Description

In Guadalajara, Mexico’s second largest city, a large-scale architectural project, unique on a global level, is being executed – the JVC Centre. The entrepreneur Jorge Vergara Madrigal invited internationally renowned architects to erect a completely new district from the ground up on a green meadow of 240 hectares. According to him, the visionary concept of the JVC Cultural, Convention and Business Centre thereby serves to foster culture and the revival of Guadalajara, once a flourishing colonial city. The clever and exceedingly successful direct marketing concept for Omnilife health products has enabled its founder, Vergara, to finance the mammoth project himself. With its congress centre and the service and entertainment facilities that go with it, he hopes to fill a gap in the market. Only two hours by air from Dallas and designed to accommodate up to 400,000 visitors per day, it will attract both American and Mexican organisers. The office buildings required for the management and organisation, designed by Jean Nouvel, are as visionary as the total project. They resemble a holiday camp environment more than offices and demonstrate a potential aesthetic and programmatic interconnection between the workplaces and the park.

A close relation to the landscape and the principles of sustainable development laid down by Vergara were given priority by all the participating architects when they worked out the layout for the whole. For his design Jean Nouvel made good use of the idyllic position at the edge of the woods and of Mexico’s dry, sunny climate. An open ‘office landscape’ consisting of individual modules develops, under a broadly spanning ‘roof,’ as an enormous metal grating. The plan of the modules themselves is as simple as they are in form; capable of being used flexibly, they are reminiscent of pueblos widely scattered across the landscape. Paths and waterways, courtyards and patios create places where workers can meet and get together, places were they can talk among themselves or just relax. The roof, a horizontal brise-soleil resting on slender, round steel columns has the effect of a filter, giving protection from Mexico’s hot sun, but letting enough light and air in to create a comfortable environment. Tall palms and dense plantings contribute to further improvement of the climate and blur the boundaries between inside and outside, so that the building melts into its natural surroundings.

The JVC Centre is an urban park with mutually beneficial cultural, business and leisure amenities, in which Omnilife Corporation’s office buildings seamlessly take their place. Jean Nouvel’s light and transient forms harmoniously become a part of the landscape and foster community spirit.

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Originally published in: Rainer Hascher, Simone Jeska, Birgit Klauck, Office Buildings: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2002.