GELABERT-NAVIA
During the 1960s, construction in Puerto Rico proliferated as a result of several events. The University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus opened in 1965 the first Architecture School in the country that was already beginning to bear fruit, preparing an emerging class of professionals. In addition, new tools allowed more accuracy and better representations. The Island experienced an evident economic progress and the environment was propitious for the develop architecture in the Island. Under this frame many Cuban architects would have to get to practice their profession in the country because of the Cuban migration after the defeat of General Fulgencio Batista and the triumph of Fidel Castro in 1959.
Gelabert & Navia Architects represents one of several that were nourished of the many professionals who exerted after their arrival to Puerto Rico. These developed a wide variety of projects during the 60s and the first half of the 70s, located mostly in the metropolitan area of the country.
The examples still standing characterize, to a large extent, the current Puerto Rican urban condition. The amount of work that is still preserved by the architects is significant. However, both the authors and their works have been excluded from the current architectural debate on modernity in Puerto Rico. The architects José A. Gelabert and Rosa M. Navia designed more than eighty projects in Puerto Rico. Their works could be grouped according to the program they hosted: residential condominiums and hotels, businesses and industries, urbanizations, schools and buildings for the community. In general, the work of Gelaber-Navia shares some of the emblematic characteristics of Modernity, among them: the free floor, the articulation of the corner and the accentuation of verticality by “stripes” in a large part of their buildings. Gelabert and Navia contributed to the development of the city in Puerto Rico, designing a large number of structures according to the period in which they had to build. Buildings that today are part of the daily life of many and relevant pieces within the group of buildings that make up San Juan.
Their projects seem to focus on housing, considering that more than half of their work on the island was aimed at housing. They demonstrated to have total control of the properties that were presented to them, specifying successful projects. They are a couple that demonstrated fairness in the work that was presented to them, each one attending a primordial vertex of the work. The most emblematic projects of them should be part of the modern discourse of Puerto Rican architecture. After the completion of more than 80 projects around the island and reside for 15 years, in 1975 Gelabert and Navia migrated once again, this time to Venezuela. The reason attributed to the decline of the economy in Puerto Rico, specifically construction. Gelabert taught at the University of Venezuela, and both got their licenses and built for a period of 5 years. In 1980, they decided to go to the United States as had been their intention from the beginning. Today the architects reside in Miami and throughout their years they obtained the licenses of Washington and Florida, however the only one that is valid until the day of writing is the Puerto Rico one.
