When SESC (Social Service of Commerce) acquired the land of the old abandoned factory in the Pompéia neighborhood of São Paulo in the 1970s, the intention was clear: to provide a space for the physical and cultural well-being of workers. What was not so clear—even to the managers themselves—was that they would end up creating one of the most powerful works of 20th-century Latin American architecture.

In the center of Jojutla, one of the communities hardest hit by the September 2017 earthquakes, structures now stand that offer not only shade, but dignity. These are the central arches of the Jojutla Gardens, a project born not from the urgency of rebuilding, but from the need to heal. Because when a city is broken, the hardest part is not rebuilding its buildings, but recovering the soul of its people.

Founded in 1810 by Mariano Moreno, the Buenos Aires Public Library was one of the first institutions of the nascent Argentine nation. However, for more than 150 years it did not have its own building. It operated in borrowed spaces, first in the Cabildo, then in the Manzana de las Luces, the Colegio de San Carlos, and even in the building at 564 Mexico Street, where Jorge Luis Borges once lived while he was its director.