A New Deal for an Other: Colonial Discourse and Architecture in the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration
initial phase was supported in 2016-2017 through a subvention from the Historic Preservation Fund
a multi-property historic context and evaluation of significance were produced a part of the nomination to the NRHP
87 properties associated with PRRA were found and identified
research continuation is currently supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in Fine Arts
initial phase was supported in 2016-2017 through a subvention from the Historic Preservation Fund
a multi-property historic context and evaluation of significance were produced a part of the nomination to the NRHP
87 properties associated with PRRA were found and identified
research continuation is currently supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in Fine Arts
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Scope:
Research on the New Deal in the island colonies and the former territories is limited. However, lines of inquiry focusing on New Deal policies and outcomes in what were considered marginal geographies seem crucial in order to deliver a complete counter view of the subject and of the period. In 1935, president Franklin Delano Roosevelt created the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration (PRRA) as a New Deal agency to take charge of the economic and social reconstruction of the Island following two major hurricanes –San Felipe (1928) and San Ciprián (1932). From 1935 to 1943 PRRA developed and guided what should be considered the first scaled modernization of the Island. Architecture was fundamental in this process as the efforts for improving on people’s safety, wellbeing, education, and health translated in concrete ways through buildings.
Context:
Scholarship on 1930s and 1940s architecture in Latin America tends to recognize its role as an instrument of the States. For countries like Mexico and Brazil, scholars mostly agree on architecture’s disposition to cross-pollinate imported technologies and modern notions of development with cultural heritage and local traditions. In turn, innovative national discourses were showcased through this hybridization exercise. For the Dominican Republic, Trujillo’s dictatorship pushed forth a self-promoting reconstruction of the capital city under the rubric of modernization following the devastation of 1934 hurricane, San Zenón. In a somewhat similar way, the destruction left by the 1944 San Juan earthquake, drove a massive socially minded rebuilding effort in the province and threw Perón –then, Secretary of Labor– into the Argentinian political spotlight securing the leadership position that won him the presidency in the next election. In the United States, the architecture produced under the New Deal advanced the discourse of the newly founded welfare state and that of the strength of democracy as it also created an American architectural aesthetic that changed the Nation’s physical landscape. However, the case of Puerto Rico is different as New Deal architecture was colonial. Thus, in one hand, it subscribed to a benign discourse of reform while supporting a subtext of domination. As such, borrowing from H. Bhaba, I argue that New Deal architecture in Puerto Rico made visible the presence of authority while consolidating a framework for colonial desire and discipline (Bhabha, Signs Taken for Wonders, The Location of Culture, 102).
Goals:
Broadly, this project aims to contribute to the understanding of the mechanics of American colonialism through architecture by filling the historical and architectural analytical gaps of previous scholarship. My ultimate objectives are to produce a bilingual book –English and Spanish– in accessible narrative to be published by an academic press and to develop and launch a multimedia platform for educational and research purposes.
My work intends: (1) to map New Deal architecture in Puerto Rico through the projects designed, built, and/or funded by PRRA; (2) contrast official discourse and programs objectives to design propositions in terms of architectural programming, spatial solutions, and aesthetics; (3) calculate the ways colonial negotiations, cultural idiosyncrasies, stereotyping, and modernization discourses and practices were acknowledged in these projects; and (4) verify the performative implications of architecture within a process of cultural metamorphosis towards metropolitanism while weighing in the contrasting influence of difference and otherness.
Analytical Frame:
This research focuses on social and political considerations that filtered through space, design, and aesthetics. In previous research, I have explained the ambivalent function of architecture in scenarios of domination as both, colonizing and colonized. From that notion, one of the intentions of this project is to analyze ethnic, racial, and cultural negotiations between the United States and Puerto Rico as they display in New Deal colonial architecture. For this research I consider Puerto Rico’s New Deal buildings as tactical exercises through which the problematic issues that encompassed the mediation of difference can be traced and measured.
Contributions:
This research contributes to the fields of History, Architecture, Puerto Rican Studies, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Colonial Studies, and Cultural Studies. However, given the parallels with Puerto Rico’s current socioeconomic crisis and the need for massive infrastructural reconstruction following hurricane Maria, –a process that is being dubbed a neocolonization– this work may interpose a valuable frame to consider within the prospects of the Island’s current post-disaster redevelopment.
Project's Dissemination and Educational Outlet:
A Facebook page in support of the project was launched in April 2018. PRRA architecture is intended as an outreach platform to document the research process, share some findings, and grow a community interested in the topic. The page functions as well, as an educational resource.
Research on the New Deal in the island colonies and the former territories is limited. However, lines of inquiry focusing on New Deal policies and outcomes in what were considered marginal geographies seem crucial in order to deliver a complete counter view of the subject and of the period. In 1935, president Franklin Delano Roosevelt created the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration (PRRA) as a New Deal agency to take charge of the economic and social reconstruction of the Island following two major hurricanes –San Felipe (1928) and San Ciprián (1932). From 1935 to 1943 PRRA developed and guided what should be considered the first scaled modernization of the Island. Architecture was fundamental in this process as the efforts for improving on people’s safety, wellbeing, education, and health translated in concrete ways through buildings.
Context:
Scholarship on 1930s and 1940s architecture in Latin America tends to recognize its role as an instrument of the States. For countries like Mexico and Brazil, scholars mostly agree on architecture’s disposition to cross-pollinate imported technologies and modern notions of development with cultural heritage and local traditions. In turn, innovative national discourses were showcased through this hybridization exercise. For the Dominican Republic, Trujillo’s dictatorship pushed forth a self-promoting reconstruction of the capital city under the rubric of modernization following the devastation of 1934 hurricane, San Zenón. In a somewhat similar way, the destruction left by the 1944 San Juan earthquake, drove a massive socially minded rebuilding effort in the province and threw Perón –then, Secretary of Labor– into the Argentinian political spotlight securing the leadership position that won him the presidency in the next election. In the United States, the architecture produced under the New Deal advanced the discourse of the newly founded welfare state and that of the strength of democracy as it also created an American architectural aesthetic that changed the Nation’s physical landscape. However, the case of Puerto Rico is different as New Deal architecture was colonial. Thus, in one hand, it subscribed to a benign discourse of reform while supporting a subtext of domination. As such, borrowing from H. Bhaba, I argue that New Deal architecture in Puerto Rico made visible the presence of authority while consolidating a framework for colonial desire and discipline (Bhabha, Signs Taken for Wonders, The Location of Culture, 102).
Goals:
Broadly, this project aims to contribute to the understanding of the mechanics of American colonialism through architecture by filling the historical and architectural analytical gaps of previous scholarship. My ultimate objectives are to produce a bilingual book –English and Spanish– in accessible narrative to be published by an academic press and to develop and launch a multimedia platform for educational and research purposes.
My work intends: (1) to map New Deal architecture in Puerto Rico through the projects designed, built, and/or funded by PRRA; (2) contrast official discourse and programs objectives to design propositions in terms of architectural programming, spatial solutions, and aesthetics; (3) calculate the ways colonial negotiations, cultural idiosyncrasies, stereotyping, and modernization discourses and practices were acknowledged in these projects; and (4) verify the performative implications of architecture within a process of cultural metamorphosis towards metropolitanism while weighing in the contrasting influence of difference and otherness.
Analytical Frame:
This research focuses on social and political considerations that filtered through space, design, and aesthetics. In previous research, I have explained the ambivalent function of architecture in scenarios of domination as both, colonizing and colonized. From that notion, one of the intentions of this project is to analyze ethnic, racial, and cultural negotiations between the United States and Puerto Rico as they display in New Deal colonial architecture. For this research I consider Puerto Rico’s New Deal buildings as tactical exercises through which the problematic issues that encompassed the mediation of difference can be traced and measured.
Contributions:
This research contributes to the fields of History, Architecture, Puerto Rican Studies, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Colonial Studies, and Cultural Studies. However, given the parallels with Puerto Rico’s current socioeconomic crisis and the need for massive infrastructural reconstruction following hurricane Maria, –a process that is being dubbed a neocolonization– this work may interpose a valuable frame to consider within the prospects of the Island’s current post-disaster redevelopment.
Project's Dissemination and Educational Outlet:
A Facebook page in support of the project was launched in April 2018. PRRA architecture is intended as an outreach platform to document the research process, share some findings, and grow a community interested in the topic. The page functions as well, as an educational resource.