Segundo Cardona, the architect behind the Coliseo de Puerto Rico José Miguel Agrelot, the Paseo de Puerta de Tierra and the conversion of a 1914 Miramar mansion into the Museo de Arte y Diseño de Miramar, has died at 76.
SAN JUAN, Oct. 26 — Segundo Cardona died Friday in Barcelona, Spain, El Nuevo Día reported. A spokesperson for SCF Arquitectos, the San Juan firm he co-founded, told the paper the cause was a heart attack. The Colegio de Arquitectos y Arquitectos Paisajistas de Puerto Rico (CAAPPR), which he once led, announced his death the same day.
“With deep sorrow, SCF Arquitectos announces the death of its founding partner, architect Segundo Cardona, FAIA,” the firm said in a written statement. It called him “a visionary who knew how to turn ideas into spaces” and said he had devoted more than four decades to Puerto Rican architecture.
Cardona was part of the first graduating class of the University of Puerto Rico School of Architecture in 1972 and went on to teach design there. He ran his own practice, Segundo Cardona Arquitectos, from 1974 to 1984. That year he co-founded Sierra Cardona Ferrer with architects Luis Sierra and Alberto Ferrer. The firm is now SCF Arquitectos.
His best-known building is the Coliseo de Puerto Rico in Hato Rey, the arena known as the Choliseo. Closer to Condado, he designed the Paseo de Puerta de Tierra, the oceanfront promenade between Old San Juan and Condado, which won the International Union of Architects’ public space award at the group’s 2017 congress in Seoul, El Vocero reported.
In Miramar, SCF converted the Méndez-Bagur Residence, a French neoclassical house built in 1914, into the Museo de Arte y Diseño de Miramar. According to the firm’s project page, the 2019 project kept the house’s shell, turned its interior into galleries and added a glass pavilion and a glass connector that serves as the main entrance. It won honor awards that year from AIA Puerto Rico and the CAAPPR biennial.
His other work includes the Puerto Rico Supreme Court Library and the BPPR Urban Hub. El Nuevo Día also credits SCF with the Puerto Rico Pavilion at Expo Sevilla 92, the El Portal visitor center at El Yunque and, more recently, the Opus Miramar luxury residential project.
Cardona was the third president of the CAAPPR. The Colegio gave him the Henry Klumb Award, its highest honor, in 1992, and he was named to the American Institute of Architects’ College of Fellows in 2006. Mariela Bravo, president of AIA Puerto Rico, said he was the only graduate of the UPR School of Architecture to become an AIA Fellow. He also received the CEMEX lifetime achievement award in 2016, and served on the UPR Board of Trustees from 2001, chairing it from 2004 to 2007.
“His name and legacy will always remain in the memory of our Colegio and of Puerto Rican architecture,” CAAPPR President Olga Angueira said in a statement.
AIA Puerto Rico will dedicate its annual convention in November to his memory. The convention marks the 60th anniversary of both the chapter and the UPR School of Architecture.
He is survived by his wife and children, according to SCF. Funeral arrangements and the return of his remains to Puerto Rico had not been announced, El Nuevo Día reported.
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Sources: SCF Arquitectos; Colegio de Arquitectos y Arquitectos Paisajistas de Puerto Rico; El Nuevo Día; El Vocero; Primera Hora (EFE); NotiCel; Sin Comillas.
Image: AI-generated illustration.
