Landscape Information
Located adjacent to Paquimé, the most significant pre-Columbian archeological site in northern Mexico dating to ca. 700 CE, this .62-acre museum is set in an expansive desert basin with panoramic views toward the Sierra Madre Occidental. The National Institute of Anthropology and History engaged Mario Schjetnan and Grupo de Diseño Urbano (GDU) in 1995 to design both the museum and its setting at Paquimé’s far, northeastern edge. The goal was to present artifacts, interpret the site, and explain research and preservation strategies.
Minimizing its visual impact on the site and providing shelter from climatic extremes, Schjetnan served as architect and landscape architect partially burying the building, and surrounding it with a curvilinear edged berm. Intended to evoke archaeological remains, particularly kivas, the Museum of the Northern Culture, Paquimé (Museo de las Culturas del Norte, Paquimé) is organized around a central, circular, stone-clad patio that features a stepped watercourse animating the space and emptying into an angular pool. The museum’s exterior walls cast shadows that echo the distant mountains and meld with the colors and textures of the desert: curved surfaces are faced in local, rust-brown, volcanic stone and planar elements are made of buff-colored concrete.
The museum’s entrance is anchored by a parking court and reached via a sloping plaza paved with ochre flagstones, visually uniting it with the setting. The plaza is edged with zigzag planting beds and a ramp that leads to an observation deck. At the core of the building, exhibition spaces surround the central patio. From this patio, a curved staircase provides access to the observation deck, paved with brick, and edged by low, sinuous walls, echoing the footprint of the berm. A trio of smaller patios—circular, triangular, and rectangular—are each planted with species that evoke distinct regional habitats. The rectangular one suggests an arroyo, framing distant views of the UNESCO World Heritage Site that was designated in 1998.
