics will clash with the past, producing a combined statement on the past and the present times.
The project’s singularity lies in the interplay between both buildings, especially significant because of their connection to that part of the city. The past is intervened without fear of change.
The project’s architecture implies a debate on image: superpositions, sequences, transparencies, and lights are its defining characteristics…
“The past ahead of us” is the guiding idea which allowed us to investigate our relationship to history and the possibility of reinventing it, creating a new concept out of an old one. The result is a novel building for the city and its inhabitants.