The Modern Art Museum of Medellin / MAMM (Medellin, Colombia) has just opened to the public a major extension more than doubling its size by adding 7000 sq. meters to the existing 3000sq., a refurbished steel factory.

The new building -developed by 51-1 (Peru) with Ctrl G (Colombia)- is distributed over 5 stories. Besides new art gallery spaces, it houses laboratories, storage, offices, shops, cafes and a 250-seat theater that can open up its stage entirely to face the square for larger crowd performances.

The overall schemme was conceived as a vertical neighborhood, stacking the required programs to provide a cascade of public terraces connected by stairs. This arrangement allows for traditional inclosed white-box gallery spaces, as well as open and more flexible areas for new forms of art display, and -more importantly- for the simultaneous usage of an internal (ticket-paying) museum circulation, and an external unrestricted public route, that elevates from the adjacent square into new vantage points to view the city and enjoying its year-long spring climate outdoors.

This project is the result of an international competition held in 2009. Fifteen international architects offices were invited to team up with colombian colleagues to submit entries.