Fabrications

The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and

New Zealand

ISSN: 1033-1867 (Print) 2164-4756 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rfab20

Tropical Dissidence: The Creation of the School of

Architecture of the University of Costa Rica at the
Department of Development and Tropical Studies

Natalia Solano-Meza

To cite this article: Natalia Solano-Meza (2017) Tropical Dissidence: The Creation of the School
of Architecture of the University of Costa Rica at the Department of Development and Tropical
Studies, Fabrications, 27:2, 177-199, DOI: 10.1080/10331867.2017.1297065

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Fabrications, 2017
VOL. 27, NO. 2, 177–199
https://doi.org/10.1080/10331867.2017.1297065

Tropical Dissidence: The Creation of the School of

Architecture of the University of Costa Rica at the
Department of Development and Tropical Studies
Natalia Solano-Mezaa,b 
a
Faculty of Architecture, University of Porto, Oporto, Portugal; bOffice of International Affairs and
External Cooperation, University of Costa Rica, University of Rodrigo Facio, San José, Costa Rica

ABSTRACT
In 1971, the School of Architecture of the University of Costa Rica ARQUIS opened with
an experimental programme that claimed that “the better the education, the more
unpredictable the results.”The programme had been partially devised at the Department
of Tropical Studies of the Architectural Association by three Costa Rican architects: Felo
García, Jorge Bertheau and Edgar Brenes who attended the Department’s Teaching
Methods course in 1970. Upon their return to Costa Rica, the team confronted the
University’s authorities, the expectations of professional organisations such as the Costa
Rican Architects Association and the critiques of their peers in implementing the School’s
programme. This paper explores the process that led to the opening of the School of
Architecture, the role of the Department of Tropical Studies in its creation, its defiant
propositions and the ways it challenged the expectations of the Costa Rican academy
during its opening years. It explores the concept of “tropical dissidence”: the rejection
of inherited European methods – both in teaching and design – and their substitution
with context-observation-based exercises, in the tradition of the Department of Tropical
Studies. The School’s efforts were aimed at obtaining local architectural solutions in
Costa Rica and increasing the participation of architects in national matters. This paper
proposes that the School challenged traditional education to achieve operational
freedom and primal autonomy.

Introduction: Dissidence, Autonomy and the Tropical, a Possible

Framework
The opening of the School of Architecture (ARQUIS) at the Universidad de Costa
Rica’s (UCR) main campus - located in the outskirts of San José, Costa Rica’s capi-
tal – was the result of a ten-year process that involved debates, public discussions
and visits from international consultants. Dr Otto H. Koenigsberger (1908–1999),
director of the Department of Development and Tropical Studies (DDTS) of the
Architectural Association (AA) visited San José, Costa Rica, as an advisor in the
creation of ARQUIS in April, 1970.1 At the end of his visit, he offered five student-
ships for Costa Rican architects to attend the course at the DDTS. Once opened,
ARQUIS was run by architects: Rafael “Felo” García, Jorge Bertheau (1937–), and

CONTACT  Natalia Solano-Meza  [email protected]

© 2017 The Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand
178   N. SOLANO-MEZA

Edgar Brenes (1943–). In London, they partially devised a pedagogical project for
the new school.2 ARQUIS’s early history became inherently linked to the DDTS, its
predecessor, the Department of Tropical Studies (DTS), the narratives of tropical
architecture and the AA’s teaching experiences in tropical countries, namely in
Ghana.3 Once opened, ARQUIS’s pedagogical project was almost immediately
considered dissident, rebellious and scandalous and its first years saw continuous
conflict with the UCR’s authorities. Detractors even claimed that ARQUIS defied
“Costa Rican values.” Why was a pedagogical project for architecture deemed so
challenging; so radical? Why did García, Bertheau and Brenes seek rupture from
tried and tested teaching curricula? Focusing on ARQUIS creation and early years,
this paper explores the origins and specific characteristics of ARQUIS’s project and
how the architects involved in it challenged the role of architects in Costa Rica,
sometimes to a point of dissent. It is based on interviews with the original partic-
ipants and the revision of archived documents from various sources such as the
Otto H. Koenigsberger Collection located at the AA Archives, the UCR General
Archive, the UCR University Council Archives, private collections from ARQUIS
students and teachers and Costa Rica’s National Archives, amongst others.
In the introduction of “Architecture and the Paradox of Dissidence,” editor
Ines Weizman reflects about dissidence and its articulations within different
spheres of architectural practices, from design to teaching. The author raises a
series of questions about the implications of applying such a strong and often
politically associated word in architectural analyses. Extracting concepts from
Michel Foucault, Judith Butler and others, Weizman draws a map of possible
associations between architectural practices and dissidence.4 She establishes that
dissidence in architecture is not necessarily associated with the rejection of a
political ideology. Instead, she suggests that dissident practices in architecture
occur when the rejection of norms appears as a vehicle to expand the discipline’s
sphere of action in particular geographic, cultural and political contexts. Weizman
asserts that “the activities of dissident architects have not primarily been directed
at the removal or even reform of a regime, but rather at the expansion of a sphere
of autonomous action.”5 This notion might be applied to pedagogical scenarios,
as it is later suggested in the same book by author Ana María León, when she
addresses the pedagogical reform undertaken by João Batista Vila Nova Artigas in
the São Paulo School of Architecture–claiming that “for Artigas, these pedagogi-
cal transformations were not a mere matter of changing curricula or styles, but a
fight for autonomy.”6 The implications of the notion of disciplinary autonomy may
seem conflicting, when juxtaposed precisely with those dissident practices, given
their political and social articulations of specific historic realities. However, both
Weizman and León seem to use autonomy in its most basic sense: the liberty to
operate – to practice, to propose – and to gain recognition as a form of thought.
This basic definition illuminates the process of creating ARQUIS, where – as this
paper proposes – dissidence was oriented to gain freedom to think and teach
architecture in the Costa Rican scenario. Even further conflict may emerge when
 FABRICATIONS   179

dissident practices adopted in the search for autonomy converge with pedagogical
experiences that – such as those at the DTS’s – promoted analyses of particular
realities, both physical and sociocultural, so as to engage architecture in the solu-
tion of local needs. Although the intersection of the three concepts may appear
contradictory and even problematic, this paper argues that the experiences of
the DTS regarding the teaching of architecture in tropical countries served to
enhance the search for a space to practice architecture in Costa Rica.7 This was
mainly because the DTS’s pedagogical environment allowed García, Bertheau
and Brenes to break from a traditional culturally dependent educational system.
Hence, the concept of “tropical dissidence” is here understood as a defiant rup-
ture with traditional – European – practices, both in teaching and design, and
the consequent and sometimes paradoxical adoption of context-based methods
in the search for autochthonous architectural solutions.

The Scenario for a New School

In 1971, when ARQUIS opened its doors, Costa Rica was at the climax of an era
of economic growth and social stability that followed a short Civil War in 1948,
and triggered an economic reformulation and an attempt at social reorganisation
targeting middle class empowerment. Prior to this period, during the Liberal-
democratic era (1870–1940) architectural practice had strong associations with
the ruling oligarchy, whose main source of power came from coffee production
and export.8 Architectural languages were imported to satisfy the desires of ruling
classes. Full scale urbanisation was limited to San José and to a lesser extent to the
capitals of provinces. The post-war period saw a series of social reforms such as
nationalisation of public services, the consolidation of the universal health care
system, the abolition of the army and educational reforms – including the UCR’s.
However, as Alexander Jiménez notes “transformation was limited and full of
unequal consequences.”9 Construction focused on infrastructure: roads, bridges,
communication and energy facilities. At the same time, the social-democratic
state promoted the construction of institutional buildings, mostly in the capital
city, increasing the need for building professionals without necessarily improving
recognition of architects or their voice in public affairs associated with architec-
ture. In other words, architects had no presence in post war Costa Rican society,
which was highly technocratic and based on a very narrow political consensus.10
Despite political and social changes, the country’s land development patterns
had remained more or less the same since colonial times slowly changing dur-
ing the 1950s. Highlands – the Central Valley – had been used for initial settle-
ment and modern urbanisation – mostly for climatic comfort, as the weather
was considered similar to that in Europe – while low lands remained less devel-
oped. Landscapes were agrarian. Political and economic power continued to be
concentrated in the centre of the country, mostly in San José. Efforts towards
industrialisation were made, enhancing the concentration of economic power in
180   N. SOLANO-MEZA

the country’s centre. During the social-democratic “Golden Age” – 1949–1979

– demographic growth (the population doubled in twenty years) made the differ-
ences between urban and rural areas more evident. Immigration from rural areas
to the main cities increased. Associated challenges, such as the need for habitat
solutions, emerged. Despite the fact that many of the new policies were oriented
towards eradicating poverty and universalising access to services, great differences
between rural and urban areas regarding economic power, access to information
and culture persisted. Paradoxically, an important component of the country’s
self-made identity was based on the idea of a “rural democracy” and the cultural
and racial homogeneity of its people.11
During the 1960s, a group of Costa Rican architects began a series of activities
that were oriented towards strengthening the participation of architecture profes-
sionals in urgent national matters of the time: social housing, urban design and
land use planning. Their enterprises were, in fact, oriented towards increasing the
participation of the discipline and towards achieving professional recognition and
administrative independence. Their actions sought to open up a space for architects
to work in, and more importantly, to create a free-thinking discursive environ-
ment around architecture. Conversely, the need for a school was identified as a key
element, along with the need to create an independent professional association. Two
individuals soon emerged as leaders of these efforts: Felo García and Jorge Bertheau.
Felo García, known as one of Costa Rica’s greatest plastic artists, studied archi-
tecture at Hammersmith College of Arts and Building thanks to a studentship
granted by the government. However, his studies were interrupted by the 1948
civil war. In the early 1950s, García worked at the Ministry of Transportation
and Public Commissions under the tutelage of Teodorico Quirós, who was also
a painter and an architect. In 1954, García went back to London to finish the
architecture course, after which he returned to Costa Rica where he was a fierce
advocate of cultural revival. He was given the nicknames “The Lone Ranger”
and El Adelantado. He was also director of the Department of Arts, which later
evolved in to the Department of Culture or Ministerio de Cultura. Garcia met Jorge
Bertheau, through Bertheau “s mother, Margarita; also a famous painter. Despite
being almost ten years apart in age, they rapidly became friends.
Bertheau who had studied architecture at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma
de México (UNAM), ran an architectural practice called ARTEC during the mid-
1960s, and by providing a work space for younger architects attracted a vibrant
group including Hernán Jiménez, Hernán Cordero, and Franz Beer, amongst
others.12 Architectural historian, Ofelia Sanou affirms that the group’s vision of
architecture which was reflected in their explorative works and use of materials
was essential in the development of Costa Rican architecture during the 1970s.13
Together – sometimes with the involvement of other colleagues – García and
Bertheau undertook three major enterprises: to propose to the government a series
of interventions in the capital city of San José, to try and separate the Association
of Architects into an autonomous entity from the Colegio de Ingenieros, and finally
 FABRICATIONS   181

Figure 1. View of the annex building of the School of Architecture of the University of Costa Rica,
designed by Edgar Brenes with the collaboration of Jorge Bertheau and José Manuel Boschini,
(1978–1983). ca. 1990, ARQUIS photo collection, courtesy of the School of Architecture of the UCR.

to open a school of architecture.14 Edgar Brenes joined them for the last of these
projects.
Brenes had studied at the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C.
He was only 27 years old when he joined García and Bertheau to develop the
ARQUIS pedagogical project. Consequently, his career was profoundly marked
by the principles of climatic design imparted at the DTS. Brenes dedicated a
big portion of his practice to the research and development of projects in the
Caribbean Coast of Costa Rica. Between 1974 and 1978, he designed ARQUIS’s
annex building, revealing his interest in climatic responses (Figure 1). The efforts
of García, Bertheau and Brenes coincided with a request from UCR students at
the UCR University Council (UC) in 1962. 15
Between 1950 to 1979, the UCR was the centre of academic power in Costa
Rica. It also served a key role in transmitting the values of the ruling social-dem-
ocrat led political project after the civil war of 1948.16 The UCR’s lead intellectuals,
such as Rodrigo Facio, had played a fundamental role in the critical analysis of
182   N. SOLANO-MEZA

the national situation preceding the civil war and were key in the country’s sub-
sequent political reformulation.17 The UCR’s Campus, in San Pedro de Montes
de Oca, was built as a symbol of the institution’s power and strong associations
with a political project.18
Thus, the request by the students triggered a series of debates around the cre-
ation of ARQUIS during a time when the UCR had a great deal of presence and
power in informing political decisions and played an essential role in the trans-
mission of the social-democrat discourse. An advisory commission was formed
to determine if an architecture school was needed. The commission’s final recom-
mendation was that a school of architecture was essential in aiding the country’s
development, specifically in the fields of social dwelling, urban planning and
construction product design.19 As part of the commission’s activities, García and
Bertheau travelled through Central America observing architecture schools –
during the late 1960s – and concluded that they were “small scale models” of
other more famous schools.20 They identified this phenomenon as a latent weak-
ness which perpetuated inherited – often colonial – ways of approaching local
problems. From their perspective, in order to construct a space for architectural
practice in Costa Rica, architectural education had to be liberated from passed
down models of teaching. They reflected on the role that architects had historically
occupied in Costa Rica to conclude that they were considered creators of “luxury
objects” who served a paying minority.21
According to García, there was no space for the discipline to occupy. Architects
were considered mere decorators who had no capability to address social prob-
lems.22 Engineers often took on building design commissions and were socially rec-
ognised for their expertise while architects were deemed secondary. Consequently,
Costa Rican architects had a very limited range of operation and working opportu-
nities were scarce, despite the country’s blooming economy. Since architects had to
be trained overseas, the number of professionals was small and access to studying
abroad was limited to those who could afford it. All of them were forced to go
abroad to study, mainly to Mexico, but also to the United States, and Europe.23
A course on technical drawing was given at the Faculty of Fine Arts, being the
closest thing to architectural education inside the country. By 1970, the Costa
Rican Architects Association had approximately 60 members. The Association
was attached to the Colegio de Ingenieros. It was not a fully autonomous organ,
but depended greatly on the Colegio’s decisions; in turn a reflection of the absence
of a local architectural culture and the lack of a collective architectural voice on
national matters.
In 1968, the UC finally agreed to open an architecture school in the UCR.
However, the efforts to open ARQUIS stagnated. Within the UC, doubts regarding
the need for a school persisted. There were also concerns that new profession-
als would interfere with the role of other disciplines, such as civil engineering.
However, the greater doubts had to do with the UCR’s capacity to develop the
 FABRICATIONS   183

architecture course, as architect Edgar Vargas notes in a letter to the UC.24 The
need for consultation was identified as key to the development of the school.

Tropical Pedagogy: Otto H. Koenigsberger and the DTS

Dr Otto H. Koenigsberger visited Costa Rica in April of 1970 as part of the
“Technical Assistance Program UK-Central America” with the collaboration of
the British Council (BC). Given the UCR leading role, academic collaborations
and diplomatic efforts associated with education would have been addressed to the
UC, which explains the UC’s relationship with the British Council. Koenigsberger
had studied in the Technical University in Berlin and had spent time work-
ing in Egypt.25 In 1939, he emigrated to India, an experience that changed his
understanding of the role of architecture in solving social problems.26 As Rhodri
Windsor Lescombe suggests, Koenigsberger’s Indian experience led him to ded-
icate himself to teaching in order “to enhance decolonisation and post-colonial
development.”27 When he arrived in Costa Rica, Koenigsberger had been director
of the DTS – founded in 1954 – for almost thirteen years, an institution where his
vision regarding the role of architecture in development had continued to evolve
towards planning and aiding development.
The DTS’s mission would have originally been limited to producing knowledge
around the climatic adaptation of modern architecture to tropical conditions,
an orthodoxy that often ignored the sociocultural and economic diversity of the
countries that were labelled under the broad spectrum of “tropical country” and
where “tropical architecture” was expected.28 As Chang and King suggest, tropical
architecture was conveniently deemed “ahistorical and apolitical”29, its anthro-
pological and historical complexities erased from its discourse, which was inevi-
tably constructed from a European perspective.30 In the beginning, teachings on
the design of tropical architecture was meant to perpetuate a colonial model of
knowledge transfer that put tropical countries as peripheral recipients of ideas
produced in a metropolis,31 and were key in guaranteeing European presence
in new countries.32 Despite its orthodoxy, inside the DTS, the notion of tropical
architecture evolved from a mere adaptation of the modern language to a com-
plex construction approach not only concerned with technical aspects of design
but with sociocultural and anthropological issues. Nevertheless, climatological
research remained an important part of the institution’s identity. Another com-
ponent of its identity was its capacity to adapt to the needs of students – given
their varied backgrounds. As Chang affirms “the DTS was attuned to the needs of
the tropics in architectural education and was willing to adjust its pedagogy and
even institutional organisation to address those needs.”33 However, in its efforts to
promote development through the innovation of teaching methods in developing
countries, the DTS was always at risk of imposing a new set of values on them.34
This identified risk was, partially, addressed by paying attention to the questions
of method, both in teaching and practice. As suggested by Koenigsberger, the DTS
184   N. SOLANO-MEZA

had to focus on offering “methods to approach to design tasks under climatic,

social and economic conditions which are different from our own.”35
One of the DTS’ greatest innovations was the creation of a Teaching Methods
Course (TMC) in 1969. The course was created to address the need to train archi-
tects teaching in tropical zones. Early on, Koenigsberger had foreseen the effects
that a course about tropical architecture would have on pedagogical practices by
“[forcing] both students and teachers to do a lot of re-thinking of accepted con-
cepts and ideas.”36 The TMC aimed to end the tradition of emulating European
teaching methods in tropical zones, mostly in Asia and Africa but also in Latin
America,37 where many architecture schools had been created during the nine-
teenth century emulating decontextualised Beaux Arts teaching models, in a form
of “pedagogical colonisation.”38 The TMC’s attempt to break with European edu-
cational models was, in a way, a subversive proposition that implied a certain level
of rupture from European values for those involved in the TMC, both teachers
and students, and a greater commitment towards change and active participation.
In 1970, García, Bertheau, Brenes and Crespo arrived at the DTS to take the
TMC. The first three remained and partially created the ARQUIS pedagogical
project. According to Wakely, the experience was seminal for the DTS and later
served as “the basis of what was later to become a two-year Diploma Course in
Design and Planning Education for developing countries.”39 Patrick Wakely notes
that one of the most relevant aspects of the work done for ARQUIS at the DTS
is how it was “firmly cast in the social and economic context of the development
of Costa Rica and therefore had to be prefaced with a careful clarification of the
professional roles for which the Faculty would train architects and planners.”40

Koenigsberger’s Report: A Revision of the Profession

The importance of profiling an architecture professional able to attend a country’s
specific needs is already expressed in the report Koenigsberger submitted to the UC
at the end of his visit to Costa Rica. The report shows how one of Koenigsberger’s
main concerns was the risk of the profession becoming obsolete. He advocated for
a revision of the role of the architect. According to Koenigsberger, architects in the
tropics had to be trained not only as “problem studiers” but as “problem solvers.”41
Consequently, teaching had to be oriented to problem solving and to “asking the
right questions.”42 In his report, Koenigsberger expressed preoccupation with the
risk of obsolescence that architects were facing in the midst of structural social
changes43, claiming that the traditional relationship between architect and client
had almost disappeared. Koenigsberger also referred to the outdated notion of
the architect as an artist/artisan “whose only task is to look after the appear-
ance of buildings.”44 Therefore, in his view, the architecture profession needed
to reformulate itself – the profession had to be looked at comprehensively, as it
was concerned with all aspects of the construction process but mainly with its
“social function.”45 Moreover, the architect should not be restricted to “thinking
 FABRICATIONS   185

exclusively in terms of buildings and artefacts as finite objects” but should “train
himself instead to invent processes and systems that can satisfy rapidly chang-
ing needs.”46 For Koenigsberger, global changes had led to an understanding of
design as “a wider dynamic process” that could “no longer be thought of in terms
of a simple static goal.”47 According to the architect, re-thinking the role of the
profession implied changes in architectural education, particularly in developing
societies such as in Costa Rica. For him, Costa Rica had accomplished great social
and political stability, however, there were still many challenges related to the
imbalances between urban and rural areas. At the same time, for Koenigsberger,
architects needed to struggle to maintain the country’s natural landscape while
developing local architecture that would truly be “typically Costa Rican.”48
In the report, Koenigsberger also made a series of practical suggestions regard-
ing the new school’s organisation. One suggestion was to place the new school
in the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences as “architects require a great
deal of help” in these fields.49 According to him, architects should be regarded
as professionals with a deep understanding of economics so they would be able
“to safeguard the interest of the taxpayer in the matter of public buildings, hous-
ing, or new cities.”50 The UC dismissed his suggestion as almost scandalous and
revealing of the UC’s lack of flexibility towards structural changes. The Faculty of
Fine Arts had expressed no interest in absorbing the newly created school, and
the option to create an independent school was discarded as there were fears it
would overcomplicate the UCR’s structure. ARQUIS was attached to the Faculty
of Engineering, mostly for administrative and funding purposes. The rest of the
report consisted of a series of projections about ARQUIS’s feasibility. At the end
of his visit, Koenigsberger offered a number of scholarships for Costa Rican archi-
tects to attend the course at the DTS. In parallel to Koenigsberger’s proposal, the
University Council opened a call for architects to apply under its own studentship
system, which would allow them to return to Costa Rica after the course com-
pletion and teach at the new school. Candidates had to comply with both lists of
requirements: the BC and the UCR’s. However, there were inconsistencies in the
requirements of the two institutions.
The UCR’s call received six applications from Rafael García, Jorge Bertheau,
Santiago Crespo, Eduardo Dávila, Carlos Vinocour, and Edgar Brenes.51 It selected
García, Bertheau, Crespo, and Vinocour. Brenes was listed as possible substitute.
Dávila was disqualified. However, the selection was still subject to the require-
ments of the BC. Once the BC revised the applications, Carlos Vinocour was also
disqualified based on his lack of English-proficiency, which allowed Brenes to
be considered for the studentship. However, since the UCR had already selected
Vinocour, the CU decided to grant him a scholarship to go to Spain. There, he
would observe and study teaching methods at the Escuela Superior de Arquitectura
de Madrid and return to Costa Rica to join his colleagues after they trained in
the UK.52 At the end of the selection process, García, Bertheau and Crespo were
granted full scholarships by the BC and the UCR. Vinocour received funding
186   N. SOLANO-MEZA

Figure 2.  ARQUIS early days. From left to right Edgar Brenes, Felo García, a member of the
British Council and Jorge Bertheau. ca. 1972, ARQUIS photo collection, courtesy of the School of
Architecture of the UCR.

from the UCR only, and Brenes from the BC only. The debates of the UC reveal
how the UCR expected the architects to observe teaching methods and essentially
copy and implement them in the new school.

Devising a Pedagogical Project for Costa Rica

In 1970, Bertheau, Brenes and Crespo travelled to London. Felo García joined
them a couple of months later. When they arrived at the DTS, they were assigned
to work groups, each coordinated by a DTS staff member. Felo García was assigned
to Patrick Wakely’s team, Edgar Brenes to Harmut Schmetzer’s. Jorge Bertheau and
Santiago Crespo were assigned to work under the tutelage of Mario Novella and
Michael Safier, respectively.53 At an early stage of their stay in London, Santiago
Crespo began drifting away from the rest of the team. Ultimately, he decided
to quit the course and travel to Madrid to join Carlos Vinocour. This had two
effects. First, it helped to strengthen the strong relationship and understanding
that García, Bertheau and Brenes already shared (Figure 2). Second, it created
an ideological gap between the architects in Madrid and the ones in London,
which became greater once they returned to Costa Rica. Crespo and Vinocour
stuck to the UCR’s instructions to observe tried and tested teaching methods
in Madrid. They advocated for a “conventional curriculum” for the school with
bodies of knowledge classified and organised as separate subjects. Meanwhile,
García, Bertheau, and Brenes decided to develop their original proposal for the
education of Costa Rican architects. The result of their work at the DTS became
the basis for the ARQUIS pedagogical project.
 FABRICATIONS   187

At the end of the course at the DTS, the three architects presented a short disser-
tation titled “Towards a Comprehensive Approach to Architectural Education.”54
The document can be understood as an organised brainstorming of propositions
as it does not attempt to be a finished, final product. Ideas from Christopher
Alexander, Marshall McLuhan, John Chris Jones, and Edward T. Hall converge
in the proposal. The architects worked mostly with Novella but also with Wakely
and Schmetzer in formulating their thesis. According to Wakely, Novella “strongly
advocated and practiced the introspective discipline of conscious awareness and
analysis of the logical progress of decision-making in the design process.”55 The
notion of conscious awareness had an important impact and was reflected in
practical exercises adopted later at ARQUIS.
The document’s first section constructs a critical analysis of the Costa Rican
environment that serves to justify the decision to rupture with the educational
system. According to García, Bertheau, and Brenes “education [had] been an
inherited tool designed for a different purpose.”56 Challenging the education sys-
tem implied a high level of dissent; Costa Rica’s educational system was one of
the country’s greatest prides and an important element of its “national identity”
in their view. Education had supposedly served to strengthen social stability and
democracy. In defying the pattern of education in Costa Rica, the architects were
indirectly challenging the nation’s idiosyncratic deployment of the education sys-
tem, which had been successfully transmitted and used for political purposes; a
phenomenon described by Alexander Jiménez.57
Despite, the implications of their conclusions, the concerns of the three archi-
tects were not political but focussed on architectural practice and the creation
of a free space for thinking, teaching, and learning architecture.58 The proposed
rupture was aimed at expanding architecture’s operational possibilities. The archi-
tects proposed a learning methodology, instead of a teaching methodology, or
what they called a “learn to learn” system meant to train professionals with a
greater capacity to cope with change, free of inherited thought structures. Their
dissertation was constructed around three ideas. First, the notion of architecture
as a vehicle to promote local development in “tropical countries,” which implied
the inclusion of urban planning and environmental design. Second, the search
for a method of design based on the observation of what they called the “man-en-
vironment unit.” Third, the implementation of an innovative and experimental
pedagogical project for architecture which sought to defy what they refer to as
“traditional education.”59
Firstly, ARQUIS was designed to work as an open research hub in the service of
Costa Rican society. The institution would serve as knowledge producer, as a data
storage unit, and as knowledge transmitter. The students’ research and discoveries
were to be made available for consultation by the public. ARQUIS’s efforts would
be oriented towards the systematisation of the design process, so methods could
be made available, as “all methods are attempts to make public the hitherto private
thinking of designers.”60 Secondly, the architectural process was to be understood
188   N. SOLANO-MEZA

as resulting from the analysis of the man-environment system. As Bertheau would

explain “the intention was for students to attempt to extract the very essence of the
context and from there start searching for an architectural solution.”61 The study of
the man-environment unit also attempted to exclude external cultural references
and supposedly eliminated the risk of intellectual dependency.
Finally, ARQUIS rejected the traditional organisation of curricula. García,
Bertheau and Brenes proposed a system in which traditional subjects disappeared.
The core structure of the educational project was called “the Workshop.” The
Workshop was not merely a design subject, but the centre of the interactions and
experimentation processes. Bertheau affirmed that “the workshop [aimed for stu-
dents] to stumble with specific knowledges, so specific that they relate to concrete
places and direct problems.” He would then continue, revealing that “the School’s
concern [was] to link those specific problems with clear – even physical – contexts
to abstract and universal knowledges.”62
Three areas of knowledge were defined as feeding information and providing
tools for the Workshop. The first two were concerned with analysis and transfor-
mation, respectively. They were called Environment Observation and Environment
Modification. The third body of knowledge was called Expression Techniques.
There was a fifth element to the programme: Archisystems. The Archisystems
were concerned with the method of analysis. The notion of Archisystems related
to the physical and cultural environment which for García, Bertheau and Brenes
was the essence of architectural solutions. “Archisystems I” was concerned with
the analysis of physical variables while “Archisystems II” was concerned with the
sociocultural context. Archisystems was meant to provide a methodological tool
to allow the students to systematise their research. Hence, it cannot be exactly
defined as another body of knowledge, but as an “apparatus,” a mechanism with a
strategic function that allowed for the system to operate.63 Through Archisystems,
the pedagogical project sought to develop a scientific method of design while at
the same time seeking to “take imagination to power.”64 Contradictions arising
from the conjugation of the two were always present during ARQUIS early history.
The tension between freedom and systematisation, and between rationalisation
and imagination would always be tangible, constituting one of ARQUIS’s greatest
theoretical conflicts (Figure 3).

The School. From Project to Reality

Once back in Costa Rica and following extensive debate, García, Bertheau and
Brenes’ proposal prevailed and was implemented at ARQUIS. During ARQUIS’s
first years, its system was highly criticised and exposed to public scrutiny. Crespo
and Vinocour became ARQUIS’s first detractors before the CU, criticising the lack
of specific subjects, the methods, and the visits to rural towns which they con-
sidered unnecessary. They also labelled ARQUIS’s attempts to dilute hierarchies
as confusing.65 They were invited to submit an alternative curriculum, but they
 FABRICATIONS   189

Figure 3. A scene from “Dos Puntos,” a film produced and developed by ARQUIS students as part
of the Workshop and Expression courses. ca. 1976, Rodolfo Granados private collection, courtesy
of the architect.

Figure 4. Professor Louis Ducoudray and students protest to defend ARQUIS educational system.
At the back the School’s logo: a foot. ca. 1972, ARQUIS photo collection, courtesy of the School of
Architecture of the UCR.

never did and eventually left the UCR. However, their concerns became public and
the press took an interest. Under strong criticism, students and teachers united
to defend ARQUIS’s learning system, making ARQUIS a more cohesive unit in
190   N. SOLANO-MEZA

the face of attacks (Figure 4). Since the DDTS’s dissertation was still an idea in
the making, tests and adaptions had to be made during the first years. In fact,
García, Bertheau and Brenes had focused their work at the AA on the first year
of the course, but the second and following years had not been fully developed,
and they were only fully devised once ARQUIS was functioning thanks to the
collaboration of the students and their findings.66
The six-year ARQUIS course started with an introductory year called
“Introduction to Architecture” (IA). During this time the students were asked to
visit a rural town, an activity that came to be known as the “town visits.” IA was
devised as a journey, not only because of these visits, but also because the students
were expected to immerse themselves in a new way of thinking. They were greeted
with a series of exercises – some of them inspired by Edward De Bono’s Lateral
Thinking67 – named “unlearning exercises” that were oriented towards removing
metropolitan social biases, as only then – it was believed – could a rational sys-
tematic analysis occur. The “learning exercises” covered both technical analysis
and perception exercises, roughly based on Edward T. Hall’s maps of culture.68 As
a preparation for the town visits, students would be given a guide on physical and
socio-cultural aspects to observe. The guides were a starting point of the students’
journey and clue to the systematic analysis that was expected from them. The social
backgrounds of the first group of students were heterogenous, however, most of
them came from Costa Rica’s highly populated metropolitan area located in the
centre of the country. Some came from other cities and towns such as Limón, the
port city to the Caribbean Sea, others came from small-sized peripheral cities
with agrarian economies. The UCR’s admission system was based on merit and
was, supposedly, highly democratic. However, at the time, real access to graduate
education was difficult for students living in more isolated regions. In general
terms, ARQUIS’s first students were part of Costa Rica’s growing middle class,
although, generalisations are impossible.69
The town visits had been devised by García, Bertheau and Brenes to engage
ARQUIS – through its students – with the different realities of the country. The
towns selected by them were not small-scale cities nor agricultural centres but
isolated, hard-to-access villages in unexplored or wilderness regions. For example,
a group of students was sent to Puerto Viejo, a small fishing town associated with
the Afro-Caribbean culture in the country, that had been historically isolated and
ignored. Others were sent to indigenous villages such as Palenque Margarita, a
village with a predominantly native Indigenous population where Spanish was
barely spoken. The town selection revealed a range of landscapes, micro-climates
and local cultures. Travelling to the “town” was an experience in itself, forcing
students to move through different territories, economic realities and cultural
situations.
Under the system, each and every student would be assigned to a “town.” A
group would be formed. They would be instructed to travel together to their
assigned town and perform a “live” analysis. They were not allowed to record,
 FABRICATIONS   191

take photos, nor use questionaires. The town visits offered students the opportu-
nity to observe various forms of life at a time when there were great imbalances
between urban areas – located in the centre of the country – and rural areas. They
served as an unprecedented survey of Costa Rica, offering a new perspective on
the country’s identities and its architectures. The “town visits” constitute one of
ARQUIS’s more significant experiences as they challenged common misconcep-
tions about the country’s social identity, which often reduced national identity to
its Central Valley.70 They essentially constituted an experience of discovery and
aimed to create empathetic social sensibilities.71
The comprehensive learning system revolved around the town visits and con-
verged in the Workshop. After the students first visit to their assigned town, a
seminar would take place where teachers but also the other student groups served
as a jury. There, weaknesses and shortcomings of the students’ analysis would be
addressed, the exercise would be repeated many times and often students had to
travel back to their assigned towns, which implied a great deal of commitment
as getting to certain areas of the country was difficult due to poor infrastructure.
The Workshop exercises revolved around the information that was analysed in
the town visits:
The project workshop is the motor of analysis, the place where everything blends,
synthesis of the whole system and the medium for the application of knowledges and
experiences of diverse areas, all of them together towards solving the specific problems
that concern architecture. The workshop is the architectural practice.72
Only when analysis was completed were design problems approached. Students
had to identify the town’s specific needs and propose architectural projects based
on those needs. Environment Observation and Modification were dedicated to
providing the students specific tools, in full coordination with the Workshop and
with the particular conditions of the assigned town. For example, groups working
in the Caribbean Coast would have faced different conditions to those working
in indigenous communities in mountainous areas. This meant that students from
different “towns” had different knowledge needs. The horizontal communication
between the “bodies of knowledge” and the Workshop demanded constant coordi-
nation, one of ARQUIS’s more challenging aspects. Since, ARQUIS’s pedagogical
project was designed as a “self-search methodology,” great responsibility was laid
on the students. There were no programmed lectures. Students were supposed
to request courses or lectures according to their current projects. The professors
would then arrange work sessions, visits and conferences with experts in various
fields such as mathematics, ecology, arts and economics. The system attempted
to mimic the conditions of how architecture interacts with other professions at a
practical level and to influence familiarisation with a common interdisciplinary
language. The systems were multidisciplinary in the sense that there were many
forms of thought and languages that converged at ARQUIS. While architecture
remained as the centre, the immersion and mixture of knowledge sought a deep
understanding of the social and natural environment from an independent and
192   N. SOLANO-MEZA

Figure 5.  Filming exercises from the movie “Dos Puntos.” ca. 1976, Rodolfo Granados private
collection, courtesy of the architect.

autonomous standpoint. This posture partially resolved the conflict between the
search for disciplinary freedom and the undeniable influence of the DTS which
was most visible in ARQUIS’s interest in investigating the systematic approach to
problem solving and its almost obsessive approach to context. Under “Expression”
students were expected to develop ways of expressing ideas, by balancing the
systematic analyses derived from the Archisystems approach, which relied largely
on diagrams.73 Film, sculpture, engraving and painting were promoted and as
students were expected to find their own means to communicate, no traditional
technical drawing was taught (Figure 5).
Different programmatic needs were identified through the work done in the
town visits and different climatic and socio-cultural information was gathered.
Partially supported by this information, habitation projects were started as part
of ARQUIS’s contribution, for example a prototype of a low cost house built in
bamboo – Bambú: Una alternativa para el desarrollo – was developed under the
direction of Felo García. The final dissertations of the first generation include
topics such as proposed solutions for slums, research centres in isolated rural
and natural areas, student residences and emergency shelters, amongst others.
Some of these topics had never been addressed from an architectural standpoint
in the Costa Rican context. A most relevant aspect is, perhaps, the use of a new
vocabulary that included concepts such as ecology, climatic response and regional
planning, suggesting how ARQUIS students had identified programmatic and
typological needs and possible ways to address them. For example, the first gen-
eration of students developed projects around the topic of “eco-tourism,” intro-
ducing a concept that would later become a crucial part of Costa Rica’s expanding
economy.74 Some of the newly trained architects started working on government
agencies, filling a void that had been present since the 1950s.
 FABRICATIONS   193

According to García and Bertheau, the first three generations of students com-
menced studies in the original system.75 However, ARQUIS’s pedagogical project
began to fade towards the mid-nineteen seventies due to internal and external
pressures. Felo García and Jorge Bertheau resigned as principal and sub-principal
in 1979. Their resignation – Bertheau continued teaching and became principal
in 1989 – and the programme’s first modification – also in 1979 – marked the end
of ARQUIS’s original period. New subjects were slowly introduced to the course
detrimental to the spirit of García, Bertheau and Brenes’s original proposal.

Conclusion
In the construction of ARQUIS’s pedagogical project, the DTS acknowledgement
of the impossibility to teach European ways in tropical developing regions was
transformed into a defiant proposal that disregarded the “traditional” organisa-
tion of architecture courses and the teaching of genealogical architectural theo-
ries and histories. For García, Bertheau and Brenes “traditional” meant not only
European but limiting, constraining, oppressive and dull. Preserving “old ways”
of teaching architecture implied transferring the subjacent conflicts carried by
inherited educational systems. Invariably, it also meant incorporating narratives
that put tropical regions as peripheral, dominated, inferior environments and as
passive recipients of knowledge. Conversely, a culture of dissidence and rupture
offered opportunities for changes in education and emphasis on a context-based
architecture.
ARQUIS’s efforts to produce knowledge about local architecture through sur-
veys and town visits were essential in the institutionalisation and recognition of
architecture in Costa Rica and in trying to place architecture as a profession with
the capacity to aid the country towards development, placing ARQUIS at the
intersection between the search for autonomy and the intent to engage socially.
These intents were influenced by the DTS philosophy which understood archi-
tecture as part of a greater social structure, and identified the need to infuse
architectural practices with interdisciplinary content from sociology, economics,
anthropology and even biology to name a few. In the case of ARQUIS, the nar-
rative of the “tropical” as developed within the DTS served to justify the need to
approach both teaching and architectural practice from the perspective of context.
Operationally, the search for systematisation intersected with a search for creative
freedom which was sometimes conflicting and even counterintuitive, remaining
as one of ARQUIS’s most contradictory aspects and also a sign of its originality
and “radicalness.”76
The idea of a context-generated architecture constituted a dissident prop-
osition in itself as it defied academic expectations and broke the tradition of
importing external architectural methods and their inherent – often subjacent
– narratives. The country’s survey done in the “town visits” also revealed a cul-
turally diverse country full of social imbalances, different from the oversimplified
194   N. SOLANO-MEZA

depictions historically used for political purposes. Beyond a pedagogical dimen-

sion, ARQUIS’s anti-curricular system not only challenged a way of teaching but
was a way of analysing the Costa Rican environment. Some of the resistance that
ARQUIS faced probably comes from those discoveries, and a future exploration
of ARQUIS and its social conflicts may reveal further articulations of political
and power structures.
The search for a context-based architecture constituted the basis for the devel-
opment of a local architectural culture during the 1970s which also yielded to
economic pressures towards the end of that decade. Full of tensions, contradic-
tions and paradoxical in itself ARQUIS’s original pedagogical project stands as an
experimental and subversive effort which sought operational freedom. Questions
remain – and probably always will – regarding the influence of ARQUIS on archi-
tectural practices and to what extent ARQUIS, as an established institution, was
able to collaborate with the country’s development, an issue that remains one of
ARQUIS’s biggest challenges today.

Notes
1. 
The Department of Tropical Studies (DTS) created in 1953 was renamed the
Department of Development and Tropical Studies (DDTS) in 1969.
2. 
The term project is used here in its more literal sense as defined in the Oxford Dictionary,
“as a collaborative enterprise that is carefully planned to achieve a particular aim.”
García, Bertheau, and Brenes’s objective was to institutionalise architecture in Costa
Rica through training the country's own architects. The pedagogical project was
devised to fulfil this target. The notion of “project” acquires a more relevant meaning
as it relates to testing, experimentation, exploration, making mistakes, pushing limits
and transforming itself according to needs, pressures and timing.
See John-Michael Lloyd, “Kumasi School, Special Issue,” Arena Architectural
3. 
Association Journal 82 (1966): 4–6 and Michael Lloyd, “Design Education in the Third
World,” Habitat Intl 7, no. 5/6 (1983): 367–375.
In Architecture and the Paradox of Dissidence, ed. Ines Weizman (Taylor & Francis,
4. 
2014), 4–6, the author refers to: Judith Butler, The Psychic Life of Power: Theories
in Subjection (Redwood City, Cal.: Stanford University Press, 1997), and Michel
Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York, NY: Knopf
Doubleday Publishing Group, 2012).
5. 
Weizman, “Introduction: Architecture and the Paradox of Dissidence,” 7.
6. 
Ana María León, “Designing Dissent Vila Nova Artigas and the São Paulo School of
Architecture,” in Architecture and the Paradox of Dissidence, ed. Ines Weizman (Taylor
and Francis, 2014), 79.
The notion of “heterotomy” discussed in Magali Sarfatti Larson, Behind the
7. 
Postmodern Facade: Architectural Change in Late Twentieth-Century America
(Oakland, Cal.: University of California Press, 1995), may also be applied here, as it
serves to acknowledge architecture's dependence and need for other forms of thought.
However, in the particular case of ARQUIS, “autonomy” can be used as a more primal
definition which is understood almost as the “right to exist, and to operate” without
denying the need to draw from and interact with other disciplines.
 FABRICATIONS   195

8.  Florencia Quesada's work focuses on urbanisation processes during the Liberal
Period. See: Florencia Quesada, “La Modernización entre Cafetales. San José, Costa
Rica, 1880–1930,” PhD diss. Renvall Institute, University of Helsinki, 2007.
9.  Alexander Jiménez Matarrita, El Imposible País De Los Filósofos (San Pedro de Montes
de Oca: Editorial de la Universidad de Costa Rica, 2013), 37.
10. Ivan Molina Jiménez, and Steven Palmer, Costa Rica Del Siglo XX al XXI: Historia De
Una Sociedad (Sabanilla de Montes de Oca: Editorial Universidad Estatal a Distancia,
2013), 22.
11. Jiménez calls this identity-associated phenomena “ethnical metaphysical nationalism”
and claims its most relevant characteristic is “the way in which the absorption of
narratives circulating progressively at least one hundred years before serves a
supposedly social democrat political project” Jiménez Matarrita, El Imposible País De
Los Filósofos, 32, 54–56.
12. Jorge Bertheau, Interview with the author Escazú, Costa Rica, March, 2014. All of the
architects mentioned became teachers at ARQUIS during its early years.
13. Ofelia Sanou, “La Arquitectura,” in Costa Rica En El Siglo XX (V. 2), ed. Eugenio
Rodriguez Vega (Sabanilla de Montes de Oca: Editorial Universidad Estatal a
Distancia, 2004), 292–294 and 311.
14. The first two were only partially accomplished. When they travelled to London, the
architects left the discussion of the Colegio de Arquitectos. When they returned to
Costa Rica, the Colegio Federado de Ingenieros y Arquitectos had been created, a mid-
way solution to the total independence they were looking for. Bertheau, Jorge, and
Inti Picado, “Entrevista,” Revista Habitar 58 (2007): 17–24.
15. Consejo Universitario de la Universidad de Costa Rica, Acta Del Consejo Universitario
#1249 (Ciudad Universitaria Rodrigo Facio: Archivo del Consejo Universitario de la
Universidad de Costa Rica, 1962).
16. Carlos German Paniagua, “Origen y transformación de la universidad costarricense,”
Revista de Ciencias Sociales de la Universidad de Costa Rica 49–50 (1990): 23–47.
17. Paniagua, “Origen y transformación de la universidad costarricense,” 26.
18. See: Carlos Jankilevich Dahan, “La identidad, el paisaje, el territorio y la espacialidad
de la Universidad de Costa Rica frente a la crisis de liderazgo en la búsqueda
de respuestas a los grandes problemas nacionales,” RevistaArquis 1(published
online 2011) last consulted February 10, 2017, http://revistas.ucr.ac.cr/index.php/
revistarquis/article/view/1285/1348, 1–36.
19. Edgar Vargas, Rafael Angel García, Mario Miranda, Jorge Emilio Padilla, Alvaro
Robles, Manrique Lara, and Warnes Sequeira, Estudio Sobre El Establecimiento De
La Facultad De Arquitectura En La Universidad De Costa Rica (Ciudad Universitaria
Rodrigo Facio: Archivo del Consejo Universitario de la Universidad de Costa Rica,
1966).
20. Jorge Bertheau, Interview with the author, Escazú, Costa Rica, March, 2014.
21. Rafael Angel “Felo” García, Jorge Bertheau, and Edgar Brenes, “Towards a
Comprehensive Approach to Architectural Education,” diss., Architectural
Association, 1971. The team's concern with architecture being at the service of an
elitist minority was based on the architect's own experiences as professionals in Costa
Rica. García raised those concerns many times during personal interviews. In an
interview with García, held in 2013, he stated that “he did not become an architect
to have clients,” implying that for him practicing architecture played a higher social
role. Rafael “Felo” García, Interview with the author, Barrio Escalante, Costa Rica,
February, 2013.
196   N. SOLANO-MEZA

22. Being the oldest of the three “coasties,” García had had opportunities to experience
the lack of social space that the profession had in Costa Rica. In later years, he would
systematically refer to the historical reasons that led to architecture to be considered a
peripheral profession. Certainly, the lack of local school was amongst the main reasons
why architecture had such a reduced presence in national matters. García's ideas about
the profession can be reviewed in parts of his biography: Luis Fernando Quirós, “Felo
García: Docente, Arquitecto, Dibujante, Diseñador,” in Felo García: Artista, Gestor,
Provocador, Innovador, ed. Ileana Alvarado Venegas ( San Pedro de Montes de Oca:
Editorial de la Universidad de Costa Rica, 2005). And in interviews such as: Rafael
“Felo” García, “Conversatorio con Rafael ‘Felo’ García por Luis Fernando Quirós,”
Experimenta Magazine, (published online 2011), last consulted (February 13, 2017),
http://www.experimenta.es/blog/conversatorio-con-rafael-angel-felo-garcia-2737.
23. Mexico was a preferred destination because of its convenient location, shared
language and culture. Most Costa Ricans that studied in Mexico attended the UNAM
or the Universidad Iberoamericana.
24. “Carta” Edgar Vargas to Oscar Ramírez, Secretario General de la UCR, 1964.Ciudad
Universitaria Rodrigo Facio: Archivo del Consejo Universitario de la Universidad de
Costa Rica.
25. Otto H. Koenigsberger, Otto H. Koenigsberger Personal Curriculum, Otto
Koenigsberger Papers (uncatalogued), Architectural Association Archives.
26. Rachel Lee’s work focuses precisely on Koenigsberger's work as an architect in
India. See, Rachel Lee, “Negotiating Modernities: Otto Koenigsberger’s Works
and Networks in Exile (1933–1951),” PhD diss. TU Berlin, 2014), and Rachel Lee,
“Constructing a Shared Vision: Otto Koenigsberger and Tata & Sons,” ABE Journal
online 2 (published online September, 01, 2013), last consulted February, 10, 2017,
http://abe.revues.org/356. In the latter, she reflects on Koenigsberger scientific
approach to architecture and how alliance with private companies helped him to have
a stronger presence in India.
27. Rhodri Windsor Lescombe, “In-Dependence: Otto Koenigsberger and Modernist
Urban Resettlement in India,” Planning Perspectives 21, no.2 (2006): 157–178, 158.
28. Scholarship by Hannah Le Roux on the topic reveals how tropical architecture came
to substitute for the politically incorrect notion of colonial architecture in the face
of major geopolitical changes caused by decolonisation. See Hannah Le Roux, “The
Networks of Tropical Architecture,” The Journal of Architecture 8:3 (2003): 337–354,
348.
29. Jiat-Hwee Chang and Anthony D. King, “Towards a Genealogy of Tropical
Architecture: Historical Fragments of Power-Knowledge, Built Environment and
Climate in the British Colonial Territories,” Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography
32 (2011): 283–300, 295.
30. Hilde Heynen, “The Intertwinement of Modernism and Colonialism: A Theoretical
Perspective,” Docomomo Journal: Modern Africa, Tropical Architecture 48, no. 1
(2013): 10–19, 12–13.
31. Chang and King, “Towards a Genealogy of Tropical Architecture,” and Jiat-
Hwee Chang, A Genealogy of Tropical Architecture: Colonial Networks, Nature and
Technoscience (New York, NY: Routledge, 2016).
32. Atkinson famous speech at the AA reveals a desire to be present and influence the
recently formed countries. G. Anthony Atkinson, “British Architects in the Tropics,”
Architectural Association Journal (1953): 7–21.
33. Chang, A Genealogy of Tropical Architecture, 205.
 FABRICATIONS   197

34. Closely related is Windsor Lescombe's affirmation regarding Koenigsberger's work

in India: “the chief issue is the difficulty of effecting radical change in urban design,
especially during the transition from imperial to independent governance without
the imposition of a new set of alien values and techniques.” Windsor Lescombe, “In-
Dependence: Otto Koenigsberger and Modernist Urban Resettlement in India,” 157,
158.
35. Otto H. Koenigsberger, The Tropical Architecture Course, ca. 1957, Architectural
Association Archives.
36. Koenigsberger, The Tropical Architecture Course.
37. In the mid-60s, the number of Latin American students visiting the DTS had notably
increased as can be noted in the Register Book of the AA. Architectural Association
Archives.
38. Ramón Gutiérrez, “En Torno a la Dependencia y la Identidad en la Arquitectura
Iberoamericana,” in Nueva Arquitectura En América Latina: Presente Y Futuro, ed.
Antonio Toca Ediciones Gustavo Gili, 1990).
39. Patrick I. Wakely, “The Development of a School an Account of the Department
of Development and Tropical Studies of the Architectural Association,” Habitat
International 7, no. 5–6 (1983): 337–346, 343.
40. Wakely, “The Development of a School,” 343.
41. Otto H. Koenigsberger, Personal Notes, ca. 1966, Otto Koenigsberger Papers,
Architectural Association Archives.
42. Wakely, “E-Mail.”
43. Koenigsberger, Personal Notes.
44. Otto H. Koenigsberger, A School of Architecture for Costa Rica, Report to the University
of Costa Rica Council (Otto Koenigsberger Papers, Architectural Association Archives,
1970), 2.
45. When Koenigsberger refers to architecture's social function, he introduced an idea that
had been exposed by the members of the advisory commission and by García and
Bertheau when they were lobbying for the separation of the Association of Architects
from the Colegio de Ingenieros. Koenigsberger, A School of Architecture for Costa Rica, 2.
46. Koenigsberger, A School of Architecture for Costa Rica, 3.
47. John-Michael Lloyd in New Trends in the Education of Architects (Zurich, 1970), cited
by Koenigsberger, A School of Architecture for Costa Rica, 3.
48. Koenigsberger, A School of Architecture for Costa Rica, 3.
49. Koenigsberger, A School of Architecture for Costa Rica, 10.
50. Koenigsberger, A School of Architecture for Costa Rica, 10.
51. Consejo Universitario de la Universidad de Costa Rica, Acta Del Consejo Universitario
#1783 (Ciudad Universitaria Rodrigo Facio: Archivo del Consejo Universitario de la
Universidad de Costa Rica, 1970).
52. Consejo Universitario, “Acta Del Consejo Universitario #1783.”
53. Students Register Book, Architectural Association Archives.
54. Rafael Angel “Felo” García, Jorge Bertheau, and Edgar Brenes, “Towards a
Comprehensive Approach to Architectural Education,” diss., Architectural
Association, 1971.
55. Wakely, “E-Mail.”
56. García, Bertheau, and Brenes, “Towards a Comprehensive Approach to Architectural
Education,” 4, 5.
57. Jiménez Matarrita, El Imposible País De Los Filósofos, 38, 71–80.
58. Bertheau, Interview with the author, 2014.
59. García, Bertheau, and Brenes, “Towards a Comprehensive Approach,” 4.
198   N. SOLANO-MEZA

60. John Chris Jones, Design Methods (John Wiley & Sons, 1992), cited by García,
Bertheau, and Brenes in “Towards a Comprehensive Approach,” 29.
61. Bertheau, Interview with the author, 2014.
62. Jorge Bertheau in Acta del Consejo Universitario # 1861 (Ciudad Universitaria Rodrigo
Facio: Archivo del Consejo Universitario de la Universidad de Costa Rica, 1971).
63. Reference to Giorgio Agamben’s reflections on Foucaults’s dispositif. Giorgio
Agamben, What is an Apparatus? And Other Essays (Redwood City, Cal.: Stanford
University Press, 2009), 3.
64. Jorge Grané, “Entrevista con Felo García, Jorge Bertheau y Edgar Brenes,”
RevistaArquis 1(published online in 2011), last consulted February, 10, 2017,
http://revistas.ucr.ac.cr/index.php/revistarquis/article/view/1284/1347, 2–5.
65. The CU’s Archives contain a detailed recollections of the discussions between Crespo,
Vinocour, García, Bertheau and Brenes. While the first two were concerned with the
form and structure of the course the latter were more concerned with the content,
the process, and the theoretical aspects. Theoretical debates favoured García's team.
While the CU never fully endorsed ARQUIS teaching methods it gave the school a
high level of autonomy. This changed again in 1988, as the school was intervened by
the CU and major structural changes were made to the curriculum.
66. Bertheau, Interview with the author, 2014.
67. Edward De Bono, Lateral Thinking: A Textbook of Creativity (London: Penguin Adult,
2010).
68. Hall’s work regarding perception served a rough basis for exercises that were
developed mostly by Bertheau and Brenes.Edward T. Hall, The Silent Language (New
York, NY: Doubleday, 1990).
69. Jorge Castro, Interview with the author, San Pedro de Montes de Oca, Costa Rica,
March, 2014, and Javier Vargas, Interview with the author, San Pedro de Montes de
Oca, March, 2014.
70. Jorge Bertheau suggests that the impact of town visits was such that the University
implemented the idea into the Seminarios de Realidad Nacional, a mandatory course
for all of the University’s students. Grané, “Entrevista con Felo García, Jorge Bertheau
y Edgar Brenes,” RevistaArquis 1 (2011).
71. García, Interview with the author, 2013.
72. Escuela de Arquitectura de la Universidad de Costa Rica, Catálogo de la Escuela de
Arquitectura de la Universidad de Costa Rica (Ciudad Universitaria Rodrigo Facio:
Biblioteca Teodorico Quirós, 1972).
73. Undeniably, this tendency to diagram was partially inspired by Christopher
Alexander's work. See: Christopher Alexander, Notes on the Synthesis of Form
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964).
74. Ecotourism became one of the country's most successful business models in Costa
Rica towards the 1990's. Manuel Morales and Ofelia Sanou's graduation dissertations
developed architectural projects around the concept. Morales, Manuel, "Desarrollo
eco-turistíco de la Isla San Lucas, Centro de Investigaciones Oceanográficas," diss.
Universidad de Costa Rica, 1977, and Sanou, Ofelia, "Proyecto de desarrollo eco-
turístico," diss. Universidad de Costa Rica, 1977.
75. García, Interview with the author, 2013, and Bertheau, Interview with the author,
2014.
76. The multi regional and relevant research project led by Beatriz Colomina at the
University of Princeton “Radical Pedagogies in Architecture” has given a particular
meaning to the notion of “radicalness” in architecture's pedagogical experiments.
Here, the term is used without the intent to link ARQUIS to Colomina's expanding
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map of pedagogical practices, but to understand it as a phenomenon of its own in the

midst of a particular and relatively underlooked sociocultural and historical context.

Funding
This work was supported by the Office of International Affairs and External Cooperation and
the School of Architecture of the University of Costa Rica.

ORCID
Natalia Solano-Meza   http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8447-9167