An ambitious classical town rises in Guatemala

Beyond its historic center, Guatemala City is an automobile-oriented, sprawling metropolis of 4 million people. Amid suburban gated communities, a new traditional, classically-inspired town named Cayalá is being built — to a level of quality that many will find astonishing. Designed by Leon Krier, who planned Prince Charles’s Poundbury in Dorchester, England, Cayalá opened its first phase in November 2011.

In Guatemala City, a developer is granted freedom far beyond what is possible in the US, Canada, and other highly developed countries. A project is less hindered by codes that tend to strip unique character from most modern developments. Yet even with that freedom, the urbanism outside of the historical city center has generally been of poor quality. Unusual vision and determination are also required to build something like Cayalá.

The town was master-planned in 2003 by Krier with the Guatemala-based firm of Estudio Urbano for the local development company Grupo Cayalá. In 2006 and 2008, charrettes fine-tuned the plan and determined the architecture of the buildings. In addition to Krier, Pedro Godoy and Maria Sánchez of Estudio Urbano (both alumni of the University of Notre Dame) and Richard Economakis, a Notre Dame architecture professor, have worked out the design details. The substantial development visible today has been completed in two-plus years.

The aim is to create a sustainable, mixed use, pedestrian-oriented environment, where buildings reinforce a sense of place and defer to the human scale. The site is 538 acres, of which 185 acres (34 percent of the land) will be developed into 8 different quarters, or neighborhoods — one of which is the town center, which began in the first phase.

Approximately 500 families live near the town center, of which 91 occupy for-sale apartments ranging in price from $260,000 to $450,000. The center contains 80 shops, including a full-service supermarket with underground parking, plus a convention building and a civic hall, or Athenaeum, officially named the Cayalá Club. The latter is the iconic building of the $40 million first phase.
Architecture critic and traditional design advocate David Brussat of The Providence Journal described Cayalá as a “classical flower” amid “Guatemala City’s modernist cacophony.” He adds, from a worldwide perspective: “So far as I know, Cayalá has few if any peers in the ambition of its classicism.”

Although the town appears relatively timeless, it consists of contemporary building types. These include multi-story mixed use apartments, commercial structures, public buildings such as parking pavilions, and, in future phases, cinema complexes, market sheds, and larger civic and sacred structures.

The consistency of scale, architectural expression, and materials allows public edifices and monuments to stand out as urban set-pieces, as opposed to self-referential object-buildings, notes Sanchez. The Athenaeum, designed by Economakis, reminds Brussat of the “seemingly natural, unplanned grandeur” of Rome. The entrance of this building rises out of a plaza with grand pyramidal steps (inspired by Mayan temples) leading to a classical portico. The steps and portico are used as a stage for public performances — they were immediately put to use for a youth symphony and choir at the opening festivities.

With its small urban blocks, three- to four-story building heights, closely-knit network of streets and public spaces, the town center is designed to facilitate interaction and a sense of community, Sanchez says. Streets and squares are paved with cobbles and flagstones. Vehicular zones are only subtly marked. The entire right-of-way is designed to be comfortable for pedestrians.

Krier describes the streetscapes made up of building elevations that “are aligned so that they make sense, like the words that form a coherent sentence.” Commercial streets and squares are lined with colonnades, which come from the local vernacular. The design establishes a variegated (although mostly low-rise) skyline in which towers, domes and cupolas punctuate the roofscape, Sanchez points out.

Phase two includes the construction of an ambitious classical church, designed for 700 parishioners, with a cross that rises 118 feet, designed by Sanchez. The third in a sequence of iconic public buildings — a tower by Krier that rises above a market stall — is planned to mark the entrance to Cayalá in a future phase.

“Cayalá is a new world-class destination, its design offers multiple options for housing, condominiums and apartment buildings surrounded by parks, nature reserves and open spaces, available at any time of day, which gives visitors, a completely different option within the city. The second phase of construction will take place in the first half of 2012; we hope to conclude in 18 months,” says Héctor Leal, General Manager at Cayalá.