Casa Wabi & Meridiano

What Casa Wabi and Meridiano are

Casa Wabi and Meridiano are two art spaces on the same stretch of Pacific coast at Punta Pájaros, about 27 km west of Puerto Escondido on the highway to Pinotepa Nacional. Together with a handful of boutique hotels and one Japanese restaurant they form a small cluster of Japanese-influenced architecture in the middle of the Oaxacan scrub, 30 minutes from town.

Fundación Casa Wabi is a non-profit art foundation created by the Mexican painter and sculptor Bosco Sodi. It opened in October 2014 in a building designed by the Japanese architect Tadao Ando: a 312-metre concrete wall running parallel to the beach, with open studios, six bungalows for artists in residence, a 450-square-metre exhibition gallery, a screening room and a large palapa (thatched pavilion). The name comes from wabi-sabi, the Japanese idea of finding beauty in the simple and the imperfect. The foundation runs residencies for artists from around the world and works with 14 communities along the coast through clay workshops, a film programme and a mobile library built with the Fundación Alfredo Harp Helú Oaxaca. It also has spaces in Mexico City, Casa Wabi Sabino, and in Tokyo, Casa Nano.

Meridiano is a private gallery a few hundred metres away, opened in February 2023. It was conceived by Nicholas Olney, president of the Kasmin gallery in New York, and Boris Vervoordt, director of the Axel Vervoordt Gallery in Antwerp, and designed by Axel Vervoordt with the Japanese architect Tatsuro Miki. It is a single trapezoidal building of rough local stone laid without cement, split into two rooms by an inner wall, each open to the sky in a different way, with a round visitor centre beside it. It shows two long-form exhibitions a year, usually a single artist with monumental work.

Who is behind it

Bosco Sodi is a Mexico City-born artist based mainly in Brooklyn, known for thick, cracked monochrome paintings and clay sculptures, and he funds Casa Wabi’s operation himself. He invited Tadao Ando to design the headquarters and later commissioned pavilions from other architects: a clay pavilion for children’s workshops by Álvaro Siza, a chimney tower and ceramic kiln plus the landscape planting by Alberto Kalach, a charred-wood chicken coop by Kengo Kuma, a nursery for endangered guayacán trees by Ambrosi Etchegaray, and a composting pavilion by Gloria Cabral and Solano Benítez.

Axel Vervoordt is the Belgian antiques dealer, designer and gallerist whose wabi interiors made him a name in the design world; his best-known residential project is the near-empty white house of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian in Hidden Hills, California. His son Boris runs the family gallery and co-founded Meridiano after Sodi introduced him to the site.

Press

• Dezeen: coverage of Tadao Ando’s Casa Wabi (January 2016) and of the Meridiano gallery by Axel Vervoordt and Tatsuro Miki (July 2024).
• Galerie Magazine: profile of Meridiano as a sacred space on the Oaxacan coast (April 2025).
• Wallpaper: interview with Bosco Sodi on Casa Wabi’s inclusivity and imperfection.
• Domus: feature on the Casa Wabi Foundation at its opening (October 2014).
• ArtReview: Casa Wabi runs the Fundación Casa Wabi x ArtReview open-call residency prize for 2026 to 2027.

How the visit works

The two sites work in opposite ways, so plan them as one trip with two rules.

Casa Wabi

• Tour only. There is no free wandering. Tours leave at set times, last 1.5 to 2 hours, and are led by a foundation guide.
• Tour times: Monday to Friday at 10:00, 12:00 and 16:00; Saturday and Sunday at 10:00, 12:00 and 14:00.
• Route: the Ando wall and open studios, the gallery, the gardens, and the architect-designed pavilions, on unpaved paths. Artists’ studios, the pool and the bedrooms are closed to visitors.
• Exhibition in 2026: Richard Long, From Popocatépetl to the Pacific, 31 January 2026 to 3 January 2027. The previous show was Chiharu Shiota, The World Is Yours, February 2025 to January 2026.

Meridiano

• Free and unguided. Walk in during opening hours, Wednesday to Sunday, 11:00 to 15:00.
• One artist at a time. The 2026 programme opened with Izumi Kato, January to June 2026. Past shows were Kimsooja (2023), Gabriel Chaile (2023 to 2024), Joel Shapiro (2024) and Ximena Garrido-Lecca (2025).
• Small. Two stone rooms and a courtyard. Allow 20 to 30 minutes.

What I saw

I took the Casa Wabi tour in July 2026. The concrete building is the reason to go: the long wall, the palapa and the way the studios open straight onto the beach. I expected more art on the route than there was, since much of the foundation’s work happens in the residencies and community programmes you do not see. Meridiano was the surprise of the day: tiny, but I liked it, and the stone rooms suit the large single works they show. Next door is Kakurega Omakase, the Japanese counter I filmed on a separate evening.

What it costs

Item	Price
Casa Wabi guided tour, general admission (website, 2026)	600 MXN, about 32 USD
Casa Wabi guided tour, price quoted to me in July 2026	700 MXN, about 38 USD
Casa Wabi, Mexican students, teachers, INAPAM	50 percent off
Casa Wabi, children under 12 and Oaxaca residents with ID	Free
Meridiano admission	Free

Transport is the other cost. A taxi from Puerto Escondido with waiting time is a negotiated fare; a day trip with private transport from a local operator is priced per group on top of the 600 MXN entry paid to the foundation. Casa Wabi describes the fee as a donation that funds its community programmes.

How to book

• Casa Wabi: reserve through the Calendly link on casawabi.org, under Visit. Choose the date and tour time; the confirmation email is your ticket. In high season, December to April, tours can be full from a day to several weeks ahead. Instagram: @casawabi.
• Meridiano: no booking. Wednesday to Sunday, 11:00 to 15:00. Email info@meridiano.art or check @meridiano.art for the current exhibition.
• Combine them: the 10:00 or 12:00 Casa Wabi tour followed by Meridiano before it closes at 15:00 is the practical sequence, since Meridiano does not open before 11:00.

Getting there

• Address: Carretera Federal Salina Cruz - Santiago Pinotepa Nacional Km 113, 71847 Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca. Meridiano lists the same kilometre marker.
• From Puerto Escondido: about 27 km west along Highway 200, 30 minutes by car. The airport is on the same side of town, so the drive from there is also about 30 minutes.
• The turn-off: a dirt track leaves the highway at the Km 113 marker and runs towards the sea. Map apps find the gate, but the highway itself has potholes and the last stretch is unpaved, so allow extra time in the rainy season.
• Public transport: none to the gate. Colectivos along the highway can drop you at the turn-off, which leaves a long walk in the heat; a taxi with waiting time is the usual solution.
• Parking: at the reception building.

Before you go

• Book Casa Wabi first, then plan the day. The tour time fixes everything else.
• Dress rules. No swimwear and no going shirtless on the Casa Wabi tour. Closed shoes help on the unpaved paths.
• Sun and heat. The tour is largely outdoors; bring a hat, water and sunscreen. The 12:00 slot is the hottest.
• No drones, no commercial photography, no pets, no touching the works. Personal photos are fine.
• Kids. Children under 12 enter Casa Wabi free, but two hours of walking in the heat is a lot for small ones.
• Cash. Card readers exist, but signal on this stretch of coast drops. Carry pesos for the taxi and the entry fee.
• Make it a dinner. Kakurega Omakase is next to Meridiano; it is reservation and prepayment only, so book it separately if you want to end the day there.
• Check the hours before you go. The hours on this page come from the venue’s public listings, which drift, so confirm on Google Maps or the venue’s own channels before a special trip.

Watch the visit

The reel above walks through both spaces in a few minutes. For the rest of the coast, open my Puerto Escondido map or browse the full list of Puerto Escondido recommendations.