A Park on the Ceiling

Building Chicago Avenue Renovation

The founders of Pedro y Juana discuss their inspiration for the Commons, a new public space in the museum.

Ana Paula Ruiz Galindo: Looking a bit at the MCA and its position in Chicago and where it's placed. And we started looking at these Kleihues drawings—Kleihues is the architect of the MCA—and what he had foreseen. And what we really liked was this connection that he made within the public park in the front and this park in the back, that because of the configuration of the entrance it wasn't quite clear. But he had kind of this drawing that was just kind of a park coming through the MCA and going like straight out to the lake. So in thinking about this egalitarian spaces as places that you go and you really feel like, you know, there's no kind of hierarchy or everybody can be happy in a park.

And then we thought about Chicago—and the awful climate you guys have for six months. I mean we're from Mexico City and we are always in pretty mild weather. And so we thought of also an idea of a conservatory or a winter garden or just making it kind of a park. And this is how this came about. And the only surface that we thought we could actually make it happen was the ceiling.

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