The Metropolis in Latin America, 1830–1930

Sep 16, 2017–Jan 7, 2018

Over the course of a century of rapid urban growth, sociopolitical upheavals and cultural transitions reshaped the architectural landscapes of major cities in Latin America. Focusing on six capitals—Buenos Aires, Havana, Lima, Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, and Santiago de Chile—The Metropolis in Latin America, 1830–1930, presents the colonial city as a terrain shaped by Iberian urban regulations, and the republican city as an arena of negotiation of previously imposed and newly imported models, which were later challenged by waves of indigenous revivals. Photographs, prints, plans, and maps depict the urban impact of key societal and economic transformations, including the emergence of a bourgeois elite, extensive infrastructure projects, rapid industrialization, and commercialization.

Image: The City of the Future: Hundred Story City in Neo-American Style, Francisco Mujica (Mexican, 1899–1979), 1929. From Francisco Mujica, History of the Skyscraper (Paris: Archaeology & Architecture Press, 1929), pl. 134. The Getty Research Institute, 88-B34645