The winning design for a new National Museum of Ecuador (MuNA) in Quito has met with criticism among detractors who deride its minimalist aesthetic and claim it clashes with the culture of the country.
“A heritage that tells our Andean, Amazonian, coastal, and insular history cannot be contained within a structure that emulates the homogeneity of high-rise corporate real estate projects,” reads an online petition that has been signed by more than 20,000 people. “The design must breathe Ecuador, energize local culture, and be a landmark of community ownership, not a monument to concrete.”
The design by Studio Campo Baeza, an architecture firm based in Madrid, and the Ecuadorian firm MAODA was selected after a competition overseen by Ecuador’s Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture that included 148 applicants from some 20 countries. But “debate over the chosen design has raised questions about architecture, heritage, memory, and the institutional management of a project that is key to the country’s cultural sector,” as Expreso reported in a story about the resignation of Romina Muñoz from Ecuador’s Vice Ministry of Culture just three days after the competition results were made known.
After Muñoz stepped down, Carlos Eduardo Montalvo Puente also resigned from his post as the executive director of MuNA, which is slated to begin construction of its new $100 million home in Quito’s La Carolina Park next year.
But the petition launched on Change.org calls for a reconsideration. “While we recognize the urgency of providing the country with an adequate space to house the 1.4 million heritage assets that remain hidden today, a budget of such magnitude cannot be used to erect a block alien to the reality and identity of the territory,” it reads. “Therefore, we urgently call upon the competent authorities to order an immediate re-evaluation of the winning proposal.”
