CINVA (Inter-American Housing and Planning Center)

Leonard J. Currie (1913 - 1996) was an architect, educator, and world traveler. He studied with Walter Gropius at Harvard, was Head of Architecture at Virginia Tech 1956-1952, and Dean of the School of Architecture and Art at the University of Illinois at Chicago 1961-1981. After retiring from UI Chicago, he returned Blacksburg, Virginia, where he continued to practice architecture. His slides, taken at home and abroad, focus on the built environment.

Leonard Currie was the founding director of CINVA, a community development program in Colombia initiated by the Organization of American States in 1951. CINVA worked with the local population to alleviate severe housing shortages in urban and rural Colombia by designing new communities and developing construction methods that people could use to build their own houses. The CINVA team was international. They trained young Colombian professionals to expand and continue their work. This collection includes material from  Bogotá and Sogamosa.