The thematic issue, n. 25 coordinated by Anat Falbel and Patricia Mendez is dedicated to "The Construction of Latin-American Historiography: An Inter-Cultural Dialogue."
Deadline for sending papers: 2 June 2025
Call
In the 1920s, Marc Bloch addressed the question of national history by emphasizing the potential of comparative history to “[…] study […] neighboring and contemporary […] societies, exercising a constant mutual influence, that due to their closeness and synchronicity are exposed throughout their development to the action of the same broad causes, and owing their existence at least partially to a common origin.”
Almost a century later, these reflections remain highly relevant. As of the 1980s, French historians Michel Espagne and Michael Werner provided a deeper understanding of local and regional cultural transformation, formulating the concept of cultural transfer. Similarly, Michael Werner and Bénédicte Zimmermann broadened conceptual aspects of this approach with the idea of histoire croisée.
In the field of architecture and urban history, the issue of cultural transfers has become a significant theme in the discipline, discussing the artifact in the space —i. e., the architectural object or the urban fabric— considering different mediations, from the circulation of images or printed texts to the circulation of practitioners.Nevertheless, the same approach can be applied to the writing of history itself, defined by Bloch as “the study of the past, which explains the present, makes it possible [...] to devise the future destinies of human societies.”
Therefore, this call for papers does not discuss the artifact but intends to question Latin America’s architecture, urban and landscape historiographical operationsthat covered the long interval from the colonial period to the end of the 20th century. Our historiographical inquiring can be inscribed in Ramon Gutiérrez’s periodization, as suggested in his introduction to Historiografía Iberoamericana. Arte y Arquitectura (XVI-XVIII), i. e., antecedents (1870-1915), pioneers (1914-1935), consolidation (1935-1970), revision of the late 20th century (1970-2000).
Accordingly, it invites the analysis of Latin American historiographical operations in distinct cultural contexts and the identification of the dialogues among “neighboring and contemporary” historians, which configured the cultural transfer processes that took place in both directions between Europe, North America and South America over the time frame proposed by Gutiérrez.
Much like the humanities and social sciences, Latin American architectural and urban historiographical operations echoed the cultural atmospheres that traversed the continent and its national unities over the decades. In this sense, they were sensitive to the issues raised by continental and intercontinental ideological, political and social movements. Visions of Latin America fusing architectural cultures with Europe as communicating vessels can be found in the continent’s histories. One can mention the early essays by Lampérez and Romea in the 1920sor, later, Enrique Marco Dorta’s exhaustive work, dealing exclusively with Ibero-American art and architecture alongside Diego Angulo Íñiguez and Mario Buschiazzo, whose research led to the Historia del Arte Hispanoamericano. Published in three volumes, the work was a turning point in the discipline’s historiography, discussing the continent’s architecture and foreign contribution. Hardoy (1988) and Gutiérrez (1997) publications followed the same approach, which would be resumed by Arturo Almandoz in his book Entre livros de historia urbana. Para una historiografia de la ciudad y el urbanismo en América Latina (2008).
The troubling journey of the term Latin America, especially more intense since the latter half of the 19th century, demonstrates the quest for a regional identity in different cultural contexts. Indeed, the emergence of architectural and urban historical narratives searching to recognize a unique identity can be observed under similar circumstances. This same issue was present in historical narratives in the early 20th century, as shown in the work of historian and architect Lucio Costa in Brazil. Conversely, in 1945, the American historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock opened his book on Latin American architecture by pointing out that Latin American countries were more closely linked to North America and Europe than to each other. From another point of view, the Argentinian art historian Damián Bayon asserted in the 1970s that: “We who are the first to be concerned with ourselves, we do not know each other well enough. We ignore each other with absolute unconsciousness.”
Throughout the second half of the 20th century, the convergence of theoretical developments on a continental and intercontinental scale appeared in the discipline through a series of institutional initiatives. Among them was the creation of the Instituto de Arte Americano e Investigaciones Estéticas (IAA) at the Universidad de Buenos Aires (1946) that mirrored Manuel de Toussaint’s launch of the Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas (IIE), in 1936, at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). The same movement would continue with the foundation of the Instituto de História de la Arquitectura (IHA, 1948) at the Universidad da Republica (Uruguay), the Instituto de Historia (1952) at the Universidad de Chileand the Instituto Interuniversitario de Especialización de la Arquitectura (1958) based in Cordoba, Argentina.In 1967, they would be followed by the Seminario Internacional sobre a situación de la Historiografia de la arquitectura latinoamericana in 1967, organized by Graziano Gasparini in Venezuela, and the Seminarios de Arquitectura Latinoamericana (SAL) as of 1985.
The theoretical and analytical path of Latin American architecture was constantly advancing. Ciudades Precolombianas (1962) by Argentinian architect and historian Jorge Enrique Hardoy, for example, illustrates the dialogue with European architects and historians who were pursuing an anthropological and cultural perspective throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Against the current of bureaucratic modernism, they believed that past experiences, whether in Western antiquity, Asia, Africa or the Americas, would enhance contemporary design thinking. In the 1980s, Ramón Gutiérrez presented his book Arquitectura y urbanismoen Iberoamérica under the influence of postmodernist skepticism towards metanarratives. He conceived Latin America as a cultural unity and proposed a historiographical approach engaged with “our reality.” For the Argentinian historian and his colleagues at SAL, this commitment implied “trying to understand ourselves from within and deciphering without doubt the forms of our cultural dependence, our achievements and our multiple deficiencies.” While incorporating the historiographical perspectives concerning “other” architectures that appeared with the “insurrection of oppressed particularisms,” as expressed by the Mexican Octavio Paz, Gutiérrez understood that specific passages of Latin American historiography addressed based on Eurocentric principles —such as the colonial period and the 19th century— should be reconsidered according to the continent’s reality. Following the same track, Marina Waisman consolidated her ideas in El Interior de la Historia: Historiografía arquitectónica para uso de latinoamericanos (1990) reformulating the theoretical instrumental that allows the understanding of Latin American architecture and urban history in light of the continent reality. She dismantled the multiple traditional mechanisms of Eurocentric historiographical analysis to expand them through a critical reading based on the causal relationships that determined and accentuated the dichotomies between center/periphery and center/margins. Both Gutiérrez and Waisman, along with other Latin American researchers, initiated the discussions on Latin American cultural unity, which developed over the following decades within the theoretical framework of post-colonial.
In this scenario, the 1980s presented a new paradigm justifiable due to the expansion of doctoral programs throughout the continent and the presence of Latin American researchers in the continental and international research networks that emerged from organizations such as SAL, DOCOMOMO and ICOMOS. National narratives were then revised by incorporating contemporary conceptual tools, including the formulation of cultural transfers.
Also, from the 1980s, one observes the development of a foreign historiographical production dedicated to the continent, with an interdisciplinary character open to new protagonists and issues.
It is worth mentioning that over the centuries, Latin America’s space has been described and represented by travelers of different origins and backgrounds. Nevertheless, it was not until the 19th century that this representation assumed the attributes of a historiographical tool, such as in the oeuvre of French artist and professor Jean-Baptiste Debret, Voyage pittoresque et historique au Brésil, ou Séjour d’un artiste français au Brésil (1834-1839). Later, between the 1920s and 1930s, the continent received waves of French, Italian, and numerous German intellectuals, who also left their impressions through both the written word and the image. Moreover, the emergence of a new Pan-Americanism between the 1920s and 1930s and cultural exchanges fostered by the “good neighbor policy” during the Second World War opened new avenues for American researchers investigating the colonial period, which would also impact local historiographical production suggesting innovative approaches. The political and economic tensions of the interwar and postwar periods, as well as developments of the Cuban Revolution (1959), sparked the further arrival of European intellectuals who, from their perspective, contributed as well to the development of the discipline and the history of the built environment and the landscape in the continent. Nevertheless, during the 1960s and 1970s, the Latin American dictatorships in some ways diverted the attention of foreign researchers, albeit with some exceptions, i. e., the presence of historian Yves Bruand in Brazil, Antonio Bonet Correa in Mexico, as well as the rise of Americanist studies in the USA, focusing more specifically on social and political sciences.
In this context, the notable shift from the 1980s onwards represented a turning point in Latin American historiography. It suggests the importance of considering Latin American historiography’s construction not as an isolated subject but within a broader cultural context involving dialogues, exchanges and the crossing of concepts and methodologies over oceans. Consequently, it also entails analyzing the foreign regard produced within institutional or independent spaces.
Therefore, the current call for papers intends to discuss original research dedicated to the historiography of Latin American architecture and urban space across a broad chronological and geographical spectrum, proposing three main analytical approaches:
1. Case studies that address from an interdisciplinary perspective the dialogues and exchanges within the historiographical operation of Latin American historians, understood as representatives of specific cultural contexts implying their origins, backgrounds, and political, social and identity engagements.
2. Essays focusing on the production of foreign intellectuals, artists, critics and historians who journeyed the continent from the second half of the 18th century up to modernity, whose particular vision left its mark on the discipline’s teaching methods and historiography.
3. Analyses of the cultural dialogue developed between Latin American and foreign intellectuals and historians, as well as amid national and international networks that enabled and accelerated the circulation of concepts, critical analyses, historical research methodologies and historiographical perspectives on Latin American architecture and urbanism.
Procedure for the Transmission of Draft Articles
Proposals for completes articles should be sent by e-mail before 2 June 2025 to the Craup’ editorial office: craup.secretariat@gmail.com For more information, contact Aude Clavel on 06 10 55 11 36 or by email
The journal expects completed articles, not proposals, abstracts or any other form of presentation.
The articles must not exceed 40 000 characters, including spaces.
Languages accepted: French, English.
Articles must be accompanied by:
− 1 biobibliographical record between 5 to 10 lines (name and first name of the author (s), professional status and / or titles, possible institutional link, research themes, latest publications, e-mail address). − 2 abstracts in French and English. − 5 key words in French and English. − The title of the article must also be translated into French or English depending on the language of the paper.
Instructions to Authors
1 / General rules
Italics: Italicize words in foreign languages in relation to the language used. For example: op. cit., ibid., cf., a priori, a posteriori, etc.
No use of bold (with the exception of section titles) nor capitals (with the exception of proper names, institutions, book titles in English, etc.).
American conventions regarding punctuation are to be employed: double quotation marks, period before quotation marks, footnote at the very end of a sentence. For example: “This is how American people, as they say, ‘do it.’”
Authors may opt for British English or American spelling but the convention employed must be used in a consistent way. For example: formalised and formalized are both acceptable, as are color and colour.
Footnotes are to be used to cite sources instead of in-text citations.
Numbers: Up to ten, please spell out the number (for example, nine visitors), beyond ten, use numbers (for example: 100,000 inhabitants).
Dates: Centuries should be in numbers: 19th century. Form the plural of decades without an apostrophe. For example: the 1960s.
For persons who are deceased, add birth and death date in parenthesis. For example: Michel Foucault (1926-1984).
2 / Body of the text
The text must be entered in the Microsoft Word software, using Times New Roman, size 12, line spacing 1.5, without any special formatting, except titles, headings, captions and paragraph breaks.
3 / Quotations
Quotations of less than 3 lines will be inserted into the text and placed between quotation marks.
Quotes of more than 3 lines will be indented to the left and right, size 10 (not 12), and without quotation marks.
4 / Bibliographic References
Bibliographic references and references in footnotes are to be formatted according to the same model, although references in footnotes will include a page number.
Bibliographical references will also be grouped in alphabetical order (according to author names) and will appear at the end of the article in a section titled “Bibliography.”
Please use the following models:
For a book: First name Last name, Title, City of publishing, Publishing house, year of publication, p. xx.
For a collective work: First name Last name and First name Last name (dir./coord./eds./etc.), Title, City of publishing, Publishing house, year of publication, page, or First name Last name et al., Title, City of publishing, Publishing house, year of publication, p. xx.
For a chapter of a collective work: First name Last name, “Chapter Title,” in First name Last name, (dir./coord./eds./etc.), Book Title, City of publishing, Publishing house, year of publication, p. xx.
For a journal article: First Name Last Name, “Article Title,” Journal Title, Vol./N °, Date of Publication, p. xx.
For electronic reference: the following text will be inserted at the end of the reference, with the corresponding link: [online] [url], accessed on 01/01/21.
5 / Illustrations, charts and tables
Images accompanying the text should be scanned in high resolution (300 dpi minimum) in JPEG, PNG or TIFF formats. Text files should be distinct from graphic files. Horizontal images (in landscape mode) are preferred as they are more consistent with page layout constraints. If vertical images are unavoidable, please consider pairing the image with another vertical image.
The author must verify that the images or figures of which he is not the author are free of rights. Otherwise, the author must request permission to publish from the owner of the image or figure before submitting it to the magazine.
Tables are considered to be figures and must follow the same instructions in terms of file name, figure name, image format (jpg or tif), image size and legibility.
Illustrations, charts and tables must be captioned in the following manner:
The title of the illustrations should be preceded by the letters “Figure [no.]” or “Table [no.]” and will appear above the illustration.
The image caption and credits (source, copyright, etc.) will appear under the illustration on two separate lines.
