Notes on a museum and the city

Our proposal for the new Museum of Contemporary Art of Panama begins from a simple premise: the museum should not be conceived as an object, but as a place within the city.

The site sits between contrasting urban conditions: the fishing community of Boca La Caja, the expanding district of San Francisco, institutional campuses, and large-scale commercial developments. Within this fragmented context, the project establishes a civic locus by prioritizing the ground.

The corner of the lot—its most visible and accessible point—is released as a shaded public space: Atrio Arte, a covered plaza open without a ticket. In the tropical climate of Panama, shade is not an amenity but a precondition for collective life. The plaza is not residual space; it is the primary architectural act. The museum is organized above it.

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In 1973, ICESA designed the Banco Anglo Costarricense branch in Santa Cruz, Guanacaste — a corner building that made an immediate urban gesture: the ground floor retreats, extending the sidewalk and casting shade over pedestrians in Guanacaste’s intense climate. Fifty years later, the building stands empty. But its structure still standing, its spatial quality survives, and the question of what it could become is more relevant than ever.

A building that gave back to the street

The design’s primary move was civic. By lifting the active program to the upper floor and freeing the ground level, the building contributed shaded public space to a corner diagonal to Parque Bernabela Ramos. Continuous glazed facades wrapped the recessed ground floor on both street and avenue frontages — open, transparent, accessible. The upper floor inverted this logic entirely: solid exposed concrete, protected by integrated parapets and vertical louvers whose rhythm varied between facades, denser on the south face than the east.

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We’re excited to announce that Casa Perro Loco has officially broken ground! Located in Playa Callejones, Nicoya, Guanacaste, this new project starts with the compact footprint cleared.

As construction begins, this cleaned site and the tractor at work symbolize the first steps in bringing this design to life. Stay tuned as we share updates on how Casa Perro Loco takes shape.

ICESA is proud to announce that Edificio Asouna, designed and managed by our firm, has been featured in the 2024 edition of Grandes Obras, the annual publication of the Costa Rican Chamber of Construction. This recognition highlights the project’s design quality, technical execution, and the dedication of our team to delivering thoughtful and rigorous architecture in Costa Rica. You can read here the publication

Explore the grand inauguration of the completed Asouna building in our client’s official YouTube video

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Revista Construir included ICESA’s work, Oficentro Asebanacio in it’s yearly special of Major Works. You can read the issue in here

In this link you can access Revista Image interview to Franz Beer.

We hope you enjoy it.

Today Franz Beer will dictate a conference in the Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica in Barrio Amón.

The journalist from La Nación Diana Mendez makes this piece about Franz Beer and ICESA’s work

Today our president Franz Beer Chaverri have won the Jose María Barrantes Award in recognition of his work quality. Architect Rolando Barahona-Sotela -as president of the jury made the announcement in the closing ceremony of the 2016 Costa Rican Biennale.

In this link you can access a interview to Sebastián Alfaro-Fuscaldo, including his Costa Rican and European professional experiences.