{"id":632,"date":"2021-08-29T07:48:54","date_gmt":"2021-08-29T11:48:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/bigmap\/blog\/?p=632"},"modified":"2021-08-29T07:48:54","modified_gmt":"2021-08-29T11:48:54","slug":"soumaya-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/bigmap\/blog\/2021\/08\/29\/soumaya-museum\/","title":{"rendered":"Soumaya Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The striking curves of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/bigmap\/outoftown\/mexico\/cdmx\/polanco\/museosoumaya\/index.htm\">Museo Soumaya<\/a> defy cameras &#8212; nothing is perfectly upright and the Guggenheim-esque ramps seem to keep you constantly off-balance. From the exterior, the asymmetrical building makes you shift your focus regardless of where you look:<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/bigmap\/outoftown\/mexico\/cdmx\/polanco\/museosoumaya\/0308-25-21.jpg\" alt=\"Museo Soumaya, Nuevo Polanco, Mexico City\/Ciudad de M&eacute;xico, Mexico, August 25, 2021\"><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/bigmap\/outoftown\/mexico\/cdmx\/polanco\/museosoumaya\/0508-25-21.jpg\" alt=\"Museo Soumaya, Nuevo Polanco, Mexico City\/Ciudad de M&eacute;xico, Mexico, August 25, 2021\"><\/p>\n<p>The inside is even more unmooring:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/bigmap\/outoftown\/mexico\/cdmx\/polanco\/museosoumaya\/0808-25-21.jpg\" alt=\"Museo Soumaya, Nuevo Polanco, Mexico City\/Ciudad de M&eacute;xico, Mexico, August 25, 2021\"><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s an interesting building and part of me wonders whether the architectural concept behind it was to play off of the name: thinking the Lebanese &#8220;Soumaya&#8221; is sort of unusual in Mexico with its extra vowels and curvaceous &#8220;S&#8221; and &#8220;Y&#8221; in there. (Not really appropriate, but I was reminded of the first lines of <em>Lolita<\/em>: &#8220;Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue, taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.&#8221;)<\/p>\n<p>The sculpture farm at the top of the building also defies cameras:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/bigmap\/outoftown\/mexico\/cdmx\/polanco\/museosoumaya\/1208-25-21.jpg\" alt=\"Museo Soumaya, Nuevo Polanco, Mexico City\/Ciudad de M&eacute;xico, Mexico, August 25, 2021\"><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s insane how many Rodins are in there! And this place is FREE! Harks back to the nineteenth-century US public-minded benefactors of some of our major cultural institutions: Frick, Morgan, Mellon, Carnegie, et al.<\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere, paintings stand unadorned by walls:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/bigmap\/outoftown\/mexico\/cdmx\/polanco\/museosoumaya\/3308-25-21.jpg\" alt=\"Museo Soumaya, Nuevo Polanco, Mexico City\/Ciudad de M&eacute;xico, Mexico, August 25, 2021\"><\/p>\n<p>The museum at times feels otherworldly, like something from a science fiction film:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/bigmap\/outoftown\/mexico\/cdmx\/polanco\/museosoumaya\/4908-25-21.jpg\" alt=\"Museo Soumaya, Nuevo Polanco, Mexico City\/Ciudad de M&eacute;xico, Mexico, August 25, 2021\"><\/p>\n<p>And then there&#8217;s phones:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/bigmap\/outoftown\/mexico\/cdmx\/polanco\/museosoumaya\/5208-25-21.jpg\" alt=\"Museo Soumaya, Nuevo Polanco, Mexico City\/Ciudad de M&eacute;xico, Mexico, August 25, 2021\"><\/p>\n<p>I was intrigued by the footprint:<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/bigmap\/outoftown\/mexico\/cdmx\/polanco\/museosoumaya\/6708-25-21.jpg\" alt=\"Museo Soumaya, Nuevo Polanco, Mexico City\/Ciudad de M&eacute;xico, Mexico, August 25, 2021\"><\/p>\n<p>. . . and obviously you can&#8217;t beat the price:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/bigmap\/outoftown\/mexico\/cdmx\/polanco\/museosoumaya\/7708-25-21.jpg\" alt=\"Museo Soumaya, Nuevo Polanco, Mexico City\/Ciudad de M&eacute;xico, Mexico, August 25, 2021\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The striking curves of Museo Soumaya defy cameras &#8212; nothing is perfectly upright and the Guggenheim-esque ramps seem to keep you constantly off-balance. From the exterior, the asymmetrical building makes you shift your focus regardless of where you look: The inside is even more unmooring: It&#8217;s an interesting building and part of me wonders whether [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-out_of_town"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/bigmap\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/bigmap\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/bigmap\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/bigmap\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/bigmap\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/bigmap\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":641,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/bigmap\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632\/revisions\/641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/bigmap\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/bigmap\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/bigmap\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}