The result has been a beautiful museum piece that takes advantage of the fantastic views generated by the abrupt topography while solving important problems such as lack of connections and access.
Description of the project by Barclay & Crousse Architects
The Place of Memory opened its public spaces and theatreon June 2015, four years after the Commission for Truth, leaded by Nobel prized Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, launched in 2010 a national architecture competition to build a place for reconciliation of Peruvians. Some 35 years ago, terrorist movement Shining Path initiated a twenty-year long bloody conflict that left more than seventy thousand dead, and wounds are still open in Peruvian society.
The jury was conformed by Kenneth Frampton, Rafael Moneo, Francesco dal Co, Wiley Ludeña and José G Bryce. The project by Barclay & Crousse was chosen among 98 other submissions.
This center houses a theater and auditorium, a research center and study area, temporary and permanent exhibition spaces, and related services.
Works begun in 2011 in a donated site, at the edge of the cliff that defines the bay of Lima. Without any government funding at the first stage of building process, the Place of Memory was made possible by economic aid mainly from the German government, but also by European Union and Swedish government. Funding and construction has been supervised and organized by the United Nations Development Programme, and will be administrated by the Peruvian Ministry of Culture.
The project is carefully inserted into the dynamic of cliffs and ravines that ring the bay of Lima, attempting to merge with landscape by following the same territorial logic that characterizes its waterfront. By doing this, the building evokes memory in a much broader significance: the memory of landscape in its physical configuration and materiality, rather than dealing only with violence and political memory.
The building emerges from an open esplanade that is freely accessible to citizens, which was designed as an echo of the pre-Columbian system of terraces and fields to deal with sloped geography. These terraces connect the entrances to the various elements of the center, which can be used independently.
Visitors reach the building by a walkway that takes them away from the city and their daily lives and leads them through the space between the cliff and the structure, following the natural ravines that connect the plateau of Lima to the Pacific Ocean, at the foot of the cliffs. This path continues throughout the visit to the exhibitions via a system of ramps that ends at the roof deck, where one can begin the return journey to the city. Environmental responsibility is made possible by the use of simple architectural devices are used to provide temperature, light and acoustic control while ensuring more efficient water and energy consumption.
