Juan Bertoli Calderoni

According to his death certificate, Juan Bertoli Calderoni (1829-1885) was born in Carrara, Italy to Juan Ludovico Bertoli and Maria Luisa Calderoni. He arrived in Puerto Rico in 1845 contracted by the Spanish Military Corps of Engineers to work at La Fortaleza and other Spanish military installations in San Juan. He subsequently moved to Ponce seeking better recognition for his skills where he was a long time resident and where he died.

Agustin Camilo Gonzalez

Elias Concepción

Julio Conesa Revoredo

Julio Vizcarrondo

José Sabas Honoré

Raúl Reichard

Raúl Guillermo Reichard Esteves (1908-1996) was born in Aguadilla to Carlos Augusto Reichard del Valle and Francisca Lucia Esteves Volkers. He studied at the University of Michigan from where he received a degree in architecture in 1929. Following the advise of his uncle, then Commissioner of the Interior Guillermo Esteves Volkers, and due to the economic crisis of the time due to the Great Depression, after graduation he settled in New York where he worked for the firm of Sloan & Robertson, one of the major New York architectural firms of the 1920s and '30s. In 1931, Reichard returned to Puerto Rico but it wasn’t until the following year that he started to work as a building inspector at the State Penitentiary. In 1933 he joined the Puerto Rico Emergency Relief Administration (PRERA) where he worked until 1935 when Rafael Carmoega recruited him as an Assistant Architect at the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration (PRRA), specifically for the work at the University of Puerto Rico Building Division. In the early 1940s he established a private architectural practice that lasted until 1976. His most significant project is arguably the 1942 design of the Normandie Hotel in Puerta de Tierra pictured below.

Fernando Montilla Jimenez & Miguel Ferrer Otero

Fernando Montilla Jimenez (1870-1929) was born in Caguas to José Montilla Valdespino and Rosario Jiménez Jiménez. He studied civil engineering at New York University. He was San Juan Municipal Engineer during the administration of Mayor Roberto H. Todd who was mayor from 1903 to 1923. Miguel Ferrer Otero (1886-1966) was born in San Juan to Gabriel Ferrer Hernandez and Monserrate Otero Navedo, he was the father of Miguel Ferrer Rincón of the firm Toro & Ferrer. He also was a Municipal Engineer for the municipality of San Juan in 1917 when both were commissioned to design the new facilities at the San Juan Aqueduct consisting of six mechanized filters.

In 1913, together Giuseppe Albrizzio Raimondi (1887 - 1971) who designed the interior, they are credited with the design of the Old Casino de Puerto Rico building in old San Juan which construction, paralized twice, was completed in 1917. Although often times the design is attributed to the firm Montilla & Ferrer, there is no evidence found that aside from collaborating in the same projects, they established a firm together.

In 1997, Architect Enrique Vivoni Farage argued that if any place in San Juan displayed architectonic knowledge of a sophisticated European-influenced vocabulary, it was the Casino.

Toro & Ferrer

In 1938, architects Osvaldo Toro and Miguel Ferrer worked together at the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration (PRRA) where they worked until 1945 when together with Civil Engineer Luis Torregrosa formed the firm known as Toro, Ferrer & Torregrosa. In 1952, when Torregrosa left the firm, its name was changed to Toro & Ferrer.

Osvaldo Luis Toro Morales (1914-1996) was born in Ponce to Carlos Toro Labarthe and Judith Morales Bravo. He studied at Columbia University from where he received a Bachelors in Architecture (BArch) degree in 1937. Upon graduation Toro worked for a year in new York firm of renowned architect Ernest Flagg, who among other works design the Annapolis Naval Academy. In 1938 he returned to Puerto Rico and went to work for the PRRA as a junior architect. In 1942 he left the PRRA and worked in association with Rafael Carmoega for a year before returning to the PRRA in 1943. Miguel Ferrer Rincón (1915-2004) was born in San Juan to engineer Miguel Ferrer Otero and Gloria Rincón García. He studied at Cornell University from where he received a Bachelors in Architecture (BArch) degree in 1938. Upon graduation, he returned to Puerto Rico and joined the PRRA.

In addition to the Caribe Hilton Hotel which was their first big work and the first Hilton Hotel to be constructed outside the continental US, Toro & Ferrer are credited among others with the design of the Puerto Rico Supreme Court Building in Puerta de Tierra area of San Juan, La Concha Hotel in the Condado area of San Juan , the Curaçao Hilton now in Willemstad, Curaçao.

The firm lasted until 1984 when both partners decided to retire.

Francisco Roldán Martinó