A great striped wood wall and a crispy travertine marble floor, a very mid-sixties modern Mexican style, are the frame for the striped arched windows, that fill the room with natural light.
The site, a 3800 sqr ft penthouse on Masaryk Avenue, in Polanco. The most important avenue in the most expensive neighborhood in Mexico City, famous for being the center of the city’s vanguard.
The lobby, with a retro vibe that is felt instantly, is the preamble for this space full of contrasts. Metallic walls in a golden tone complement the scene, where a striped travertine marble desk, is framed by some plants and crowned by three spheric lamps, that make us travel to the past, without losing our awareness for the present.
On one side, two doors that resemble a bank vault, guard the principal office and the meeting room, both of dark striped wood walls, that contrast with the sharpness of the vein on the travertine marble floor and a terrace full of selected plants that work as a filter against the dynamism of the streets below.
On the other side, a striped glass door opens to the main work area, with a big carrara marble table at the center, where work is dedicated to the financial market, the ceiling is designed to support a structure for six screens that broadcast financial news all day long. Three structural columns are topped by illuminated circular lamps, giving the sensation of being floating in the air.
Here, golden arches remark in a subtle and conceptual way, the relation of the metal value, with the vocation of the office themselves. Behind this arches, on one side of this room, are three private offices, each one with a desk made of a carrara marble top and a green lacquered metal base, that get lightened by a brass bar that floats over them; this can be seen through the striped glass, that gives privacy, but lets light to do its work and shoot highlights through all the space.
Two meeting rooms, with big marble tables, equipped with tv screens and all the necessary to work on site or from distance, are waiting for the action. Divided by folding glass doors, this rooms have the capacity to connect between them, to form one big room.
At the back you can find the dining room, with the same capacity of a meeting room. The kitchen and services are more discrete although they all share some details, as in all the office area, like curved corners and tall wood baseboards.
Furniture design, defined the space entirely, all the tables and desks were designed to solve the client’s needs. Lightning achieves a cozy and domestic feel, ambient oriented but very punctual where it is needed, creating contrasts and shadows, because of the smart selection of materials and the visual effects that can be done with its textures.
The project reenacts the aesthetics of the revival of the financial markets in Mexico. A proposal that reimagines objects, materials and formal details which we grew up with. Lamps, chairs or tables and certain furniture that was only possible to see, if you were able to visit your dad or grandpa at their office, or at some banks or official buildings of that time.
Marble, wood and metal are the principal elements of this proposal and light the catalyst, the coat that wraps and gives its materiality to each object and form, letting them blend in contemporary design in a timeless eclecticism.