As archaeological findings progress, this period seems to extend until 20,000 or 30,000 years BC. C. as in the rest of Mesoamerica, with human groups that shared the sociocultural characteristics of the other ethnic groups that lived in Costa Rica, Panama and southeastern Nicaragua. This area was part of a larger area called "Chibchoid tradition", which extends to the Sierra de Santa Marta "Santa Marta (Colombia)"), in northeastern Colombia. The ethnic groups in this area shared the roots of the Chibcha language and, although they presented Mesoamerican cultural traits, they developed their own cultural traits.

Although the majority of the groups seem to have a nomadic vocation, vestiges of settlements are appearing with buildings for groups of up to 400 people, with a circular and rectangular base depending on the migratory current and enclosures made of round wood, clay, natural fibers and palm, an adequate bioconstruction but that leaves few traces.[1]​[2]​.

During this time, long-distance trade networks began to develop. The Caribbean and South Pacific regions were inserted into the commercial circuit of Panama, Colombia and Ecuador, while the North Pacific area was connected to the circuit of Mexico and the rest of Central America. The Central Valley "Valle Central (Costa Rica)") was related to both circuits.

In the archaeological region of Gran Chiriquí, specifically at the confluence of the Sierpe and Térraba rivers, in the area known as Diquís (South Pacific), vestiges of settlements and objects of specialized manufacturing are found: monumental stone spheres grouped in geometries associated with astronomical and/or orientation phenomena, which denote advanced mathematical, climatic and technological knowledge, as well as a social and economic complexity to manage large settlements urban.[3][1]​.

Archaeologists insist that the “stone balls” were symbols of identity and/or authority,[4]​ a situation that has been maintained for millennia, since today they still flank public institutions, businesses and residences, they continue to be present in the collective imagination associated with painting, literature and sculpture. The plastic interest of the architects-sculptors Jorge Jiménez Deredia[5]​ and Ibo Bonilla[6]​, as well as the theoretical-conceptual interest of the architect Melissa Rudin, stands out.[7]​.

The native peoples created settlements such as the archaeological area of ​​Guayabo, with an area of ​​more than 250 hectares, mounds, spaces for ceremonial, domestic and funerary use, plazas, aqueduct and roads of hundreds of kilometers connecting the main trade routes, vestiges of a civilization that is believed to have flourished between the years 1,500 BC. C. to 1400 AD. C. The type of housing they used was the "ranch" (a rectangular or round room, without walls, or with walls built of reeds that let air pass through and a gable roof, which does not reach the ground, covered with palm leaves and culminates at the top with a clay pot to prevent leaks) whose interior had hammocks for socializing and sleeping.[1]​.

The complex was declared a national monument for its official protection and given its importance in technological development, since 2009 it became a World Engineering Heritage according to the American Society of Civil Engineering (ASCE).[8]​.

In the Northern Region (current province of Guanacaste), the Chorotegas and Nicaraos "Nicarao (ethnic group)") built their rectangular homes with beams, straw and dirt floors. The houses of the main lords, called temples or palaces by the conquerors, were larger and were located in the main square or royal street.

The Spanish called palenques to the groups of fortified rooms of the towns of Quepoa, Coctú, Boruca and Torucaca, located in the South Pacific. They described them as defensive forts, surrounded by palisades and with gates like

of drawbridges. In general, these nuclei were located in strategic locations, near water tributaries and farmland.[1]​.

The Spanish conquistador Vázquez de Coronado described the houses and town of Coctú as follows:

In the Caribbean region "Caribbean (region)") the circular house with a conical roof (U Suré) predominated. Recent research on this type of housing (especially in lower Talamanca) reveals a wide network of symbolic, mystical and coexistence relationships, both in the choice of materials and in the construction of the homes. Each of the steps reflects the indigenous worldview.[9]​.

At the beginning of the 19th century, just before the arrival of the Spanish, the population of the current territory of Costa Rica reached 400,000 people, most of them concentrated in the North Pacific and the Central Valley, but in 1611 that population had already been reduced to just over 10,000 people, a decrease of more than 90% in 42 years.[2]​.

In 1523, Charles V promulgated a series of ordinances, which determined that, whenever cities were founded far from the coasts, “squares, streets and plots of land were distributed by rule and order, starting from the main square and taking the streets from it to the main doors and roads.”

In 1564 the city of Cartago "Cartago (Costa Rica)") was founded and laid out in the Guarco valley, at the place where the Purires and Coris rivers converge. In 1575 it was moved to the site where it is currently located. Along with the only two Spanish cities that survived for much of the colonial period (Cartago and Esparza), there were also the Indian towns of Barva, Aserrí, Curridabat, Ujarrás, Pacaca, San Bernardino de Quepo and Nicoya.[1]​.

The ecclesiastical architecture of the centuries was very simple and was represented by the four temples that Carthage had at that time: the parish of Santiago Apóstol, the church of San Nicolás Tolentino, the temple and convent of San

Francisco and the La Soledad church, which also fulfilled charitable functions. From the same period are the Franciscan convent of Esparza and the temples of doctrine located in the Central Valley "Valle Central (Costa Rica)") and on the Nicoya peninsula.

Initially the structure of the temples was made of wood and straw. Later it had adobe walls and a tile roof and a single nave – with uprights when the width of the church required that support. A belfry or a simple bell tower housed the bells.

The temple of Ujarrás at that time inhabited by Ladinos was built with calicanto walls, three naves, presbytery with sacristy, office for the doctriner and adjacent cloister.

In the town of Orosi – repopulated in the middle of the century with Indians from the town of San José Cabécar, in Talamanca – the Franciscan fathers rebuilt the doctrinal temple (which is preserved today) following the colonial tradition: made of adobe, with a single nave raised on guachipelín horcones, simple Mudejar-style coffered ceiling, side chapel, cloister and beautiful but humble baroque altars. The main façade, made of masonry, presents the simplicity of Costa Rican colonial temples. The decoration of the bell tower is representative of the Central American baroque: a ribbon, decorated with a balustrade in flat relief, adorns the upper section.

To the west of the Central Valley several settlements emerged: Heredia "Heredia (Costa Rica)") (1706), San José "San José (Costa Rica)") (1737), Alajuela (1782) and Escazú (1793). And in the second half of the century (also spontaneously) new urban centers outside the Central Valley were incorporated. Such was the case of Cañas and Bagaces, which were within the networks of colonial trade with the north.

The residential houses of the main neighbors consisted of a plot of land measuring a quarter of a block. They were built on the corner, with their cedar posts and walkways, a cloistered patio, milking stables, shops and back rooms, a kitchen located away from the main body of the house, other rooms and an entrance gate for carts and animals. These housing structures contrasted strongly with the straw ranches of the common residents.

The town hall house of Cartago – the most important civil construction of the time – was located from the beginning on the north side of the main square (a tradition that was followed in the cities that were founded later). However, it was a poor adobe and tile construction. It was not until mid-1751 when an adobe building with a tile roof was built, with offices for the town hall, the accounting office, a weapons room, an office for the governor and the jail.

The temple façade of the Concepción de Heredia parish acquired that style. Its construction began in 1797. In the middle of the century it was remodeled and its façade advanced over the hillock, because an earthquake damaged the original. And in the 1870s its interior was remodeled to give it a neoclassical style appearance, an aspect that is still preserved today.

The third temple of the town of San José (the first hermitage was in another place) was intervened in 1810 by Pedro Castellón, master builder of León "León (Nicaragua)"), Nicaragua, who remodeled the façade and added two towers to give it the appearance of a parish. However, several tremors in 1821 and an earthquake in 1822 damaged it.

In its beginnings, the Villa Nueva of Boca del Monte (now called San José) was made up of a few straw ranches, which quickly gave rise to adobe, bahareque and calicanto structures. This Villa was located somewhere, as its name indicates, in "the mouth of the mountain" between the old Garcimuñoz (Desamparados) and the current center of San José. When the irrigation canal that gave water to the "Monte" was built, the colonization of the current San José was allowed in 1756. Later, thanks to the influence of commerce, the space was invaded by architectural proposals that no longer only satisfied the inhabitants of the city, but also the colonial administration. This was the case of the construction of the Tobacco Factory which, with the endorsement of the capital of the Kingdom of Guatemala, was located since 1782 in the space currently occupied by the Central Bank of Costa Rica, and which was, until the beginning of the century, the only civil building that broke with the monotony of the towns and cities of the province of Costa Rica.[1][2]​.

In the last colonial period (from 1780), the predominant architectural style was neoclassical, although clearly mixed with materials and techniques of local heritage.

In summary, the Spanish administration of the province of Costa Rica did not worry about constructing large buildings, neither public nor otherwise.[3]​.

Life as a republic began to consolidate with export and import, especially the export of coffee, cocoa and banana (in fact until 1840 no currency circulated and transactions were made with cocoa beans) and each had a specific and lasting impact on local architecture, with the arrival of thousands of immigrants mainly from Europe, but also from the Caribbean "Caribbean (region)"), China and the United States.

Costa Rican coffee began to be widely cultivated in the 1830s, especially in San José. The first exports were to Chile and later reached the Great Britain market.

In Costa Rica, commercial banana cultivation began in the mid-1880s. It was developed by the American Minor C. Keith, who had obtained a contract with the State to complete the railroad that would connect the central part of the country with the Caribbean port of Limón "Limón (province)"). The contract assured Keith the exploitation of the railroad and 800,000 acres of land in various parts of the country for 99 years.

The construction of the Atlantic railroad attracted a massive amount of Afro-Antillean male labor, mostly from the island of Jamaica. Until then, the indigenous population (Bbribrí and Cabécar) had been the majority in the area, incorporating a new cultural and architectural variable. The administration of Juan Mora Porras attempted to control public works, an action that was consolidated with the creation of the Secretariat of Public Works in 1860. By achieving a strong executive power, the public treasury was able to have the funds for an architectural development program, which set the goal of providing the State with public buildings that would house the powers of the Republic.[3]​.

With the Mora Theater located in the center of the capital, he intended to provide the elite with a cultural space, appropriate for those who constantly evoked their links with Europe. However, advertisements from the time indicate that entry for the "barefoot" was free of charge.[10]​.

Other buildings worth mentioning are the National Palace, built between 1851 and 1856 by Francisco Kurtze. In its neoclassical proposal, the palace intended to represent a strong and centralized State as a symbol of the nascent Republic and the Presidential Palace, built between 1866 and 1869 by the Mexican engineer Ángel Miguel Velásquez.

The State developed a series of architectural "typologies": barracks, prisons, hospitals and charitable institutions, and secondary schools. The century was a century of urban planning and social control, and architecture responded to those parameters. The worldview of the leading liberal elites was in harmony with architectural canons that they had adopted in France, England, Belgium and Italy.[1]​[2]​.

Several buildings representative of the works are still preserved: the Alajuela barracks, a military fort located in the center of the city, a stone and brick masonry building built between 1875 and 1879 under the direction and design of the French architect Gustavo Casalini; the San Juan de Dios hospital in San José "Hospital San Juan de Dios (San José)"), started in 1852 and rehabilitated in the 1880s and the Chapuí asylum, of neo-Gothic design, built between 1885 and 1890. Another representative example is the Nuestra Señora de Sion school, in neoclassical style, built in the 1880s.

A true technical change occurred between 1888 and 1910. The liberal State took measures to supervise construction and allow private companies to participate in the construction of public works. At the beginning of the 1890s, the Public Works Directorate reinforced the supervision and technical assistance departments with suitable professionals, both national and foreign. The Colegio Superior de Señoritas and other educational centers were built with this system. The Ministry of Public Works began work in 1888 and in 1890 entrusted its restructuring to businessman Federico Medcalf.[1]​.

After the devastating earthquake that devastated the Central Valley in 1888, the materials and construction techniques in force in the country were reviewed. The architectural landscape of the region was homogenized by adobe, bahareque, brick masonry and calicanto. Lacking an iron core, the structures that were built with these materials became true death traps when earthquakes occurred. As a preventive measure, new construction regulations were issued, according to which the use of wood was regulated, the use of adobe was prohibited and the use of new construction systems that used more flexible and lighter materials was recommended.

Both the metal temple of Greece and the Metal Building or Graduate Schools were commissioned from Belgian industrial houses, in 1889 and 1890 respectively, the first at the initiative of Bishop Thiel and the second by decision of the State. Both structures were "assembled" between 1890 and 1896, under the direction of professionals from the country and with the work of local workers. The construction of the railway to the Atlantic had been a school for these workers.[3]​.

In the last two decades of the century, society already had a new architectural repertoire made up of civic and private buildings and monuments that consecrated the official epic, among which it is worth mentioning:

The National Monument and the National Theater (inaugurated in 1897) subscribe to a certain prevailing eclecticism whose authors are Guillermo Reitz, Ángel Miguel Velásquez, Nicolás Chavarría and Luis Matamoros and the French sculptor Louis-Robert Carrier-Belleuse.

Also the Metal Building or Graduate Schools, San José, 5th Avenue, Parque España, by Charles Thirion (1890-1895) and the Atlantic Railway Station, San José, Avenida de las Damas, by Jaime Carranza, 1908. In 1907, the Italian Francesco Tenca built the Steinvorth Building, an example of modernist architecture in Costa Rica, with art nouveau style decorations.

At the end of the century, the Victorian style (characteristic of the time of Queen Victoria in England) was introduced to the country, for the construction of homes for the coffee bourgeoisie and some schools and buildings, very visible in the Amón neighborhood of San José.[1]​.

The prototype of the Guanacaste hacienda was characterized by having as its main house an unpainted wooden structure or bahareque with a clay tile roof. Some of them mounted on stone bases, others on posts, L-shaped wooden floor, wooden windows and doors. The kitchen was a separate structure located on one side of the house.

Examples are the Delicias and Santa Rosa haciendas "Hacienda Santa Rosa (Costa Rica)") located in the north of the province of Guanacaste, near the old herding road.

The mansion of the Santa Rosa hacienda "Hacienda Santa Rosa (Costa Rica)"), is located in the declared national park with the same name and consists of a structure of bahareque and wood, mounted on a high lime and stone plinth. Both its corrals and the location of the house are related to several historical events, including one of the most relevant to national history, the National Campaign of 1856-1857, a battle fought to defeat the northern filibusters under the command of William Walker who sought to install North American slave states in Central America, which allowed the assertion of sovereignty and national identity.

The Caribbean style was consolidated with works in the port of Limón, where sanitation works were carried out and the Caribbean language was introduced. Both Vargas Park and the municipal market, built in 1895 and 1875 respectively, are magnificent examples of the works carried out at that time. To build the first, a swamp was drained and a fill was formed. The French gardener Andrés Bonifé planted Indian laurels, palm trees and other Caribbean plants. The market, with an iron structure, was built by the foreign company Forés y Roig.

Other influential works were the Black Star Line building and the Missionary House and First Baptist Church, located in the center of Limón, within the Victorian style adapted to the climate.[2]​.

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]​.

Starting in 1972, the School of Architecture of the University of Costa Rica opened, the first in the country, with the vision of creating architecture that was responsible for the environment, led by architects Rafael Ángel García, Jorge Bertheau and Edgar Brenes. The first architect to graduate was Ibo Bonilla in 1977, and with him new generations of professionals who were characterized by maintaining an attitude of experimental design, interested in contributing to the resolution of national problems, joined the national environment. Before the end of the century, other universities public and private had opened the career of architecture.

Around 1980, the country's tourism industry received a new boost, favored by the peace processes in the region, the awareness of international tourism towards natural resources and biodiversity, and the promotion of conservation policies for wild areas and national parks dictated by the State in the previous decade.[12]​.

Small and medium-sized businesses proliferated in the hands of national and foreign investors, who stimulated ecological architecture represented by sets of buildings built with perishable materials and integrated with nature. This has been an aspect of architectural exploration that has been consolidated with the application of bioclimatism, green construction and sustainability criteria, practiced by architects such as Bruno Stagno and Ibo Bonilla, whose proposals have even had an international impact. "Best Private House in the World" at the World Architecture Festival (WAF) Awards,[16]​[17]​ for its focus on intuitive design, the use of bamboo and the connection with the natural environment in Guanacaste.

At the same time, large franchise consortiums participated, building hotel or condominium constructions around golf courses, exotic gardens with buildings with decontextualized styles such as Mexican and colonial Californian, considering real estate demand and not the environmental demands of sustainability.

Works inspired by local architecture of a vernacular and bioclimatic nature are also being built, as well as projects aimed at rescuing quality constructions that have been deteriorating, valuing the architectural heritage by providing them with new technologies to adapt them to new uses and projects that adapt to the topography and forest cover, minimizing the impact and respecting the environment and integrating into it.

For the year 2014, new trends are shown seeking to overcome technological and commercial expressionism, aimed at providing solutions in accordance with a constructive response for the new perception of space and its relationships derived from the practical and everyday applications of quantum physics, characterized by the availability of total and instantaneous information in a context of simultaneity, scenic superposition and indefinition of ubiquity, which forces the exercise of focusing on the references for each action, as is the case of the Telecom Offices designed by Ibo Bonilla with a strong orientation to quantum architecture.[18]​.

Examples of works from the contemporary period with an impact on the country's architectural image and work:[2]​[1]​.

In recent years the focus of architecture has changed in the central valley, since the city is already very full of constructions, towers or large developments have been replacing smaller constructions such as houses and small buildings. This has been done in a haphazard manner (with few or no regulations), pitting large buildings against single-level homes, generating large shadows over small parks and creating wind tunnels. According to architect Melissa Rudin, this has broken the urban fabric.[19]​ As a consequence of the same uncontrolled urban growth, the supply of small apartments that do not meet the needs of the Costa Rican population has increased.[20]​.

Housing continues to be the architectural work par excellence in Costa Rica, where architects show their expertise in the most sensitive work because it is close and personal. In response to cities already built, remodeling of existing spaces and interior design interventions have taken on great importance. Second or third generations are inheriting constructions that they must modify for contemporary needs, so this type of approach is now equated in importance and quality as an artistic work to a construction from scratch.

Given the tradition and professional availability, in Costa Rica any user, no matter how small their budget, can use the services of an architect to have a unique home, which specialized magazines usually publish, with the presence of architects such as: Víctor Cañas"), Juan Robles, Ibo Bonilla, Rolando Barahona, Melissa Rudin, Pietro Stagno, Abel Salazar, among others. others.[21]​[22]​[23]​[24]​[25]​.

In recognition of his outstanding career in his contribution to Costa Rican architecture, in October 2007, the College of Architects of Costa Rica established the "José Ma. Barrantes National Architecture Prize" award, represented by the bronze statuette called "Obelisk FI", designed by the sculptor and architect Ibo Bonilla, and which is presented every two years in a grand ceremony.[26]​.

Scholars of the history of Costa Rican architecture agree on one point: the appreciated but demanding tropical climate has meant that over the centuries, transnational design styles have had to adapt to the local bioclimatism, because if the architect does not foresee it, the user will do so with the help of an operator. And this has given Costa Rican architecture a common thread within so many currents invited over time.[1]​.

As archaeological findings progress, this period seems to extend until 20,000 or 30,000 years BC. C. as in the rest of Mesoamerica, with human groups that shared the sociocultural characteristics of the other ethnic groups that lived in Costa Rica, Panama and southeastern Nicaragua. This area was part of a larger area called "Chibchoid tradition", which extends to the Sierra de Santa Marta "Santa Marta (Colombia)"), in northeastern Colombia. The ethnic groups in this area shared the roots of the Chibcha language and, although they presented Mesoamerican cultural traits, they developed their own cultural traits.

Although the majority of the groups seem to have a nomadic vocation, vestiges of settlements are appearing with buildings for groups of up to 400 people, with a circular and rectangular base depending on the migratory current and enclosures made of round wood, clay, natural fibers and palm, an adequate bioconstruction but that leaves few traces.[1]​[2]​.

During this time, long-distance trade networks began to develop. The Caribbean and South Pacific regions were inserted into the commercial circuit of Panama, Colombia and Ecuador, while the North Pacific area was connected to the circuit of Mexico and the rest of Central America. The Central Valley "Valle Central (Costa Rica)") was related to both circuits.

In the archaeological region of Gran Chiriquí, specifically at the confluence of the Sierpe and Térraba rivers, in the area known as Diquís (South Pacific), vestiges of settlements and objects of specialized manufacturing are found: monumental stone spheres grouped in geometries associated with astronomical and/or orientation phenomena, which denote advanced mathematical, climatic and technological knowledge, as well as a social and economic complexity to manage large settlements urban.[3][1]​.

Archaeologists insist that the “stone balls” were symbols of identity and/or authority,[4]​ a situation that has been maintained for millennia, since today they still flank public institutions, businesses and residences, they continue to be present in the collective imagination associated with painting, literature and sculpture. The plastic interest of the architects-sculptors Jorge Jiménez Deredia[5]​ and Ibo Bonilla[6]​, as well as the theoretical-conceptual interest of the architect Melissa Rudin, stands out.[7]​.

The native peoples created settlements such as the archaeological area of ​​Guayabo, with an area of ​​more than 250 hectares, mounds, spaces for ceremonial, domestic and funerary use, plazas, aqueduct and roads of hundreds of kilometers connecting the main trade routes, vestiges of a civilization that is believed to have flourished between the years 1,500 BC. C. to 1400 AD. C. The type of housing they used was the "ranch" (a rectangular or round room, without walls, or with walls built of reeds that let air pass through and a gable roof, which does not reach the ground, covered with palm leaves and culminates at the top with a clay pot to prevent leaks) whose interior had hammocks for socializing and sleeping.[1]​.

The complex was declared a national monument for its official protection and given its importance in technological development, since 2009 it became a World Engineering Heritage according to the American Society of Civil Engineering (ASCE).[8]​.

In the Northern Region (current province of Guanacaste), the Chorotegas and Nicaraos "Nicarao (ethnic group)") built their rectangular homes with beams, straw and dirt floors. The houses of the main lords, called temples or palaces by the conquerors, were larger and were located in the main square or royal street.

The Spanish called palenques to the groups of fortified rooms of the towns of Quepoa, Coctú, Boruca and Torucaca, located in the South Pacific. They described them as defensive forts, surrounded by palisades and with gates like

of drawbridges. In general, these nuclei were located in strategic locations, near water tributaries and farmland.[1]​.

The Spanish conquistador Vázquez de Coronado described the houses and town of Coctú as follows:

In the Caribbean region "Caribbean (region)") the circular house with a conical roof (U Suré) predominated. Recent research on this type of housing (especially in lower Talamanca) reveals a wide network of symbolic, mystical and coexistence relationships, both in the choice of materials and in the construction of the homes. Each of the steps reflects the indigenous worldview.[9]​.

At the beginning of the 19th century, just before the arrival of the Spanish, the population of the current territory of Costa Rica reached 400,000 people, most of them concentrated in the North Pacific and the Central Valley, but in 1611 that population had already been reduced to just over 10,000 people, a decrease of more than 90% in 42 years.[2]​.

In 1523, Charles V promulgated a series of ordinances, which determined that, whenever cities were founded far from the coasts, “squares, streets and plots of land were distributed by rule and order, starting from the main square and taking the streets from it to the main doors and roads.”

In 1564 the city of Cartago "Cartago (Costa Rica)") was founded and laid out in the Guarco valley, at the place where the Purires and Coris rivers converge. In 1575 it was moved to the site where it is currently located. Along with the only two Spanish cities that survived for much of the colonial period (Cartago and Esparza), there were also the Indian towns of Barva, Aserrí, Curridabat, Ujarrás, Pacaca, San Bernardino de Quepo and Nicoya.[1]​.

The ecclesiastical architecture of the centuries was very simple and was represented by the four temples that Carthage had at that time: the parish of Santiago Apóstol, the church of San Nicolás Tolentino, the temple and convent of San

Francisco and the La Soledad church, which also fulfilled charitable functions. From the same period are the Franciscan convent of Esparza and the temples of doctrine located in the Central Valley "Valle Central (Costa Rica)") and on the Nicoya peninsula.

Initially the structure of the temples was made of wood and straw. Later it had adobe walls and a tile roof and a single nave – with uprights when the width of the church required that support. A belfry or a simple bell tower housed the bells.

The temple of Ujarrás at that time inhabited by Ladinos was built with calicanto walls, three naves, presbytery with sacristy, office for the doctriner and adjacent cloister.

In the town of Orosi – repopulated in the middle of the century with Indians from the town of San José Cabécar, in Talamanca – the Franciscan fathers rebuilt the doctrinal temple (which is preserved today) following the colonial tradition: made of adobe, with a single nave raised on guachipelín horcones, simple Mudejar-style coffered ceiling, side chapel, cloister and beautiful but humble baroque altars. The main façade, made of masonry, presents the simplicity of Costa Rican colonial temples. The decoration of the bell tower is representative of the Central American baroque: a ribbon, decorated with a balustrade in flat relief, adorns the upper section.

To the west of the Central Valley several settlements emerged: Heredia "Heredia (Costa Rica)") (1706), San José "San José (Costa Rica)") (1737), Alajuela (1782) and Escazú (1793). And in the second half of the century (also spontaneously) new urban centers outside the Central Valley were incorporated. Such was the case of Cañas and Bagaces, which were within the networks of colonial trade with the north.

The residential houses of the main neighbors consisted of a plot of land measuring a quarter of a block. They were built on the corner, with their cedar posts and walkways, a cloistered patio, milking stables, shops and back rooms, a kitchen located away from the main body of the house, other rooms and an entrance gate for carts and animals. These housing structures contrasted strongly with the straw ranches of the common residents.

The town hall house of Cartago – the most important civil construction of the time – was located from the beginning on the north side of the main square (a tradition that was followed in the cities that were founded later). However, it was a poor adobe and tile construction. It was not until mid-1751 when an adobe building with a tile roof was built, with offices for the town hall, the accounting office, a weapons room, an office for the governor and the jail.

The temple façade of the Concepción de Heredia parish acquired that style. Its construction began in 1797. In the middle of the century it was remodeled and its façade advanced over the hillock, because an earthquake damaged the original. And in the 1870s its interior was remodeled to give it a neoclassical style appearance, an aspect that is still preserved today.

The third temple of the town of San José (the first hermitage was in another place) was intervened in 1810 by Pedro Castellón, master builder of León "León (Nicaragua)"), Nicaragua, who remodeled the façade and added two towers to give it the appearance of a parish. However, several tremors in 1821 and an earthquake in 1822 damaged it.

In its beginnings, the Villa Nueva of Boca del Monte (now called San José) was made up of a few straw ranches, which quickly gave rise to adobe, bahareque and calicanto structures. This Villa was located somewhere, as its name indicates, in "the mouth of the mountain" between the old Garcimuñoz (Desamparados) and the current center of San José. When the irrigation canal that gave water to the "Monte" was built, the colonization of the current San José was allowed in 1756. Later, thanks to the influence of commerce, the space was invaded by architectural proposals that no longer only satisfied the inhabitants of the city, but also the colonial administration. This was the case of the construction of the Tobacco Factory which, with the endorsement of the capital of the Kingdom of Guatemala, was located since 1782 in the space currently occupied by the Central Bank of Costa Rica, and which was, until the beginning of the century, the only civil building that broke with the monotony of the towns and cities of the province of Costa Rica.[1][2]​.

In the last colonial period (from 1780), the predominant architectural style was neoclassical, although clearly mixed with materials and techniques of local heritage.

In summary, the Spanish administration of the province of Costa Rica did not worry about constructing large buildings, neither public nor otherwise.[3]​.

Life as a republic began to consolidate with export and import, especially the export of coffee, cocoa and banana (in fact until 1840 no currency circulated and transactions were made with cocoa beans) and each had a specific and lasting impact on local architecture, with the arrival of thousands of immigrants mainly from Europe, but also from the Caribbean "Caribbean (region)"), China and the United States.

Costa Rican coffee began to be widely cultivated in the 1830s, especially in San José. The first exports were to Chile and later reached the Great Britain market.

In Costa Rica, commercial banana cultivation began in the mid-1880s. It was developed by the American Minor C. Keith, who had obtained a contract with the State to complete the railroad that would connect the central part of the country with the Caribbean port of Limón "Limón (province)"). The contract assured Keith the exploitation of the railroad and 800,000 acres of land in various parts of the country for 99 years.

The construction of the Atlantic railroad attracted a massive amount of Afro-Antillean male labor, mostly from the island of Jamaica. Until then, the indigenous population (Bbribrí and Cabécar) had been the majority in the area, incorporating a new cultural and architectural variable. The administration of Juan Mora Porras attempted to control public works, an action that was consolidated with the creation of the Secretariat of Public Works in 1860. By achieving a strong executive power, the public treasury was able to have the funds for an architectural development program, which set the goal of providing the State with public buildings that would house the powers of the Republic.[3]​.

With the Mora Theater located in the center of the capital, he intended to provide the elite with a cultural space, appropriate for those who constantly evoked their links with Europe. However, advertisements from the time indicate that entry for the "barefoot" was free of charge.[10]​.

Other buildings worth mentioning are the National Palace, built between 1851 and 1856 by Francisco Kurtze. In its neoclassical proposal, the palace intended to represent a strong and centralized State as a symbol of the nascent Republic and the Presidential Palace, built between 1866 and 1869 by the Mexican engineer Ángel Miguel Velásquez.

The State developed a series of architectural "typologies": barracks, prisons, hospitals and charitable institutions, and secondary schools. The century was a century of urban planning and social control, and architecture responded to those parameters. The worldview of the leading liberal elites was in harmony with architectural canons that they had adopted in France, England, Belgium and Italy.[1]​[2]​.

Several buildings representative of the works are still preserved: the Alajuela barracks, a military fort located in the center of the city, a stone and brick masonry building built between 1875 and 1879 under the direction and design of the French architect Gustavo Casalini; the San Juan de Dios hospital in San José "Hospital San Juan de Dios (San José)"), started in 1852 and rehabilitated in the 1880s and the Chapuí asylum, of neo-Gothic design, built between 1885 and 1890. Another representative example is the Nuestra Señora de Sion school, in neoclassical style, built in the 1880s.

A true technical change occurred between 1888 and 1910. The liberal State took measures to supervise construction and allow private companies to participate in the construction of public works. At the beginning of the 1890s, the Public Works Directorate reinforced the supervision and technical assistance departments with suitable professionals, both national and foreign. The Colegio Superior de Señoritas and other educational centers were built with this system. The Ministry of Public Works began work in 1888 and in 1890 entrusted its restructuring to businessman Federico Medcalf.[1]​.

After the devastating earthquake that devastated the Central Valley in 1888, the materials and construction techniques in force in the country were reviewed. The architectural landscape of the region was homogenized by adobe, bahareque, brick masonry and calicanto. Lacking an iron core, the structures that were built with these materials became true death traps when earthquakes occurred. As a preventive measure, new construction regulations were issued, according to which the use of wood was regulated, the use of adobe was prohibited and the use of new construction systems that used more flexible and lighter materials was recommended.

Both the metal temple of Greece and the Metal Building or Graduate Schools were commissioned from Belgian industrial houses, in 1889 and 1890 respectively, the first at the initiative of Bishop Thiel and the second by decision of the State. Both structures were "assembled" between 1890 and 1896, under the direction of professionals from the country and with the work of local workers. The construction of the railway to the Atlantic had been a school for these workers.[3]​.

In the last two decades of the century, society already had a new architectural repertoire made up of civic and private buildings and monuments that consecrated the official epic, among which it is worth mentioning:

The National Monument and the National Theater (inaugurated in 1897) subscribe to a certain prevailing eclecticism whose authors are Guillermo Reitz, Ángel Miguel Velásquez, Nicolás Chavarría and Luis Matamoros and the French sculptor Louis-Robert Carrier-Belleuse.

Also the Metal Building or Graduate Schools, San José, 5th Avenue, Parque España, by Charles Thirion (1890-1895) and the Atlantic Railway Station, San José, Avenida de las Damas, by Jaime Carranza, 1908. In 1907, the Italian Francesco Tenca built the Steinvorth Building, an example of modernist architecture in Costa Rica, with art nouveau style decorations.

At the end of the century, the Victorian style (characteristic of the time of Queen Victoria in England) was introduced to the country, for the construction of homes for the coffee bourgeoisie and some schools and buildings, very visible in the Amón neighborhood of San José.[1]​.

The prototype of the Guanacaste hacienda was characterized by having as its main house an unpainted wooden structure or bahareque with a clay tile roof. Some of them mounted on stone bases, others on posts, L-shaped wooden floor, wooden windows and doors. The kitchen was a separate structure located on one side of the house.

Examples are the Delicias and Santa Rosa haciendas "Hacienda Santa Rosa (Costa Rica)") located in the north of the province of Guanacaste, near the old herding road.

The mansion of the Santa Rosa hacienda "Hacienda Santa Rosa (Costa Rica)"), is located in the declared national park with the same name and consists of a structure of bahareque and wood, mounted on a high lime and stone plinth. Both its corrals and the location of the house are related to several historical events, including one of the most relevant to national history, the National Campaign of 1856-1857, a battle fought to defeat the northern filibusters under the command of William Walker who sought to install North American slave states in Central America, which allowed the assertion of sovereignty and national identity.

The Caribbean style was consolidated with works in the port of Limón, where sanitation works were carried out and the Caribbean language was introduced. Both Vargas Park and the municipal market, built in 1895 and 1875 respectively, are magnificent examples of the works carried out at that time. To build the first, a swamp was drained and a fill was formed. The French gardener Andrés Bonifé planted Indian laurels, palm trees and other Caribbean plants. The market, with an iron structure, was built by the foreign company Forés y Roig.

Other influential works were the Black Star Line building and the Missionary House and First Baptist Church, located in the center of Limón, within the Victorian style adapted to the climate.[2]​.

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]​.

Starting in 1972, the School of Architecture of the University of Costa Rica opened, the first in the country, with the vision of creating architecture that was responsible for the environment, led by architects Rafael Ángel García, Jorge Bertheau and Edgar Brenes. The first architect to graduate was Ibo Bonilla in 1977, and with him new generations of professionals who were characterized by maintaining an attitude of experimental design, interested in contributing to the resolution of national problems, joined the national environment. Before the end of the century, other universities public and private had opened the career of architecture.

Around 1980, the country's tourism industry received a new boost, favored by the peace processes in the region, the awareness of international tourism towards natural resources and biodiversity, and the promotion of conservation policies for wild areas and national parks dictated by the State in the previous decade.[12]​.

Small and medium-sized businesses proliferated in the hands of national and foreign investors, who stimulated ecological architecture represented by sets of buildings built with perishable materials and integrated with nature. This has been an aspect of architectural exploration that has been consolidated with the application of bioclimatism, green construction and sustainability criteria, practiced by architects such as Bruno Stagno and Ibo Bonilla, whose proposals have even had an international impact. "Best Private House in the World" at the World Architecture Festival (WAF) Awards,[16]​[17]​ for its focus on intuitive design, the use of bamboo and the connection with the natural environment in Guanacaste.

At the same time, large franchise consortiums participated, building hotel or condominium constructions around golf courses, exotic gardens with buildings with decontextualized styles such as Mexican and colonial Californian, considering real estate demand and not the environmental demands of sustainability.

Works inspired by local architecture of a vernacular and bioclimatic nature are also being built, as well as projects aimed at rescuing quality constructions that have been deteriorating, valuing the architectural heritage by providing them with new technologies to adapt them to new uses and projects that adapt to the topography and forest cover, minimizing the impact and respecting the environment and integrating into it.

For the year 2014, new trends are shown seeking to overcome technological and commercial expressionism, aimed at providing solutions in accordance with a constructive response for the new perception of space and its relationships derived from the practical and everyday applications of quantum physics, characterized by the availability of total and instantaneous information in a context of simultaneity, scenic superposition and indefinition of ubiquity, which forces the exercise of focusing on the references for each action, as is the case of the Telecom Offices designed by Ibo Bonilla with a strong orientation to quantum architecture.[18]​.

Examples of works from the contemporary period with an impact on the country's architectural image and work:[2]​[1]​.

In recent years the focus of architecture has changed in the central valley, since the city is already very full of constructions, towers or large developments have been replacing smaller constructions such as houses and small buildings. This has been done in a haphazard manner (with few or no regulations), pitting large buildings against single-level homes, generating large shadows over small parks and creating wind tunnels. According to architect Melissa Rudin, this has broken the urban fabric.[19]​ As a consequence of the same uncontrolled urban growth, the supply of small apartments that do not meet the needs of the Costa Rican population has increased.[20]​.

Housing continues to be the architectural work par excellence in Costa Rica, where architects show their expertise in the most sensitive work because it is close and personal. In response to cities already built, remodeling of existing spaces and interior design interventions have taken on great importance. Second or third generations are inheriting constructions that they must modify for contemporary needs, so this type of approach is now equated in importance and quality as an artistic work to a construction from scratch.

Given the tradition and professional availability, in Costa Rica any user, no matter how small their budget, can use the services of an architect to have a unique home, which specialized magazines usually publish, with the presence of architects such as: Víctor Cañas"), Juan Robles, Ibo Bonilla, Rolando Barahona, Melissa Rudin, Pietro Stagno, Abel Salazar, among others. others.[21]​[22]​[23]​[24]​[25]​.

In recognition of his outstanding career in his contribution to Costa Rican architecture, in October 2007, the College of Architects of Costa Rica established the "José Ma. Barrantes National Architecture Prize" award, represented by the bronze statuette called "Obelisk FI", designed by the sculptor and architect Ibo Bonilla, and which is presented every two years in a grand ceremony.[26]​.

Scholars of the history of Costa Rican architecture agree on one point: the appreciated but demanding tropical climate has meant that over the centuries, transnational design styles have had to adapt to the local bioclimatism, because if the architect does not foresee it, the user will do so with the help of an operator. And this has given Costa Rican architecture a common thread within so many currents invited over time.[1]​.