Conserving a cherished chapel.

• Author: Luxner, Larry
• Position: Americas !Ojo!

IN PUERTO RICO, one of Old SAN Juan's most enduring religious icons could soon be getting a facelift. The Capilla del Cristo, which marks its 250th birthday this year, is located at the end of cobblestoned Calle del Cristo, overlooking San Juan harbor. The chapel, whose familiar image appears on T-shirts, souvenir plates, ceramic casitas, and tourist brochures--is now the focus of an unusual collaborative project sponsored partly by the New School of Architecture at the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico (PUPR), the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation of the University of Pennsylvania, and the Hermandad del Santo Cristo de la Salud.

"The Capilla hasn't been fully restored or conserved for many years, so it's suffering from termites, water infiltration, falling plaster--everything and anything," says Beatriz del Cueto, director of PUPR's Architectural Conservation Laboratory. "They've done just patch up work for the past one hundred years, and the building is in need of considerable intervention," she says. "What it'll be, we don't know yet. A million things can be done to it, including repainting some of the original decorations."

Initial construction of the chapel began in 1753 by the Spanish government, which then ruled Puerto Rico. At the time, there was nothing at the end of Calle Cristo except a low wall. One day, according to leg end, a horseman racing down the street lost control of his steed. Someone in the crowd of spectators shouted "Santo Cristo de Salud, salvalo" [Holy Christ, save him], and the horse leapt over the wall to its death, but the horseman was miraculously saved. The Capilla was built on the site of the supposed miracle.

"First it was just a niche on the wall, then it grew as money became available," del Cueto says. "Religious people collected money, and then in the late eighteenth century the portico and sacristy were added."

By the 1920s, Old San Juan's infamous traffic jams had already begun, and cars were passing within the portals of the holy chapel. The municipality actually ordered the Capilla del Cristo to be demolished to alleviate traffic congestion--but the order was protested and eventually...