Urban analysis is the ideal methodology or the introduction to architectural phenomenon. Churches, convents and institutional and private buildings only find their perfect signification functioning in the urban framework. The studies on Hispano-American cities carried out in the last years have brought about a decisive advance for the knowledge of colonization systems and territorial appropriation followed by the Spaniards in the New World, according to the book «History of Art in Latin America and the Philippines», coordinated by professors Rafael López Guzmán and Gloria Espinosa Spínola, and written by M. L. Bellido Gant, G, Espinosa Spínola, R. Gutiérrez Viñuales, R. López Guzmán, A. Ruiz Gutiérrez and M. A. Sorroche Cuerva.
The main objective of this book, which has just been published by the Publishing House of the University of Granada, is to make the understanding of the architectural and urban processes in America and Philippines from the 16th century to nowadays easier; the book considers both the geographical and the cultural diversity, and the historical process of territorial appropriation.
This part is part of a project commissioned by the University Publishing House of Granada with the aim of presenting university students a series of teaching materials as basic outlines to understand the History of Art in Latin America and Philippines.
The manual is structured in chapters corresponding to the most outstanding cultural moments in the history of America, which include commentaries of each chapter and a documentary appendix that can provoke comments and debates in the classroom. It also includes a basic bibliography of classical works in university libraries.
This edition includes a CD which allows to follow the printed text with colour images.
This project integrates into three manuals corresponding to the subjects about America and Philippines taught in the degree course in History of Art of the University of Granada: «Pre-Hispanic Cultures», «Architecture and Urbanism» and «Plastic Arts».
«In the artistic field –according to the authors—some have talked about a direct transculturation in the case of the Carib as they have not found developed cultures but, in the same way, there were not extreme wealth or enough population for large town investments. The poor but pioneer cathedral of Santo Domingo or the house of Hernando Colón are just isolated monuments that, in an immediate second phase, will cede their pre-eminence to a different typology: that of engineers. The Spanish Crown, conditioned as it was by the attacks of pirates and corsairs, will proceed to the design of a program of fortifications between the Cape Horn and the Florida that will reach its crucial point in the age of Philip II. The situation is different in Mexico and Peru. Here it is a question of establishing a stable society provided with all the peninsular organisms and institutions. The creation of bishoprics, audience chambers, universities and, above all, viceroyalties, allows to think in the design of a social organization chart without the defects of the old Europe.»
Reference: Prof Rafael López Guzmán.
Dpt. History of Art. University of Granada.
Phone number: 958 243626 – 243627.
E-mail. rlopez@platon.ugr.es