Project by Sebastian Suarez
This project proposes a contemporary Arab American museum conceived as an architecture of movement, exchange, and cultural continuity. Drawing from the history of Arab American peddlers—whose livelihoods depended on mobility, trade, and connection—the museum translates these networks into a spatial experience. The building is organized into three interrelated components: exhibition, archive, and cultural production. Rather than functioning as isolated programs, these elements intertwine through shifting forms, shared voids, and transitional spaces that emphasize exchange between past and present.
The exhibition spaces braid historical narratives with contemporary artistic responses, allowing visitors to move fluidly between memory and reinterpretation. The archive is made visible and accessible, reframing storage as an active, living process. Cultural production spaces—including studios, markets, learning environments, and event areas—extend the museum beyond display, positioning it as a site of ongoing creation and community engagement. Together, the architecture invites visitors to experience Arab American culture not as a fixed history, but as a living network continually shaped through movement, making, and participation.
