Master of Architecture Thesis
Spring 2023

Harvard Graduate School of Design
Advisor: Oana Stănescu

🚗⚰️ From Espuma Pari to Velorio:
Emebelecos in the Marquesina

Puerto Rico’s colonial and political history is reflected in the overwhelming presence of imported housing typologies and architectural styles. This constantly forces us to, with the use of embelecos, individually take it into our own hands to transform spaces to fit our cultural and personal needs, especially in our homes. These are architectural registers of resistance.

Looking specifically at transformations done to imported urbanization projects during the modernization period, what can we learn from these architectural registers of resistance in order to repair Puerto Rico’s current architectural fabric?

The kitsch aesthetic of these transformations not only contrasts the original imposed modernist ideals but also responds to the Puerto Rican tendency of using embelecos, an excess of accessories or ornaments, as a tool to achieve autonomy and create identity in a context where our national one is constantly denied. Through the process of embelequear, new meanings are assigned to elements from imposed cultures as a subversive response that steals power away from colonial impositions.

Currently, Puerto Rico is experiencing an affordable housing shortage, while there are over 370,000 abandoned houses all over the island. How can the abandoned houses in these imported urbanization projects be rehabilitated in a way that the architectural repairs visually respond to local embeleco aesthetics, target a local demographic who is currently struggling to find a home, exalt local construction methods, and provide adequate spaces that respond to cultural needs?

Research Drawings