Mexico City has small, hidden places that are worth knowing. The space of El Eco is small and hidden among the traffic, but the architecture transformed the buliding in a place of contemplation and silence. Emotional Architecture on Sullivan Street almost reaching Insurgentes.
In the old Mexico City there was a lake, then boundary lines of the lakes, then the mountains. Over the centuries the city spread out from the center like a circular web, tracing streets that converge to the center: one of them is Sullivan Street. During the day the street is office workers, microbusers, taxi drivers, taqueros and street vendors; at night the prostitutes take the street.
The quiet space of the Experimental Museum Eco is on Sullivan hidden among trees, and in front of the Monument to the Mother, which is a pleasant park. You can go there for an hour and then wander around the old San Rafael neighborhood.
The Museum is an example of Mexican architecture of the twentieth century. The Architect was Mathias Goeritz, a German genius who was in Mexico in the mid-twentieth century.
«Do whatever you want,» said his mecenas to Mathias Goeritz.
The result is a poetic building that opened in 1953 and has been capricious in its history. It began as an experimental museum to expand the languages of the arts. Then it was a restaurant, a nightclub, a theater, a meeting place for political activities. Like everything else, his life has also been erratic.
In 2004 the National Autonomous University of Mexico bought the building and reopened in 2005. Work was done so that the work of art (the museum building itself) returned to its original state.
Go there and revive the architectural legacy of Goeritz. And the efforts to expand the languages of art. Is worth the visit.
