Costa Rican Art Museum
José María Barrantes Monge · San José, Costa Rica · 1940
Now home to the Museo de Arte Costarricense, this building began as the terminal of San José’s former La Sabana airport. José María Barrantes Monge gave the compact public building a highly crafted regional character through arcades, courtyards and decorative interiors rather than the stripped language of international modernism. Its later conversion into a museum preserved a major piece of Costa Rica’s transport history while giving the city a national art institution embedded within La Sabana park.