Efraín Enrique Recinos Valenzuela (May 15, 1928 – October 2, 2011) was a Guatemalan contemporary architect, muralist, urbanist, painter and sculptor.
[1][2] Recinos designed the large, white structure set on a hill to resemble a jaguar, using inspiration from more traditional Mayan motifs.
[2] Other examples of his work can be found inside La Aurora International Airport and the National Mortgage building.
[2] The government of Guatemala awarded him the Order of the Quetzal, one of the country's highest honors for his artistic contributions during his career.
He did not send Recinos to school at an early age since he thought other kids would be a bad influence for him.
At age 7 he could read and write with ease and started to play marimba, violin, and the mandolin.
Finally, at age 12, his father enrolled him at Escuela Costa Rica de Quetzaltenango where he completed his primary studies.
He was then enrolled at the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas "Rafael Rodríguez Padilla", where he studied drawing and sculpture.
The work was carved on the exterior concrete walls in which abstraction and the history of exchange were predominant.
Finally, in 1970, the Guatemalan government demolished the main building and gave Recinos the task to design the Teatro Nacional (national theater) there.
The building is inspired by ancient Mayan pyramids and Guatemalan volcanos and resembles a sitting jaguar from the side.
Recino's style was first inspired by Antonio Gaudi in his sculpture and painting, and Frank Lloyd Wright in his architecture.
In many of his creations, Recinos mixed ancient Mayan glyphs with elements taken from contemporary iconography.
That same sense of interior and exterior baroque translated into his sculptures, using different materials like lacquer oils, varnishes, iron, concrete, plexiglass, everything the artist founded in hand.