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The Metallic Building in San Jose, Costa Rica is a prefabricated building, which was designed and constructed in Belgium, later to be shipped and assembled in the Central American city in 1896. The neoclassical style of this building is representative of the global experience of an aesthetic paradigm adopted in the 19th century by the elite of different contexts. In this case, the Metallic Building was part of an urban project lead by the Costa Rican ruling classes who had acquired their wealth through the trade of coffee. The choice of style for this building is the result of a dislocated modernity, representing the façade of a new nation-state that sought to 'belong to the world.'

This exhibition does not ... dwell in a 19th century history surrounding the construction of the Metallic Building and none of the presented works depict the building itself. The art pieces and the selected manifestations of popular culture rather create different narratives confronting the visitor with what is conceived as 'local' and even patrimonial?as in the case of the Metallic building?with various realities around the world. Together they make evident that the idealist promise of progress in the project of modernity in the tropics is an uncompleted and everlasting program of contradictions.