In relation to the city CONECT
A public building must be public. The program and use originally intended for the Palace of Lecumberri were for it to be isolated from the city; it became an introverted building through a rigorous control mechanism that made it turn inwards. This initial condition the building had partially changed with the pass of time, as the city grew, but the program’s original characteristics and the area’s ground subsidence preserved the palace’s isolated and introverted character. When the Palace of Lecumberri became the National Historical Archive, these attributes worked to the building’s new function’s advantage.
Ever since the documents have been moved, to be protected and preserved in this new location, the idea of connecting the Palace and the city has been discussed.
In relation to the existing building CONSOLIDATE
Recovering without falsifying. As a building with historical and architectural value and as an example of the panoptical prison architecture of the 19th century in Mexico City, the features of the ancient Lecumberri Prison can be convenient for a new use by revaluing the building’s original conditions and by recovering them as far as possible—without falsely recreating elements that have already disappeared.
In relation to the program and the new intervention ACTIVATE
Using as most possible and building the least possible. The intervention will reorganize spatially and programmatically the set of buildings that make up the Archivo General de la Nación (National General Archive). Having done that, it will not be necessary to add too many square meters of new construction, even when radically changing the way the building used to serve as a prison. This intervention seeks to utilize the existing spaces and multiply their potential uses at urban level by connecting them to the surrounding areas, offering open public spaces. This allows for different forms of occupation inside and the construction of the different galleries by stages—using the lobby as a nucleus or starting point.