Last month, doctoral student, Leonardo Santamaría-Montero, presented his book Templo, palacio y centro social: la arquitectura y la ornamentación del Teatro Nacional de Costa Rica (Editorial UCR, 2023) at the National Theater of Costa Rica.
The National Theater is an opera house built in the 1890s and is considered the most emblematic building of Costa Rica, in whose facilities the book was officially launched on the night of December 11, 2023. In his book, Santamaría-Montero analyzes from a sociocultural perspective the architectural and decorative design of the National Theater building in relation to its iconographic, architectural and discursive antecedents, and in the Latin American context of the late 19th century, in which this building stands out as one of the finest opera houses in the region. Likewise, the architectural and ornamental design of the National Theater is examined in light of the building's three original functions: temple of art, republican palace, and center of bourgeois sociability. Sculptures and allegorical paintings are analyzed as part of a decorative program grouped into two thematic axes: on the one hand, Greek mythological beings and personifications of the arts; on the other hand, metaphors of republican political values and utopias referring to the economic and social progress of Costa Rica. This book is the product of a series of investigations carried out between 2014 and 2020 in which fields such as the History of Architecture, Iconography, Semiotics, Numismatics, Political History, Cultural History and the Sociology of Culture contributed to the understanding of Santamaría-Montero of the architectural and ornamental design of the building, as well as its social and political uses.
Book available on the University of Costa Rica Press (Editorial UCR) website: https://libreriaucr.fundacionucr.ac.cr/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=2099
Photos from the book launch event: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.763244149180848&type=3
News coverage of the book launch: https://www.facebook.com/leonardo.santamaria.montero/posts/pfbid0QAF6rqvQvUfHpHkutCG3yQq6FKhz16163HhiM8KXqXzBCbY9iqQ9JFPE97HN5D58l
