Frida Escobedo to Bury MALBA's Expansion Beneath Buenos Aires Plaza

Buenos Aires' Museum of Latin American Art (MALBA) will double its exhibition space by building a new wing beneath Plaza Perú. The museum confirmed the project during its 25th-anniversary celebrations and named New York- and Mexico City-based Taller Frida Escobedo as architect. The firm presented the scheme at the anniversary gala.

Escobedo's studio brings serious institutional credentials to the commission. It is currently developing the renovation of the Centre Pompidou in the team led by Moreau Kusunoki, as well as a new wing of the Met Museum in New York.

The MALBA program includes new temporary exhibition halls, an auditorium, multipurpose spaces, an outdoor plaza-courtyard, workshops, storage areas, and offices. Opening is scheduled for late 2029 or early 2030.

The expansion answers a concrete institutional pressure: the recent addition of the Daros Latinamerica Collection, which brings Latin American art from the second half of the twentieth century alongside contemporary work. But the studio treats the commission as more than added square meters. Its narrative begins with the museum's own history — "a collection that became an institution, an institution that progressively expanded to include film, literature, education, and public programs." The new objective, stated on the occasion of the 25th anniversary, is to transform the museum's relationship with the city by changing the way the building is visited and inhabited.

Going underground solves a problem the current building has never resolved. According to the studio, the existing museum does not have a carefully crafted relationship with its immediate urban surroundings. Building beneath Plaza República del Perú allows MALBA to gain a new urban dimension without reducing the park's area, while culturally activating the plaza itself.

The intervention begins by clearing the building's center, which is currently constrained by the intensity and diversity of the museum's uses. The space extends downward into the subsoil, connecting the existing building with the extension and freeing the central space for gathering, circulation, and display. The design aims to create a common thread between the museum's different cultural activities: the new exhibition halls will coexist with spaces specifically designed for film, literature, education, and public programs.

The entire perimeter of the building will also be transformed to open up relationships with the street. A new sculpture garden, the central courtyard, new entrances, and connections with Plaza República del Perú will allow visitors to approach the museum from different directions, linking the existing building, the expansion, and the park.

The auditorium and multipurpose spaces add operational flexibility. Visitors can reach them along a continuous path, or the spaces can operate independently — allowing a screening, a talk, an educational activity, or an event to take place simultaneously or outside regular opening hours, broadening the museum's offerings to the city.

The project joins a wave of museum announcements elsewhere. The Fondation Beyeler in Riehen, Switzerland, is extending Renzo Piano's existing museum with three new buildings by Peter Zumthor. Earlier this week, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, designed by MAD Architects, opened to the public in Los Angeles. And in Copenhagen, Danish practice AART won the international competition for Rigets Skatkammer (The Royal Treasury), a 1,300-square-meter underground extension to the museum at Rosenborg Castle — another sign that building beneath the ground has become a viable strategy for institutions that cannot, or will not, expand outward.