Centro Interamericano de Vivienda y Planeamiento
Main entrance. December 1954
Designed by CINVA staff, including Guillermo de Roux of Panama (design), Leonard Currie (landscape design and job captain), Celestino Sanudo of Chile (preliminaries), Herbert Ritter and Eduardo Mejia of Colombia (drawings and specifications). Construction 1952 – 1953. Howard T. Fisher was consulting architect for the experimental construction lab.
The Organization of American States formed the Inter-American Housing Center as a technical assistance, research, and educational program to address the urgent need for low-cost housing in Latin America. As the director, Currie led the Center with a holistic approach to solving problems that was consistent with the education he received with Gropius and Breuer. Research was multidisciplinary, from anthropology through developing low-cost, low-tech construction methods. Graduate students from all over Latin America became a generation of professionals who developed urban and rural infrastructures.
For Currie’s article about the building see Architectural Record, vol. 121, no. 3, March 1957, pp. 193-200.