[11] Archeologist and anthropologist Ricardo Alegría, historian Arturo Morales Carrión, architect Baraño de la Junta Planes and others held reunions with Muñoz, who was also interested in acquiring the Junghanns Collection.

A law allowing for the expropriation of private collections/historic documents for public display and/or preservation was assigned to then Secretary of Justice Trías Monge, with the intention of keeping it in Puerto Rico and prevent it from falling into the hands of foreign collectors.

Within the PPD, universalist José Arsenio Torres opposed it calling it "of totalitarian tendencies", argued that it was only "going to support a political ideology [the Commonwealth]" and dismissed this type of culture as not "a real problem for the people".

The ICP's first board included Trías Monge, Enrique Laguerre, Salvador Tió, José A. Buitrago, Carrión, secretary Teodoro Vidal and president Eugenio Fernández Méndez and first assembled on October 3, 1955, at La Fortaleza.

[22] Alegría brought members from across the political spectrum to the ICP, but it was the contract of Roberto Beascoechea Lota and Isabel Gutíerrez del Arroyo the ones that caused more trouble, being nationalists while the Gag Law was in full effect.

Both the pro-statehood PNP and the pro-Independence PIP internally opposed the creation of the ICP, citing through their leaders Luis A. Ferré and Gilberto Concepción de Gracia their concerns that the PPD would politicize/monopolize what constituted "culture".

In private correspondence, Antonio Colorado argued in favor of Ricardo Alegría for the office of executive secretary, feeling that he didn't care for compliments and would perform an efficient job, besides possessing the track record.

[38] Following its establishment, the ICP faced critics from political figures such as Eliseo Combas Guerra of El Mundo, who either opposed promoting Puerto Rican culture as defined by "the PPD" or considered it an extension of the Commonwealth initiative.

However, the curator of the Engraving Department of the New York Metropolitan Museum A. Hyatt Mayor considered that the ICP's work was fostering an "artistic explosion" product of a changing socioeconomic landscape.

[54] Alegría himself was noted for opposing the universalist concept of culture, for which he clashed with figures like Teodoro Moscoso and Luis A. Ferré, due to his belief that anything good enough to gather universal appraisal was born from within a national context.

From within Fomento, the former held a belief that there was no such thing as national culture and as such introduced Festival Casals as an event were artist from abroad converged at San Juan for days and left, contrasting Alegría's methodological approach.

On October 7, 1957, the board declined a proposal that Alegría presented with the support of Tió to turn the Hermanos Behn house at Condado into a hotel as part of an initiative that would continue for years to "Puerto Ricanize [the local] tourism", then in hands of several foreign interests.

[68] The restoration initiatives also attracted the attention of Austrian social philosopher Leopoldo Kohr, who wrote that the "paradox of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture is that almost everything it does is right and almost everything it reasons is wrong", complimenting that it "is superior to anything that has been accomplished in England, France or Italy" despite what he perceived to be "Alegría's Petronius-like" role.

[71] The Cuban Revolution impacted how the left perceived his work at the ICP, while Alegría himself considered the idea of nationalism being pushed by Marxist-influenced groups was blinding them from other modalities and that such exaggerations -product of stances then in vogue- "was mud slinging [the Puerto Rican] people and [their] character".

[73] Upon being returned in October 1960, the customs administrator Francisco López Domínguez objected to its entry due to "vulgar" language, requiring the intervention of Resident Commissioner Antonio Fernós.

Upon learning that San Cristóbal and El Morro would be transferred to the National Forest Service, Alegría urged the military adviser to the governor -Teodoro Vidal- to make a push for them to be awarded to the local government instead and criticized the support of the Resident Commissioner for the initiative.

[62] The following year, independentist Nilita Vientós Gastón wrote about the ICP's role in the wake of its tenth anniversary, citing her belief that the PPD had used it in trying to convert Puerto Rican culture into a "niche" while pushing an "ambiguous" political protect such as the Commonwealth.

[53] That same year several individuals involved in the effort to restore the city of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic traveled to Puerto Rico and requested help from Alegría, implanting the ICP's model and receiving constant advise from him during the project.

[78] The San Juan Star made use of a piece published by Jay Jacobs claiming that Puerto Rican culture "never was" and lashing against Homar and his colleagues as having "passed the point where they might have done anything important".

[85] By this time, Alegría's family (in particular his brother José) had been targeted by groups that wanted to equal the project supposed familiar links to real state at San Juan, something that he had to personally rebuff in a letter to El Día.

[72] Despite Ferré's apparent support to continue his work at Ponce and the creation of a special committee that gave active participation to the ICP in that process, Alegría faced constant pressure to leave his office.

[95] In this role he oversaw the creation of the Museo de la Herencia Puertorriqueña at the restored Dos Zaguanes building, for which he brought indigenous pieces from the piaroas and guahibos of the Orinoco region.

[101] After being named executive director of the ICP by Carlos Romero Barceló, Leticia del Rosario stopped the establishment of a children museum at the Polvorín de Santa Elena, which had been underway since the days of Alegría.

[45] When the Pedro Rosselló administration announced its intention to create the Museo Nacional de Bella's Artes, Alegría wrote a note to Awilda Palau, concerned that it may lead to stripping the ICP of its collections.

[107] Writer Margot Arce de Vázquez considered its arrival "opportune in [that] critical moment of the life of our people", and a tool to bring "historic conscience and responsibility" and countering indifference over knowledge of its roots.

Architect José Firpi said that its restoration of Old San Juan had been "an important contribution that worked as guide for the cultural life of [the Puerto Rican] people" and credited it for rescuing "long forgotten values".

Writer René Marqués discussed the difficulties of engaging in "direct and uninterrupted cultural activity" within the government agency with limited budget and personnel, arguing that it was worthy of praise and also assessing that its work was "valuable, of permanent character".

Poet Juan Antonio Corretjer argued that Alegría's formation was responsible for the work accomplished so far, all the while criticizing the management of the historic buildings prior to the creation of the ICP and expressing concern that as long as sovereignty rested in foreign hands it could be undone.

In 1965, Ursula von Eckardt of the UPR and universalit wrote criticizing the ICP, claiming that it was "fostering a museum-like institution which preserves monuments of 'Puerto Rican' native culture under glass for the self-glorification of a small establishment of "intellectuals" who are worried about their own "identity".

[39] In his own words, Mario Vargas Llosa noted that he was impressed by the ICP's restoration of San Juan, hosting Alegría in his La Torre de Babel show in 1981.