A sculptural library of mineral delights
In the heart of Mexico City, this spatial composition functions as both sanctuary and playground, a brutalist library and sculptural atelier where the joy of material tactility meets the discipline of spatial restraint, articulating an architecture of elemental delight where cast concrete, volcanic stone and polished wood coexist without tension, generating an atmosphere that is at once minimalist and exuberantly sensual; the main interior, illuminated by a diffuse zenithal light, is a cavernous salon where bookshelves rise like cliffs, and rough concrete planes float above a stepped agora populated by enigmatic figures, evoking a premodern metaphysics reinterpreted through modernist grammar, and each sculpture—whether a smoothed head, a faceted volume or a raw timber form—acts as a material punctuation, orchestrating a silent rhythm of scale and contrast, and outside, the gravel patio becomes an extension of this poetics, where joy is encoded in texture and form, in the tactility of lava stone chairs and the red stone monoliths that flirt with abstraction yet remain grounded in archetype; rather than a gallery, this is a lived-in constellation of objects and volumes that suggest a slow, bodily interaction with space, one where aesthetic pleasure is derived not from ornament or spectacle but from the intimate encounter with proportion, density and light, forming a coherent atmosphere that embodies both retreat and resonance, learning and contemplation, play and permanence.
