Since the colonial era, Mexican art has emerged from an ongoing process of negotiation between the local and the global, which frequently involves invention, synthesis, and transformation of diverse ...discursive and artistic traditions. In this pathfinding book, María Fernández uses the concept of cosmopolitanism to explore this important aspect of Mexican art, in which visual culture and power relations unite the local and the global, the national and the international, the universal and the particular. She argues that in Mexico, as in other colonized regions, colonization constructed power dynamics and forms of violence that persisted in the independent nation-state. Accordingly, Fernández presents not only the visual qualities of objects, but also the discourses, ideas, desires, and practices that are fundamental to the very existence of visual objects.
Fernández organizes episodes in the history of Mexican art and architecture, ranging from the seventeenth century to the end of the twentieth century, around the consistent but unacknowledged historical theme of cosmopolitanism, allowing readers to discern relationships among various historical periods and works that are new and yet simultaneously dependent on their predecessors. She uses case studies of art and architecture produced in response to government commissions to demonstrate that established visual forms and meanings in Mexican art reflect and inform desires, expectations, memories, and ways of being in the world-in short, that visual culture and cosmopolitanism are fundamental to processes of subjectification and identity.
This book offers a new and surprising perspective on the evolution of cities across the Roman Empire in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages (third to ninth centuries AD). It suggests that the ...tenacious persistence of leading cities across most of the Roman world is due, far more than previously thought, to the persistent inclination of kings, emperors, caliphs, bishops, and their leading subordinates to manifest the glory of their offices on an urban stage, before crowds of city dwellers. Long after the dissolution of the Roman Empire in the fifth century, these communal leaders continued to maintain and embellish monumental architectural corridors established in late antiquity, the narrow but grandiose urban itineraries, essentially processional ways, in which their parades and solemn public appearances consistently unfolded. Hendrik W. Dey's approach selectively integrates urban topography with the actors who unceasingly strove to animate it for many centuries.
Building Modern Turkeyoffers a critical account of how the built environment mediated Turkey's transition from a pluralistic (multiethnic and multireligious) empire into a modern, homogenized ...nation-state following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I. Zeynep Kezer argues that the deliberate dismantling of ethnic and religious enclaves and the spatial practices that ensued were as integral to conjuring up a sense of national unity and facilitating the operations of a modern nation-state as were the creation of a new capital, Ankara, and other sites and services that embodied a new modern way of life. The book breaks new ground by examining both the creative and destructive forces at play in the making of modern Turkey and by addressing the overwhelming frictions during this profound transformation and their long-term consequences. By considering spatial transformations at different scales-from the experience of the individual self in space to that of international geopolitical disputes-Kezer also illuminates the concrete and performative dimensions of fortifying a political ideology, one that instills in the population a sense of membership in and allegiance to the nation above all competing loyalties and ensures its longevity.
Eastern European prefabricated housing blocks are often vilified as the visible manifestations of everything that was wrong with state socialism. For many inside and outside the region, the ...uniformity of these buildings became symbols of the dullness and drudgery of everyday life.Manufacturing a Socialist Modernitycomplicates this common perception. Analyzing the cultural, intellectual, and professional debates surrounding the construction of mass housing in early postwar Czechoslovakia, Zarecor shows that these housing blocks served an essential function in the planned economy and reflected an interwar aesthetic, derived from constructivism and functionalism, that carried forward into the 1950s.With a focus on prefabricated and standardized housing built from 1945 to 1960, Zarecor offers broad and innovative insights into the country's transition from capitalism to state socialism. She demonstrates that during this shift, architects and engineers consistently strove to meet the needs of Czechs and Slovaks despite challenging economic conditions, a lack of material resources, and manufacturing and technological limitations. In the process, architects were asked to put aside their individual creative aspirations and transform themselves into technicians and industrial producers.Manufacturing a Socialist Modernityis the first comprehensive history of architectural practice and the emergence of prefabricated housing in the Eastern Bloc. Through discussions of individual architects and projects, as well as building typologies, professional associations, and institutional organization, it opens a rare window into the cultural and economic life of Eastern Europe during the early postwar period.
A landmark account of architectural theory and practice from acclaimed philosopher Roger Scruton Architecture is distinguished from other art forms by its sense of function, its localized quality, ...its technique, its public and nonpersonal character, and its continuity with the decorative arts. In this important book, Roger Scruton calls for a return to first principles in contemporary architectural theory, contending that the aesthetic of architecture is, in its very essence, an aesthetic of everyday life. Aesthetic understanding is inseparable from a sense of detail and style, from which the appropriate, the expressive, the beautiful, and the proportionate take their meaning. Scruton provides incisive critiques of the romantic, functionalist, and rationalist theories of design, and of the Freudian, Marxist, and semiological approaches to aesthetic value.In a new introduction, Scruton discusses how his ideas have developed since the book's original publication, and he assesses the continuing relevance of his argument for the twenty-first century.
Architectural Styles Margaret Fletcher, Robbie Polley
2021, 2020, 2021-01-26
eBook
A hand-drawn guide to architectural styles throughout history Architectural Styles is an incomparable guide to architectural styles across the centuries and around the world. Modeled after an ...architect's plein air sketchbook, the volume features hundreds of detailed drawings by esteemed architectural illustrator Robbie Polley alongside incisive and informative descriptions. This unique guidebook takes readers from Europe and the Americas to Egypt, China, and India. It covers a host of historical and contemporary architectural styles, from ancient and classical to Pre-Columbian, Romanesque, Renaissance, Palladian, art nouveau, Brutalist, and biomorphic. It describes the histories and characteristics of the building traditions of each era and region of the world, and looks at key architectural elements such as buttresses, spandrels, curtain walls, and oculi. The book also includes a section on building parts—from domes and columns to towers, arches, roofs, and vaulting—along with a detailed glossary and bibliography.Comprehensive and authoritative, Architectural Styles is an essential resource for architects and designers and a must-have illustrated guide for anyone interested in architecture or drawing.
Tracing the connections between music making and built space in both historical and contemporary times, Music, Sound, and Architecture in Islam brings together domains of intellectual reflection that ...have rarely been in dialogue to promote a greater understanding of the centrality of sound production in constructed environments in Muslim religious and cultural expression. Representing the fields of ethnomusicology, anthropology, art history, architecture, history of architecture, religious studies, and Islamic studies, the volume’s contributors consider sonic performances ranging from poetry recitation to art, folk, popular, and ritual musics—as well as religious expressions that are not usually labeled as “music" from an Islamic perspective—in relation to monumental, vernacular, ephemeral, and landscape architectures; interior design; decoration and furniture; urban planning; and geography. Underscoring the intimate relationship between traditional Muslim sonic performances, such as the recitation of the Qur’an or devotional songs, and conventional Muslim architectural spaces, from mosques and Sufi shrines to historic aristocratic villas, gardens, and gymnasiums, the book reveals Islam as an ideal site for investigating the relationship between sound and architecture, which in turn proves to be an innovative and significant angle from which to explore Muslim cultures.
How socialist architects, planners, and contractors worked collectively to urbanize and develop the Global South during the Soviet era
In the course of the Cold War, architects, planners, and ...construction companies from socialist Eastern Europe engaged in a vibrant collaboration with those in West Africa and the Middle East in order to bring modernization to the developing world. Architecture in Global Socialism shows how their collaboration reshaped five cities in the Global South: Accra, Lagos, Baghdad, Abu Dhabi, and Kuwait City.
Łukasz Stanek describes how local authorities and professionals in these cities drew on Soviet prefabrication systems, Hungarian and Polish planning methods, Yugoslav and Bulgarian construction materials, Romanian and East German standard designs, and manual laborers from across Eastern Europe. He explores how the socialist development path was adapted to tropical conditions in Ghana in the 1960s, and how Eastern European architectural traditions were given new life in 1970s Nigeria. He looks at how the differences between socialist foreign trade and the emerging global construction market were exploited in the Middle East in the closing decades of the Cold War. Stanek demonstrates how these and other practices of global cooperation by socialist countries—what he calls socialist worldmaking—left their enduring mark on urban landscapes in the postcolonial world.
Featuring an extensive collection of previously unpublished images, Architecture in Global Socialism draws on original archival research on four continents and a wealth of in-depth interviews. This incisive book presents a new understanding of global urbanization and its architecture through the lens of socialist internationalism, challenging long-held notions about modernization and development in the Global South.
A 108-meter high Eiffel Tower rises above Champs Elysées Square in Hangzhou. A Chengdu residential complex for 200,000 recreates Dorchester, England. An ersatz Queen's Guard patrols Shanghai's Thames ...Town, where pubs and statues of Winston Churchill abound. Gleaming replicas of the White House dot Chinese cities from Fuyang to Shenzhen. These examples are but a sampling of China's most popular and startling architectural movement: the construction of monumental themed communities that replicate towns and cities in the West.Original Copiespresents the first definitive chronicle of this remarkable phenomenon in which entire townships appear to have been airlifted from their historic and geographic foundations in Europe and the Americas, and spot-welded to Chinese cities. These copycat constructions are not theme parks but thriving communities where Chinese families raise children, cook dinners, and simulate the experiences of a pseudo-Orange County or Oxford.In recounting the untold and evolving story of China's predilection for replicating the greatest architectural hits of the West, Bianca Bosker explores what this unprecedented experiment in "duplitecture" implies for the social, political, architectural, and commercial landscape of contemporary China. With her lively, authoritative narrative, the author shows us how, in subtle but important ways, these homes and public spaces shape the behavior of their residents, as they reflect the achievements, dreams, and anxieties of those who inhabit them, as well as those of their developers and designers.From Chinese philosophical perspectives on copying to twenty-first century market forces, Bosker details the factors giving rise to China's new breed of building. Her analysis draws on insights from the world's leading architects, critics and city planners, and on interviews with the residents of these developments. 69 illus., 54 in color
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