Foro Boca Concert Hall | Mexico | 2017

[Rojkind Arquitectos]

During recent years there has been an increased enrichment of musical and cultural life in Boca del Rio, Veracruz. In 2014, the Boca del Rio Philharmonic Orchestra was formed, and through its performances, it has attracted diverse musical expressions, as well as local and foreign musicians, making it the heart of cultural life in the city.

The philharmonic orchestra is unique not only in Mexico, but also worldwide through three lines of action: a yearly season of Orchestral Concerts; monthly Chamber Music performances; and an after-school social development program for low-income children named “Orquestando Armonia”. This program focuses on choral and orchestral education fostering values and a sense of excellence for the children and the community. The dynamics and activities of the orchestra have had a successful social and cultural impact, emphasizing the need for a new social space to serve as the new home for the orchestra and its programs.

Foro Boca fits within a master plan that seeks to revitalize an urban area that is currently deteriorated. It is located in the estuary of the river, a location that not only names the locality but also has a rich history and culinary tradition. The site is located beside the breakwater dividing the river and the sea, at the end of the Coastal Avenue Vicente Fox, and at the convergence point with Avenue Zamora, where all the local restaurants are lined up.

Foro Boca’s location is intended to articulate the dynamics of the central part of the city with the Coastal Avenue, and aims to function as an urban detonator capable of inciting modernity in the area. The forum itself is a tool that has permitted the reconstruction and renovation of the infrastructure and urban image of this part of the city. The building appropriates the timeless expression of the concretes cubes formed by ripraps in the breakwater. It reinterprets them, creating a building formed by a series of exposed concrete volumes arranged randomly, containing the concert hall. Text description by the architect.