Introduction Architecture reveals not only the aesthetic and formal preferences of an architect/client, but also the aspirations, power struggles and material culture of a society. The built environment becomes a text whose every word reveals a nation's vicissitudes. In other words, a building may be said to be a work of architectural art, then insofar as it serves as a visual metaphor, declaring in its own form something (though never everything) about the size, permanence, strength, protectiveness, and organizational structure of the institution it stands for (but does not necessarily house). 1 In twentieth century Puerto Rico, the architectural discourse is not indifferent to the institutions that shaped its society. Architecture thus serves as a vehicle to understand the unique situation that arises when a society is nurtured by two distinct and strong cultural influences: the Spanish and the American. To analyze this situation, the following hypothesis is considered: Immediately after the Spanish American War of 1898, the Neoclassical style in architecture gave continuity to a form of government that shifted from Spanish to American colonial rule. At the same time, and as a manner of mitigation, the Americans imported the Spanish Revivals to Puerto Rico to signify cultural dominance, particularly the California Mission Revival and the Spanish Renaissance Revival. The new colonial government assumed that the use of Spanish inspired architecture would aid in the Americanization process. For Puerto Ricans these revivals of Renaissance and Baroque Spanish architecture, which Spain rarely employed in Puerto Rico, was as foreign as the English language. Nevertheless, after several decades of Americanization, these Spanish Revivals, and a third variation, the Moorish Revival, became signifiers of "Puerto Ricanness." They dominated the architectural profession and the style in which public buildings were designed on the Island for three decades. But the immediate years before the Second World War, with the militarization and industrialization of the Island, caused the demise of the Spanish Revivals. Intentionally, the government accepted the Modern Movement as the architectural discourse needed to modernize and set Puerto Rico and the Puerto Ricans within the standards of the industrialized nations.