SAN JOSE STARTS ITS TROPICAL METAMORPHOSIS

Jacques LANUSSE -CAZALE
The romantic Italian singer, Gianmaria Testa, talks of “heroism” when he sings the story of his compatriots who, without ever seen the sea before, were determined to cross the Mediterranean Sea or the Atlantic Ocean to escape from fascism. Bruno Stagno also crossed the ocean with his wife to escape from the Chilean dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet-Chile was his native land— to go out in exile up to Europe. 30 years ago, life made him discover Costa Ricaand he fell in love with the country and its people to the point he asked for the citizenship.

Free and happy, his tropical land of adoption appears as a muse along his architectural work. But after so many years of creations, reflection and determination to develop the IAT, the Institute of Tropical Architecture (read the note attached), Stagno was, one more time, in front of a new “ocean”, called “Gap”, downtown San Jose. In the year 2003 the mayor of the city, Johnny Araya, invited Bruno Stagno to find solutions to repopulate the capital due to the fact that many people had gone away. “Nothing, there is absolutely no project since many years ago in the municipality for the development of the city and to confront a complicated situation of depopulation. There is a great gap “, said Stagno. With five other Costa Rican architects

(Carlos M. Escalante, Adrián Guzmán, Diego Meléndez, Marlo Trejos, Jimena Ugarte), Stagno promoted “San José Posible “ which, after a year and a half, emerged from benevolent studies. Now, the work will begin in January, 2007. With “San José Posible “, the idea is to recover the public spaces in a zone of 371.000 sq.feet (the most deteriorated zone of the central area), and to organize the private and public transportation with
restrictions of access to the regenerated zone. Since we will not proceed to expropriations, the success will be linked to the owners and whether or not they want to develop projects in their lands.
These 371.000 sq.feet are confined between the Church of La Soledad and the Park of La Merced (in direction East—West), and between the 4th Avenue and the 10th Avenue (in direction North—South), which is the most decadent zone downtown San José that needs immediate regeneration. This project is going to be repeated in
the 4th Avenue (which name is now “ Road of the European Union “), the pedestrian street of the Central Avenue that is the best shopping center of the country. In addition, streets 10, 4, 3, and 9 will be for pedestrians and will have limited access for traffic.
For Stagno, since the best infrastructure of the country is located in the capital, and as the safety will be improved, and money and time can be saved by people going to and from work by foot, many people who suffer from hours of transportation to go to work downtown of the capital will decide to live in the new zones of this area.
“We did studies in five institutions that have their offices in the centre of the capital and not less than 30.000 of their personnel will have the possibility of acquiring or renting an apartment in this remodelled zone. Only 5 percent of this population will represent 1.500 apartments,” according to the architect.
In the same area, the parking lots can continue operating, and the neighbours will have identification for theirs cars to be able to circulate.
In complement to the metamorphosis of the central strip of the capital, the project “Urban Forestry” that will also start in the first months of 2007, promises a big and profound change in the image of the city in a period of five years. This project wants to turn San Jose into the first tropical capital of the world, that is to say presenting real forests in the different neighbourhoods, hammock bridges over the streams, and aerial trams to transport the people over the canopy of the trees.
Listening to Bruno Stagno speak about this beautiful project, one cannot avoid thinking about the images of the Buddhist temples of Angkor, in Cambodge, invaded by a thick jungle. But here, the trees are going to share the streets with the cars in harmony in the remodelled zones. Where there are four parking lots together, there will be two fields for cars and two for trees...
As Amsterdam is known for the precious canals all around the city, San Jose will have the reputation of a city with tropical forests and tourists will come massively in the months of the dry season to see the thousands of oaks in flowers in the avenues and streets of the capital.

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