A Museum Built like a Stepped Pyramid Coming Up in Mexico

A new research museum is coming up on the edge of tropical rainforets in southern Mexico. Called Xinatii, it is being designed in the form of a stepped-pyramid form. 

The project has been commissioned by the Mexican art collector Fernanda Ra&iacutez's non-profit organisation Fundaci&oacuten Ra&iacutez.&nbspStudio Viktor S&oslashrless has been commissioned to design a main building.&nbspThe team is hellbent on proving how museums are not only a display of power but also art with culture and nature here and there.

The word xinatli, meaning, &ldquothe moment when a seed germinates and opens out into life-giving form&rdquo is derived from a Nahua word.&nbspNahua relates to the Middle American Indian population of central Mexico of which the Aztecs are probably the best known members.

Tthe museum is set to educate and create awareness on how art, science and humans have the ability to coexist peacefully in the 21st century.

The design as a step pyramid is meant to diminish the divide between the rich and the poor. The stepped pyramid is prevalent in many cultures of Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America. The research museum is inspired by the Mesoamerican culture through Olmec, Maya and Aztecs.

Located in the reforested Mexico tropical forest, the museum aims to recover the 90 hectare area that was used as a ground for illegal logging. The team will use sisal fibres and chukum resin handcrafted by the locals to keep the structure up and simultaneously help in maintaining ecological balance according to the weather conditions in the forest.

The design for rainwater harvesting has a stone stack from the top till the end of the structure. The thought behind it is - as the rainwater falls onto the carved letters, it washes away the injustice against the  indegenous people by conquistadors.

The structure stands as tall as the trees when it ascends from the lowest to the widest platform and opens ups in the centre. When visitors and tourists turn their head to see the building, it&rsquos on an eye to eye level and the free view is a symbolisation of nature and organisms coexisting as one.