A relevant feature is that after the Carthage earthquake of 1910, with the telluric event of 1888 still in memory, preference was given to more flexible construction systems, such as French bahareque and wooden walls covered with die-cut sheets. In the same structure you can find a combination of bahareque, calicanto and die-cut sheets. Starting in 1920, a group of architects trained abroad and belonging to intellectual circles introduced a new architectural language to the country.[1].
Caribbean-Victorian architecture was introduced in large urban projects in Quepos, Golfito, Palmar Sur, Coto and Laurel, in the late 1930s. More than 3000 houses are built following the same style and adapted to the hot and humid climate. All of these buildings are two stories and have windows on all four sides to allow cross winds, in addition to being distributed thinking about the direction of the wind.
The Melico Salazar Theater, inaugurated in 1928 and designed by the Costa Rican architect and playwright José Fabio Garnier, the old Raventós theater at that time was the largest capacity theater in Central America.
With works that are mostly preserved and have been declared architectural and/or cultural heritage, José María Barrantes (La Sabana Airport today Museum of Costa Rican Art, Presidential House, current Legislative Assembly, Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia Hospital), José Francisco Salazar (Mexican Embassy, Pacific Electric Railway Station), Paul Ehrenberg (Palace Cinema, Schifter Building, Borges Building), Luis Llach (Post Office Building, School) stand out Vitalia Madrigal, Herdocia Building, Basilica of Our Lady of the Angels "Basilica de Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles (Cartago)"), Heredia Governorate), Teodorico Quirós (San Isidro Labrador Parish "San Isidro Labrador Parish (Vázquez de Coronado)"), San Rafael de Escazú Church, Puriscal Church, Cartago Municipal Building), Francisco Tenca (House Jiménez de la Guardia, Former French Embassy, Liceo de Costa Rica, Steinvorth Building), Lesmes Jiménez (Higher School of Ladies, Old Customs, Central Penitentiary, La Merced Church "Church of Our Lady of La Merced (San José)"), Gerardo Rovira (Leheman Bookstore, Castillo del Moro), Víctor Lores (Gran Hotel Costa Rica), Alfredo Andreoli (Castillo Azul), who venture in formal languages as varied as neo-gothic, eclectic, neocolonial and art deco.[3][1][2].
Neocolonial houses were also built, with a compact floor plan, not a central patio, surrounded by gardens, in the González Lahmann, Amón, Paseo Colón and Escalante neighborhoods. Local movements were simultaneously stimulated by the European avant-garde of art deco, whose influence can be seen in cinemas such as Lebanon and Ideal.
Local craftsmen and builders acronymized the historical-architectural languages. The result of this symbiosis were the temples of Sarchí and Zarcero, in which pediments, towers and vernacular decorations were placed in a completely free way. This tradition was adopted by other colonization fronts. Between 1920 and 1950, architecture reflected a confrontation between academic and anti-academic languages.
New construction forms reflected the changes that society was experiencing in the interwar period, forms that were evident in both state and civil architecture, as well as secular, religious, commercial and residential architecture.
In the second half of the century, design trends were first directed towards the international modern style, after having experimented with concrete and with local natural materials, as well as with materials manufactured in the country, and finally, they were oriented towards the management of a plurality of decontextualized styles.
Starting in 1948, the State accentuated its protective and developmental character through autonomous institutions and expanded its presence in the field of services, health, banking, insurance and in the educational field, strengthened production and promoted industrial development. A new business class, emerged under the social democratic model, took the direction of the State and significantly raised the quality of life, influencing the quantity and type of public and private works.[1].
The new buildings used a rational and international language of the modern architecture movement and became emblems of the new State model.
From a formal point of view, the buildings were volumes of marked horizontality or verticality and were composed of planes integrated into the urban environment at their first levels, through various formal resources: ramps, platforms, retracted volumes, cantilevered slabs and opaque or transparent surfaces.
A representative example is the central office building of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund, by architects Rafael Sotela Pacheco and Carlos Vinocour Granados, built between 1962 and 1966. It is a horizontal volume integrated into the urban space and a tower with a projecting volume intended for the institution's board of directors.
In general, the new buildings were built with reinforced concrete, the construction systems with rigid frames or with reinforced concrete columns alternating with load-bearing walls, and their mezzanines were composed of concrete slabs or prestressed or post-tensioned beams. The structure was complemented with rigid cores (for stairs, elevators and ducts) and with brick masonry closing walls. Some finishes, marble veneers, floors, ceilings, aluminum frames and tinted glass were brought from outside.
Another example of a historicist-influenced building is the Solera Building in San José, a California neighborhood that was successfully remodeled by Jaime Rouillon, between 2000-2002.
The Central Bank of Costa Rica also gains importance due to its emblematic function and location, located in San José, Central and 1st avenues and 2nd and 4th streets. Designed by Jorge Escalante Van Patten between 1959-1963. The site occupied by the Central Bank building is part of the original node of the small town of San José. The quadrant it occupies was the incipient square of the town's first hermitage (1738) – located to the east of Second Street, between Central and 1st avenues. In 1776, when the main hermitage was moved to the site occupied by the Cathedral today, this quadrant became a second secular and religious node of the town. A second hermitage dedicated to Our Lady of Mercedes was then built, this time located in front of 4th Street, between Central and 1st Avenues, and the tobacco factory building (1784). In the middle of the century, new buildings were added: the Congress, also called the National Palace (1850), and the Artillery barracks and plaza (1870).[2].
Within the sustainability criteria and urban recovery processes, the Central Bank Building was also another successful case of remodeling, led by Ibo Bonilla between 2000-2003, who also recovered the International Bank Building, which Recope occupies today, originally designed by Humberto Malavassi and Roberto Hall in 1982.[1].
In the late 1960s and 1970s, a group of new architects studied abroad experimented with the use of natural materials and achieved combinations of materials and forms that resulted in the development of a local language for residential architecture. The other trend took advantage of the plastic and aesthetic advantages of concrete, to create a sculptural, monumental architecture, with an expressionist character and spatial richness, among which the following stand out:[1][2].