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DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2021/2022

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : Edinburgh College of Art : Architecture - History

Postgraduate Course: Historiography of Colonial Latin American Architecture (ARHI11009)

Course Outline
SchoolEdinburgh College of Art CollegeCollege of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) AvailabilityAvailable to all students
SCQF Credits20 ECTS Credits10
SummaryThis course examines the colonial architecture of Latin America as a nexus of global architectural exchange. Using primary sources and postcolonial critique, it explores how models of construction, urban planning, ornament, and architectural expertise moved between cultures of Latin America and Europe, Africa, and Asia in the early modern period.
Course description This course explores the global architecture of Latin America from the beginnings of contact between Europeans and non-Europeans to the postcolonial era. We will take the cosmopolitan character of pre-Columbian architecture, long defined by interactions between empires, as well as the diversity of Iberian building, with its assimilation of Islamic, African, Italian, Netherlandish, and German forms, as points of departure. Through close reading of primary and secondary sources, we will examine how Spanish, Portuguese, and other European building traditions interacted with the indigenous architectural cultures of present day Central and South America. We will also explore how these encounters shaped the architecture of the Iberian imperial dominions in Asia and Africa up to the 19th century. The goal of this course is to empower students with the critical tools to investigate intercultural exchanges in the growing field of global architectural history.
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements None
Information for Visiting Students
Pre-requisitesNone
High Demand Course? Yes
Course Delivery Information
Not being delivered
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  1. Integrate knowledge of multiple regional architectural histories of Latin America and multiple traditions of architectural history scholarship on that region
  2. Understand broad historical theories of global architectural exchange, as well as key trends and discourses within the history of colonial Latin American architecture
  3. Master at least one area of literature on architectural exchange in colonial Latin America (for instance, research on the Viceroyalties of New Spain or Peru)
  4. Participate in present debates in the field of premodern global architecture and contribute original research to those discussions
Reading List
Iñíguez, Diego Angulo. 'Eighteenth-Century Church Fronts in Mexico City.' Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 5 (1945): 27-32.

Kelemen, Pál. 'Earthquake Baroque.' In Baroque and Rococo in Latin America. New York: 1951, 122-136.

Smith, Robert C. 'Colonial Towns of Spanish and Portuguese America.' Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 14, no. 4, Town Planning Issue (December 1955): 3-12.

Kubler, George. The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things, 1962.

Gruzinski, Serge. 'Art History and Iberian Worldwide Diffusion: Westernization / Globalization / Americanization.' In Circulations in the Global History of Art. Edited by Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Catherine Dossin, and Béatrice Joyeaux-Prunel, 2015, 1-22.

Escobar, Jesús. 'Field Note: Architecture in the Age of the Spanish Habsburgs.' Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 75, no. 3 (September 2016): 258-262.
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills 1. A critical understanding of the principal theories, concepts and principles.
2. A critical review and consolidation of knowledge, skills, practices and thinking in a subject area
3. Demonstration of presentations skills that convey, formally and informally, information about specialised topics to informed audiences.
4. An exercise of autonomy and initiation in professional/equivalent activities.
Keywordsarchitecture,history,latin,america,colonial,global,colonialism
Contacts
Course organiserDr Elizabeth Petcu
Tel: (0131 6)50 2619
Email: Elizabeth.Petcu@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMiss Marta Zadzilko
Tel: (0131 6)51 5800
Email: mzadzilk@exseed.ed.ac.uk
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