The Hemispheric Institute at New York University presents Huracán Architectures, a new exhibition by Puerto Rican photographer Ruben Natal-San Miguel.
For almost a decade, Natal-San Miguel’s photography has captured the intersecting effects of Puerto Rico’s devastating financial crisis, successive hurricanes, and the deterioration and disappearance of its vernacular architecture. His images capture the physical afterlives of catastrophic weather, mass migration, and neglect in the island’s lived environment. Beginning with his photographic series Paradise Ruined (2016), the artist has sought to capture a process through which, as he notes, “Puerto Rico, already strained to the breaking point by financial woes, population exodus, and two natural disasters, is entering a pivotal time in its history.”
In Huracán Architectures, Natal-San Miguel, a trained architect, captures this pivotal moment through images of the island’s vernacular architecture. These structures and their afterlives represent hallowed markers of nationhood. They also embody an amalgam of traditions brought together through adaptations to the island’s environment and weather. Puerto Rico’s vulnerability to climate events—hurricanes, floods, landslides, and the encroaching rising seas—is captured by Natal-San Miguel, whose photographs document the devastating effects of a misplaced economic austerity that has subjected the Puerto Rican population and its built environment to acute dislocation and loss. His images juxtapose the island’s luminous beauty, exuberant nature, and riotous colors with a “hurricane architecture” that has been wrought by extreme weather and climate change.
Curated by Lisa Paravisini-Gebert
Ruben Natal-San Miguel : Huracán Architectures
Until December 20, 2025
NYU Hemispheric Institute
Gallery Space
20 Cooper Square, 5th floor
New York, NY 10003
https://hemisphericinstitute.org/en/
