Carlos E. Betancourt, AIA, has enriched the field of architecture by producing buildings with a sense of place and respect for local culture combined with a contemporary sensibility toward materials and form.

 

Carlos E. Betancourt AIA is recognized as one of Puerto Rico's leading figures in the field of architecture. His projects range from large-scale public commissions to small, personal houses, rich in design detail and spatial articulation. For the past thirty years, Betancourt has established a large body of work whose quality has been recognized with regional and local awards for design excellence. This excellence, beyond his skills as a designer, stems from his belief and commitment to the role of architecture as an integral part of local culture, as a vital component in the structure of the cities and towns in our region, and as a positive force in the community.

 

Betancourt’s designs are anchored by a keen sense of form, material and tectonics that transcend their regional references. His buildings are a rich play of light and shade, color, and texture, which reflect his Caribbean cultural context articulated through a contemporary design vocabulary. The carefully crafted spatial sequences of his projects heighten people's experience of his architecture.

 

His body of work provides profound and touching architectural experiences that arise from the tectonic realities of construction, truthful materiality, and an existential charge of imagery.

 

 

Define our will regarding the landscape. Take part of that landscape with conviction.

 

The threshold establishes sequence the object juxtaposed with its surroundings.

Interior and exterior.

 

Place informs y determines how to proceed. We should read into the space.

As if an assignment, over and over again.

 

The object in the landscape. A look from afar. From close to the closest.

From detail to…

 

Ideas bring projects to life. They are born in context. They are not placed.

 

The outer shell is transformed by ebb and flow. Spacial. Interior and exterior.

 

The idea, materials and construction. Inseparable. The rigor and order of structures.

 

Architecture is theatrics. Poetry of light and shadow. Machinery that rises and glides.

Some hide. Thresholds, passages.

 

The tangible and intangible. Ephimerous. Disciplines dissolve, one within the other.

 

For each project, a script, a guide, an intention.

 

It is not enough to build it. One must experiment it, walk it, observe it, contemplate it, touch it. And above all, one must live it.