Page:Architectural Record 1920-08 Vol 48 Iss 2.djvu/60



has the

of architectural study in Spain enjoyed excellent opportunities in line of professional training.

Mr. Finlayson’s work covers a diver- sity of subjects: schoolhouses, urban and rural, institutional buildings, city

halls, market houses, hospitals, bridges. As compared with a like class of work to be dealt with under northern condi- tions the problems are materially simpli- fied—something well worth the attention of our architects here in the States, to whom the rapid development of tropical regions now going on is prospectively bringing an ever increasing number of important commissions. Unfamiliarity with tropical conditions on the part of our architects, who not infrequently have designed work for tropical localities in absentee fashion, has often led to ludi- crous errors and greatly increased build- ing costs for the client. The builder of an important hospital in a tropical city, for instance, told the writer that even after he had, by urgent representations, obtained a reluctant elimination of the steam-heating plant included in the plans, there yet remained various unnecessary requirements insisted upon by the archi- tect that made the cost of the building something like fifteen thousand dollars greater than it need have been. The Car- negie Library in San Juan, designed in a New York office with little reference to climatic conditions, is by no means well suited to West Indian circumstances. One defect is a failure to realize the situation arising from the frequent showers, often several in the course of the day, brought up by the trade-wind; in consequence it is frequently necessary for attendants to run around and close the shutters at the window openings. This could have been obviated by designing the building with an arcaded exterior. But a type of library design was selected that in the States has become traditional since the building of the Boston Public Library. A mem- ber of the Board of Trustees told the writer that a competent representative had been sent to inform the architects as to local conditions, but that little attention was paid to him.

The simplification of structural prob-

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lems under tropical conditions is due, among other things, to such circum- stances as the fact that there is no oc- casion for going below a “frost-line” for one’s foundations; that there is no cold to be kept out of the building, and that consequently double exterior walls are not required, and provisions for artificial heating are unnecessary. Chimneys are also dispensed with as a rule, the excep- tions being where wood or coal may be called for in cooking. But in cities like San Juan, gas, electricity or kerosene are used in the kitchen. And where there are smokeless products of combustion, as in the case of charcoal, or kerosene, there is still no call for a chimney to take them off, the breeze carrying them out of the always open windows or doors. For the better-class dwellings, situated at an altitude in the country or in towns among the mountains, open fireplaces are desir- able.

Reinforced concrete is practically the universal building material in Porto Rico today. Its relative cheapness, its strength and its durability recommend it. It is here employed with remarkable ability, and has been a notable factor in the de- velopment of locally typical forms of design. As elsewhere, for a brief period concrete blocks had a vogue, but their day is past and they are no longer in use. Limestone and granite abound in the in- terior of the island, but transportation- costs make them unavailable, except pos- sibly for exceptional purposes. A quarry of marble, said to be as good as the best Italian in quality, has lately been opened up near San Juan, close to a railway line. So this material may come into use in connection with the steel-frame construc- tion increasingly employed in the semi- skyscraper commercial architecture of San Juan, and also for decorative interior finish. But reinforced concrete has en- tirely superseded the old-time construc- tion of either mamposteria (rubble) or soft brick, a construction with phenomen- ally thick walls, in use since the earliest Spanish times—a factor that lay at the root of the terrible havoc wrought by the

earthquake in 1918 at Mayaguez and other west coast towns.

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