Museo Experimental El Eco
Mathias Goeritz · Mexico City, Mexico · 1953
Mathias Goeritz designed El Eco as an experiment in what he called emotional architecture. Narrow passages, angled walls, changing ceiling heights, intense color and a sharply proportioned courtyard reject neutral functionalism in favor of a deliberately subjective spatial sequence. Architecture and sculpture are inseparable, with surfaces and voids composed to influence movement and perception. Completed in 1953, the small building became disproportionately influential in Mexican architectural culture and remains an important precursor to later work by Barragán and others focused on atmosphere.