School Of Visual Arts is designed by Barclay & Crousse, Extending a building vertically is a difficult task, especially when time separates the original construction from the extension. The strategy consists of integrating the different ‘lifetimes’ of the building creating a new unit: School Of Visual Arts arises from the analysis of the design strategies used by previous architects to propose an extension that relates to the building without imitating it, keeping the prominence of the original version.Photography: Jean Pierre CrousseThe original building, a notable example of Neo Inca architecture, is the work of architect Emilio Harth-Terré and was conceived as an eminently massive volume, two stories high but with an expression that gives the illusion of a single monumental level. In 1999 it was intervened by architect Pier Baracco, who created a second partial level and introduced a metal structure as support points for a future vertical extension. The 2007 project performs the extension of the third and fourth levels, operating a reverse scale alteration: instead of increasing it to monumentalize it, as the original architect did, the scale is decreased (with tripartite levels on two floors), so as not to compete with the prominence of the original facade.Photography: Jorge Luis DieguezWe opted for a light steel structure to meet the tight construction time available to comply with the academic semesters of the school, which would not close durin...