Urban Planning in Latin America

Catalog description

This seminar examines a select number of Latin American metropolitan centers that have been unique symbols of Latin America’s urbanity. They include Tenochtitlan/Mexico City, Cuzco, Potosí, Havana, Lima, Quito, Bogotá, Ouro Preto, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo. Through reading and discussing a curated selection of critical, historical essays, we study the many distinct ways in which scholars have analyzed and characterized the urban development of these cities. We emphasize the singular historical conditions that created their distinctive urban settings, and we focus on the form and meaning of their built environments as evidenced in buildings and urban landscapes and their representations in maps, prints, paintings, literary descriptions, and photographs, as well as in data drawn from a broad range of social, economic, and institutional sources. One key goal of the course is to demonstrate the critical role that visual and other expressive representations play in shaping our assessments of the qualities of life that cities offer.