Museo Soumaya Has a Secret

Museo Soumaya has a Secret By Free-style structure, invisible now, made its unique façade a reality. Denise Allen Zwicker The new Museo Soumaya in Mexico City has been described as “dazzling,” “a trapezoid in motion,” “a shiny silver cloud-like structure reminiscent of a Rodin sculpture,” and “the world’s flashiest museum.” Designed by maverick young architect Fernando Romero, it also was called “impossible to build.” The façade, in particular, presented huge challenges. If anyone could make it happen, it was owner Carlos Slim Helú, the world’s wealthiest man. Slim constructed the museum in 2008-2011 as part of the Plaza Carso, his distinctive multi-use development in Mexico City’s Polanco. Slim has noted that, since many Mexicans cannot afford to travel overseas to view art collections, he believed it was important to house a prestigious collection of international art in Mexico. Free to the public, the Soumaya houses more than 60,000 pieces of Our modular process art on six floors that offer 6,000 square meters of exhibition space. The top-floor sculpture garden, dominated by a spectacular skylight, displays numerous Rodins. Museo Soumaya, named for Slim’s makes your building a snap . late wife, also contains a 350-seat auditorium, a public library, a gift shop and a café. Each of the floor plans in the museum is distinct in its shape, and the weight of the building is upheld by a skeleton of 28 curved-steel vertical columns and seven floor slabs that frame the whimsical form. The complex, “impossible to build” façade consists of 16,000 shiny aluminum hexagons that appear architecture.geometrica.com to “float” on its surface, separated by just millimeters from each other. Geometrica proposes a free-style structure At the beginning of 2010, already two years into the three-year construction schedule, the Romero and Gehry team was still searching for a solution. Among several responses to proposal requests, it was the one presented by Houston-based Geometrica, Inc. that met every one of the “impossible” requirements, and was selected for the job in February 2010. The primary structure was not yet complete when Layer after layer, Geometrica’s “spiders” were hung The progression of “spiders” was followed by the Geometrica used its own custom software to design the 10,000 Geometrica’s work began. from the main structure rather than set on the floor. water-proofing systems and the hexagons. m2 façade. To adapt the secondary structure to the real form of the primary one, Geometrica used laser topography to feed the “Impossible” must, in this case, real shape to the reticular structural model, enabling its engineers take a little shorter to modify the GT geometry only in the required locations. This topography and associated design took place in five gradual Fernando Romero retained Gehry Technologies (GT), founded by famed architect Frank This structure is it. (Don’t tell anyone). stages, in tandem with the main construction process. The Gehry, to coordinate the complex 3-D engineering of the building. The firm is known structural components for each stage were only manufactured for its Digital Project™ software, a suite of powerful building-information modeling after the adaptations were fed into Geometrica’s software, which The secret is out... and “in” and management tools. “This software enables engineers to visualize all construction then fed the final work orders into its manufacturing line. The result was amazing. Each element fit just as predicted on the disciplines in one tridimensional model, preventing conflict and allowing real-time computer screen. Today, the museum’s galvanized elements shine, changes,” said Roel Castaño, Geometrica vice president. “Its use permits a structure as Meeting the construction deadline was another serious concern accentuating its playful shape. The façade’s precision makes the arbitrary as this one to be combined with detailed ground-level design, elevator cubes, and required sophisticated logistics. Each of the five stages surface look like snug lace, obscuring the 28 supporting columns. electricity, hydraulics, lighting and even finishes.” Using its software, GT developed most Dance of the manlifts. required independent, detailed engineering not only for fabrication In the finished building, the beautiful, secret, secondary structure of the engineering verification requested by Romero. Yet, even for GT, the façade was a but also for the erection sequence, staged in coordination with cannot be seen beneath the hexagons; it sacrifices its personality daunting challenge. other trades working in the building. Another complicating factor to achieve Romero’s architectural goal. “The Geometrica was that the secondary structure had to be installed without team demonstrated its capabilities in engineering the complex “GT, with its virtual model, demonstrated that it could visualize the hexagons in the right support on the ground, but instead by hanging it from the main envelope-façade and enabling innovative architectural solutions”, position,” noted Castaño. “However, it is not always apparent how to transform the structure. Installation of nearly 100,000 distinct tube parts took said the Architect. graphics into solid construction.” The surface orientation and curvature varied at every place using local, unskilled crews working around the building – point, sometimes minimally, which complicated the design of the façade. This and other and around the clock. A Wall Street Journal article described the result this way: “Encased difficulties made a secondary structure necessary—one based on seemingly impossible in glimmering aluminum, the building rises up 150 feet, before it requirements: Geometrica produced 16,000 galvanized-steel panels, in the canopies like an oversize mushroom thought up by Magritte. The Adapt to the true form of the construction Precisely define the position and orientation shape of rhombuses, to form the deck of the façade. A two-layer façade is a honeycomb of shiny silver hexagons. The structure without significantly changing the spatial of each of thousands of different hexagons. waterproofing membrane was applied on top of these rhombuses. is top-heavy, almost threatening to tip itself over in this city of model created by Gehry Technologies. The structure connectors provided supports for the fittings to earthquakes. Passersby look up, half curious, half concerned.” which the 16,000 aluminum hexagons would attach at their centers, Shape both the exterior and the interior Adapt to variations in structural shape due giving Romero’s desired “floating” look over the building envelope. Passersby perhaps cannot appreciate the paradigm-shattering walls of the museum, which must be to the generous construction tolerances of technology that made this building a reality. However, this “secret” no more than a few millimeters from the the steel and concrete superstructure. structure will enable architects worldwide to play with shapes and column surfaces. forms that seemed impossible before. Today, Museo Soumaya is a reality and the secret is . actually . in. Smooth out any surface irregularities and Design, fabricate and erect on a fast-track, remain continuous from ground to roof as short schedule, simultaneously with the well as all around the entire envelope of construction of the rest of the building. the building..

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