This publication focuses on the historiographic debates, erasures, and biases in the ways we construct our disciplinary narratives, and proposes ways to challenge them. If we are to raise the understanding of the American built environment to the level at which we discuss Europe architecture, we need American concepts and American frameworks. Not that we should forget Western knowledge, but we must acknowledge it is insufficient. The urgency of decolonizing architecture goes beyond challenging the Eurocentric narrative or fighting for more diversity in the ranks of the profession. It entails designing a whole new pluriverse, envisioning spaces and objects that will foster the best in all of us. This book presents a few of those visions and constitutes a humble step in the direction of a pluriverse.
ISBN: 978-0-934951-35-7
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword: Five Radical Frameworks for Decolonizing the Spatial History of the Americas, by Fernando Luiz Lara
PART I: DECOLONIZING TIME
Moorish Roots in Latin American Architecture, by Fernando Luis Martinez Nespral
Towards an Architectural History of the Native Southwest, by Patrick Haughey
Decolonizing Brutalism (Or, Everything You Know is Flawed), by Ruth Verde Zein
No Small Debt: Managing Brazilian Modernism at MoMA in 1949, by Patricio Del Real
PART II: DECOLONIZING SPACE
Decolonizing the Spatial Histories of the Americas, by Clara Irazábal-Zurita
Postwar Connections and Transatlantic Encounters: the Mozambique-Brazil-Portugal Triangle, by Elisa Dainese
Afro-Brazilian Lenses: Quilombo Urbanism in Rio De Janeiro’s Pequena África, by Ana G. Ozaki
Colombian Lenses: Housing the Low-Income Population in Colombia through the Instituto de Crédito Territorial, by Victoria Eugenia Sánchez Holguín
Questioning the Narrative: Cárdenas, Michoacán, and Post-Revolutionary Architecture, by Catherine R. Ettinger
PART III: REFLECTIONS ON THE 2020 COLLOQUIUM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
The Silent Stories: Architecture and Heritage in Nation-Building Processes, by Barbara Cortizo De Aguiar
History of Architecture or History of the Built Environment?—Borrowing From Other Disciplines to Decolonize Space in the Americas, by Ernesto Bilbao
Tracing Connectivities: Decentering the Gaze, by Irina Rivero
Afterword: Decolonizing Architectural History as an Ethical Responsibility, by Felipe Hernández
Author Biographies
EDITORS
MANAGING EDITOR
ASSISTANT EDITORS
