Page 56 - STRATEGY Magazine (G)

SPECIAL FEATURE
The museum’s open interior calls to mind a sacred cenote, or sinkhole, where the Maya gathered their water.
The museum’s entrance seamlessly integrates the surrounding plaza into the building’s interior.
“At first glance, the building appears to be a contem- porary expression of Maya architectural elements,” says Swiss-based lead architect Harry Gugger. “It forms a monolithic box perched atop blocks of stone, as if float- ing above the ground. On closer inspection, a pattern of staggered stone screens is punctuated by over-scaled loggias that draw light into the building and offer glimps- es inside.”
To facilitate maximum interaction with the site, the ground floor is almost entirely open, while the galleries reside within the floating box, connected to the lower lev- els by stairs that climb around a lofty central courtyard. “The central court evokes the cenote, a type of natural sinkhole characteristic of the Yucatan and held sacred by the Maya,” explains architect Roberto de Oliveira Castro, of Boston firm over,under. “Open to the sky and lushly planted, the eight-story cenote functions as the heart of the museum, its displays, and its activities.”
BRINGING THE PAST TO LIFE
As part of MUMA’s mission to safeguard the archeolog- ical and ethnographic treasures of Guatemala, the foun- dation has offered to donate a space within the building to the remarkable collection of the Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología de Guatemala (MUNAE), an important public institution that will continue in its own right. In addition, Fundación Ruta Maya, whose objec- tive is to support the rescue, conservation, and pres- ervation of Guatemalan cultural values, has offered to donate its collection to the museum.
In creating MUMA, Guatemala seeks to position itself as a global leader in the development and dissemination of culture and art and as a role model for innovative muse- ums. MUMA’s collection will include articles for display as well as study, and the facility itself will incorporate areas specially designed for conservation, study, and restoration. Beyond the exhibition space, MUMA will of- fer meeting and conference facilities, reception areas, a planetarium, dining areas featuring traditional cuisine, a public library, hands-on corners, and an open space for sacred rituals.
The hope is that this unique facility will attract the return of treasures that have left the country and draw interna- tional traveling exhibitions, like Egypt’s King Tutankha- mun, from other ancient cultures. The museum will work with institutions throughout the world, sharing the legacy of a great civilization and participating in the global ex- change of art and culture.
Given ongoing global interest in the Maya, and accord- ing to economists working with the Fundación Museo Maya de América (fMUMA), the foundation conserva- tively projects that MUMA will attract nearly 430,000 ad- ditional tourists to Guatemala annually, a 21.7 percent
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