Modern Historiography: Latin American Architecture Research Seminar, 2012–13 and 2013–14
Professor Beatriz Colomina with students Lluis Casanovas Blanco, Michael Faciejew, Justin Fowler, Evangelos Kotsioris, Matthew Mullane, Victoria Bugge Øye, Masha Panteleyeva, Clelia Pozzi and Nicholas Risteen
Historiography is as much an analysis of historical method as it is a means of identifying blind spots in the historical record. As a vehicle for critical self-correction, the historiographic turn often appears in moments of generational transition or disciplinary introspection. Seeking to generate new contemporary practices through alternative readings of the past, this proseminar addressed the brief period from the 1930s to the early 1960s in which historians of modern architecture, architects, journalists, institutions, and governments from around the world trained their sights on Latin America. Beyond merely reevaluating past efforts, the seminar devoted attention to those aspects of historical practice that might constitute a “modern” historiography. Students explored the use of new media in exhibitions, governmental funding of architectural publications for purposes of cultural influence and exchange, and other modes of historical transmission. Deviating from canonic histories through the notion of “miradas cruzadas” (crossing glances) they investigated how the idea of a Latin American modern architecture was produced through negotiations, misunderstandings and collaborations between the historians, architects, institutions and publishing houses around the world. The case study of the construction of modern Latin American architecture is one where historiography converges with the future-oriented notion of the architectural project.
2016
151
Workbook