Interama Scheme III

Between 1955-56, Chief Architect Robert Fitch Smith, Hugh Ferriss, and of the rest of the Interama design team developed a third scheme for the project. Ferris’s impressive aerial rendering illustrates the Inter-American Center as a riparian city, organized on a grid of canals, plazas, streets, and shaded parking areas. Appearing like a modern version of an Aztec or Maya center, the central island was dominated by a new version of the Hemisphere, envisioned as monumental three-arch concrete structure symbolizing the unity between North, South and Central America.

Watercolor rendering of Interama Site, featuring Hemisphere with three arches. Delineator Hugh Ferriss. ca. 1955-56.
Courtersy of Spillis Candela DMJM.

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