Jade Museum
Diego van der Laat · San José, Costa Rica · 2014
The Jade Museum is conceived as a contemporary container for one of the region’s most important pre-Columbian collections. Diego van der Laat’s building uses a compact, faceted mass and controlled openings to create a strong institutional identity in central San José. Inside, circulation unfolds through large exhibition floors organized around archaeological themes rather than a traditional sequence of small rooms. The project represents a recent shift in Costa Rican museum architecture toward purpose-built cultural infrastructure with a deliberately contemporary urban presence.