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

Undergraduate Course: Global Architectures of Colonial Latin America (ARHI10051)

Course Outline
SchoolEdinburgh College of Art CollegeCollege of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 10 (Year 2 Undergraduate) AvailabilityNot available to visiting 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 honours 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 Students should normally have passed at least 60 credits of Architectural History or History of Art/History courses at Level 8. If the pre-requisites cannot be met, entry to this course can be negotiated in consultation with either the Course Organiser or Programme Director (Architectural History).
Course Delivery Information
Not being delivered
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  1. Demonstrate multidimensional grasp of colonial and global architecture in the premodern era, attained by augmenting skills in critical analysis and effective verbal and textual expression.
  2. Demonstrate greater preparedness to navigate an increasingly global society through intensive engagement with issues of intercultural exchange and its related power structures.
  3. Demonstrate fluency in participating in productive, respectful intellectual exchanges, rooted in an amplified ability to pose relevant and impactful questions to experts and peers.
  4. Demonstrate capacity to develop an original work of research in a historical or historiographic topic, attained through enhanced understanding of working with primary sources and performing bibliographic research.
Reading List
Bailey, Gauvin Alexander. 'The Renaissance Abroad. Iberian Empires in Asia and Africa.' In Art of Colonial Latin America. London: 2005, 355-375.
Cummins, Tom. 'Town Planning, Marriage, and Free Will in the Colonial Andes,' The Archaeology of Colonialism. co-editors Claire Lyons and John Papadopoulos, Issues and Debates Series, LA: Getty Press, 2002, 199-40.
Escobar, Jesús. 'Field Note: Architecture in the Age of the Spanish Habsburgs.' In Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 75, no. 3 (September 2016): 258-262.
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. Farnham, UK: 2015, 1-22.
Kaufmann, Thomas DaCosta. 'Islam, Art, and Architecture in the Americas: Some Considerations of Colonial Latin America.' RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 43 (2003): 42-50.
Verdi Webster, Susan. 'Masters of the Trade: Native Artisans, Guilds, and the Construction of Colonial Quito.' Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 68, no. 1 (March 2009): 10-29.
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.
KeywordsColonialism,Transculturation,Globalisation
Contacts
Course organiserDr Elizabeth Petcu
Tel: (0131 6)50 2619
Email:
Course secretaryMiss Fanny To
Tel: (0131 6)51 5773
Email:
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