San Jose, the capital city of Costa Rica, like many a Latin American capital in the 1950s and ’60s, went through a building boom.

The city is dotted with many low-rise buildings and a few skyscrapers that are testament to some of the prevalent contemporary and forward-looking styles of the era.

Some of these structures have not aged well. Others have a certain vintage-modern, diamond-in-the-rough quality.

Of the better ones, you can see the timeless quality of the architectural design and imagine them being restored someday. Below is a building on a side street off of Avenida Central in downtown San Jose.