Description
Book SynopsisHow culture acts to shape public spaces and how the physical form of the plaza encodes the social, political, and economic relations within the city.
Trade Review"This is one of the best accounts of a place's history and meaning I have ever read. Low's work should be widely used in courses in architecture, urban design, planning, landscape architecture, and historic preservation, as well as Latin American studies and anthropology. What a wonderful book!" Dolores Hayden, Professor of Architecture, Urbanism, and American Studies, Yale University "Combining ethnography, history, and spatial theory, this interdisciplinary book brings the Latin American plaza to life as a spatial expression of culture and politics. A paean to the plaza as democratic public space, it is as absorbing as it is unconventional." Neil Smith, Department of Geography and Center for the Critical Analysis of Contemporary Culture, Rutgers University
Table of Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Part I: Introduction
- Chapter One: Notes from the Field: A Personal Account
- Chapter Two: Public Space and Culture: The Case of the Latin American Plaza
- Part II: Histories
- Chapter Three: The History of the Plaza in San José, Costa Rica: The Political Symbolism of Public Space
- Chapter Four: The European History of the Plaza: Power Relations and Architectural Interpretation
- Chapter Five: The Indigenous History of the Plaza: The Contested Terrain of Architectural Representations
- Part III: Ethnographies
- Chapter Six: Spatializing Culture: The Social Production and Social Construction of Public Space
- Chapter Seven: Constructing Difference: The Social and Spatial Boundaries of Everyday Life
- Chapter Eight: Public Space and Protest: The Plaza as Art and Commodity
- Part IV: Conversations
- Chapter Nine: The Park and the Plaza in Costa Rican Literature: Imagined Places
- Chapter Ten: Conversations on the Plaza: Remembered Places
- Chapter Eleven: Public Space, Politics, and Democracy
- Appendix: Recent Costa Rican Presidents and Their Terms
- Bibliography
- Index
