Following the retirement of its head curator, Gloria Zea, who held the title for 47 years, Bogota’s Museum of Modern Art (MamBo) has made a few changes, including a facelift. With Claudia Hakim at the helm, and its recent renovation, the city’s main purveyor of modern art has opened itself up even more to the public, taking inspiration from New York’s New Museum and the MOMA.

Under the direction of MamBo head architect Laura Aparicio in collaboration with Studio Manrique and construction by Andrés Manrique Arquitectos, the first goal of the renovation was to reopen the original entrance to the museum, providing access to the nearby Parque Bicentenario, today one of the city’s greatest landmarks.

Next, the entire first floor was revamped, moving the reception to the side to permit a more spacious interior, and reopening the original large windows in order to allow more light to enter, while permitting increased visibility from the exterior. To further reproduce a sensation of openness, the long, dividing wall that separated the lobby from the gift shop was removed.

Meanwhile the gift shop maintains its original location while growing amply in size and developing a new image to boost sales.

A new wall of perforated acermetálica aluminum was created for this space, providing a lighter divider, in tandem with corian modular shelving that echoes the flexibility and modernism of the space. mambogota.com