In this brief report architect Robert Troy seeks to analyze the architectural methods adopted in Lima to meet the city’s severe housing shortage. Using Lima as a representative city in an arid location, Troy catalogs eight housing developments giving details on style, construction materials, and financing. Five of these developments are examples of middle income housing, and two are of lower middle income housing. It is in these areas, Troy maintains, that the Peruvian government has been most successful in satisfying Lima’s housing needs. As for Lima’s most serious problem, housing the lower income class of internal migrants who ring the city in barriadas or pueblos libres, Troy discusses only the development of Caja de Agua. It is in housing this rapidly growing sector that the Peruvian government faces its greatest challenge.
This report, written for the International Center for Arid and Semi-Arid Land Studies at Texas Technological College, is too superficial to be of much value to the specialist. However, it is somewhat redeemed by the inclusion of over fifty photographs showing the variety of architectural styles and materials used in Lima’s housing projects. It would have been of greater value had the author used footnotes or expanded his bibliography beyond seven items. Readers who are unable to secure this report will find it reprinted (less photographs and a few introductory paragraphs) in the August 1, 1969, issue of “Peruvian Times,” pp. 7-10.
