Architecture, Religion and Politics in Costa Rica, Journal of Architecture 29 (3), UK. English. June 2024. With José Peralta, Hans Hoepker and Alejandra Gutiérrez. Link

Neo-Pentecostalism is a religious movement that has enjoyed a high social, political and cultural impact in Latin America since the late twentieth century. As such, it has configured forms of sense making and orientation in a world whose spatial examination is proving to be especially pertinent in the current politics of time and place, infused — concurrent with the climate change crisis — with catastrophism and narratives of the end of the world and of time. In this context, the case-study approach provides the entry point from which to trace, in three intertwined phases, the tactics of spatial transformation envisioned and implemented by three neo-Pentecostal churches in Costa Rica between 1980 and 2021. It does so with the support of spatio-temporal frameworks provided by theology, interviews granted by the lead pastors before and during the coronavirus pandemic, and information gathered from field visits. In dialogue with architectural ethnography, and religious and socio-political studies, this article contributes to the crucial examination of new and often-overlooked interrelations between architecture, contemporary religious movements and politics in the Latin American context.