This project dissolves edge conditions and fosters community engagement through fluid public space and shared ownership. It works upon a semi-derelict site in the UNESCO World Heritage site of Casco Viejo to develop a proposal for a National Centre for Photography, which takes the form of a series of interventions contained within existing building shells. The site is understood as an accumulation of historic traces that have been deposited upon its ‘sensitive surfaces’ in a way akin to the photographic process. This analogy is deepened by the presence of the historic studio of the nineteenth-century Panamanian photographer Carlos Endara, whose work documented the city and its transformations. Other presences include a massive fragment of the wall of the colonial Spanish settlement of San Felipe.
The architectural study proceeded through an investigation of the poetics of marked and layered surfaces, articulating thickened conditions that modulate materials in light and make space for intimate moments in the life of the city and for their photographic display. This extended into the design of the urban surface as a play of banded stone and reflecting pools of water. The study culminated in the construction of a major model that explored this strategy of material layering.
Programmatically, the Centre is concerned with documenting, exhibiting, educating, and archiving heritage in Panama through imagery. It provides skills exchanges, galleries, workshops, and temporary accommodation to offer a broad understanding of culture. Starting with the end users, this project engages with Panama’s living heritage, because ‘Sin Habitantes No Hay Patrimonio’.
