Santiago Crespo was born in Costa Rica in 1924. In 1970 he was part of a group of influential architects (with Jorge Bertheau, Felo Garcia and Edgar Brenes), who were provided with scholarships to attend the Architectural Association’s (AA) Department of Development and Tropical Studies, in London. This selection was made as part of a process by which the University of Costa Rica (UCR) and the UK government were engaged in talks to set up a school of architecture in Costa Rica. Under the aegis of the UK/Central American Technical Assistance Arrangements programme, the Head of the AA Department of Development and Tropical Studies, Otto Koenigsberger, had visited Costa Rica from April 14th – May 4th, 1970, interviewing specialists and holding talks with UCR. His subsequent report and recommendations were submitted to the Rector and Board of Trustees of UCR in April 1970. Both a Spanish and an English language copy remains within the AA Archives today. Crespo and his colleagues began their studies at the AA from September 1970, within the Department’s new ‘Teaching Methods Course’. Together they worked on a joint dissertation, specifically the drawing up of a formal proposal for a pedagogical and administrative system for a new Architecture School at UCR. However, Crespo appears not to have been in sympathy with the direction of his fellow students’ ideas and left the AA course early, travelling to Madrid where he joined Carlos Vinocour, a Costa Rican architect who had initially been selected to study at the AA but had been disqualified due to his poor English language proficiency - and had instead been sent to study teaching methods at the Escuela Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid. When Berheau, Garcia and Brenes returned to Costa Rica, their proposals were instrumental in the formation of ARQUIS, UCR’s architecture school and Crespo and Vinocour were amongst some of the early critical voices objecting to the more radical aspects of the school’s curriculum and pedagogy.
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