Posts
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The First National Parks in South America
On March 1, 1872 the United States Congress passed an act establishing Yellowstone in Wyoming as the first national park. It was not the first time a government had enclosed an area through legislature, but it was the first time a government had designated an area as a ‘National Park.’ In describing the geographical boundaries of Yellowstone, the 42nd Congress wrote that the land was “… hereby reserved and withdrawn from settlement, occupancy, or sale under the laws of the United States, and dedicated and set apart as a public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people…” Yellowstone would be the first of an eventual…
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1968 Mexico City Olympics: A Mirage of Peace, Progress, and Prosperity
In 1968, Mexico stood at a crossroads. Under the illusion of a vibrant and proud nation preparing to host the world’s most celebrated athletic event, internal conflicts continued to fiercely arise. The Mexican government, which was increasingly corrupt and authoritarian, faced the force of students, workers, and everyday citizens who demanded systemic change. Students protested, leading to the tragic Tlatelolco Massacre. The protests were handled corruptly by the government as it was stated that “when told that the students wanted to steal the Olympics’ limelight, the reader is already conditioned to sneer at this interpretation because he or she knows the ‘truth…’ the vulnerable are being attacked because the attackers…
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Relational Urbanism
A theory developed by Fernando Luiz Lara, Professor of Architecture at the Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania, as an extension of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro’s Amerindian Perspectivism. Lara introduced Relational Urbanism in his 2024 book Spatial Theories for the Americas: Counterweights to Five Centuries of Eurocentrism. This new theory critiqued Western Cartesianism by emphasizing the interconnectedness between Indigenous cultures and nature in Latin America, advocating for the importance of relational knowledge as well as respect between humans and nature in design and architecture. The theory is structured around three key categories: Humanized Nature (rejecting separation between humans and nature, instead implying a spectrum), Materiality (humanizing nature and materials…
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Amerindian Perspectivism
A theory developed by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro’s in the 1990s as a critique of Western multiculturalism, suggesting multinaturalism instead. In multiculturalism, Western ontologies established differences in cultures and separated humanity from nature. De Castro argued that indigenous ideologies viewed all of humanity and nature as one culture, which is manifested in various different bodies and beings (multinaturalism). He also suggested that all beings see themselves as “human,” positioning everyone as a subject from their own perspective.
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Hybridization
The processes of interethnic contact and decolonization, globalizing processes, travel and border crossing, and artistic, literary, and mass communicational fusions. A way of accepting and acknowledging the impurity of race especially in Latin America.
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Multitemporal heterogeneity
A consequence of a history in which modernization rarely operated through substitution of the traditional and ancient. Some things that have resulted is in the combination of languages and the creation of a new accepted language such as Spanglish, mixed influences of indigenous art and architecture styles with European influences.
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Core-Periphery Model
The key concepts of the model has been one that has been alluded to over time, yet has been most notably connected with John Friedmann, concerning spatial organization of regional development in the distribution of economic goods and resources related to industrialism as we know it today. The model proposes the unequal levels of development in the world economy contrasting the colonial global north (the core) and the colonized global south (the periphery). In terms of Latin American design it’s been highly referential in groundbreaking theorists as a critique of the negative socio-economic and political views concerning Latin America. The use of the model by Latin American design theorists such…
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Ch’ixi
A theoretical framework based that was proposed by Bolivian sociologist Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui in her book Un mundo Ch’ixi es posible (2012). As a pioneer in the field of decoloniality studies within Latin America, Rivera Cusicanqui proposes that the term ch’ixi represents an ideal way of coexistence between cultures, specifically western and non-western cultures, in the post-colonial modern society we live in today. Ch’ixi argues for the ability for multicultural coexistence amongst each other rejecting other models, such as hybridization and mestizaje which do not allow for a duality or bothness. What probably inspired Cusicanqui the most in the development of her theories surrounding ch’ixi is her ethnic background as…
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Relational Urbanism
A theory developed by Fernando Luiz Lara, Professor of Architecture at the Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania, as an extension of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro’s Amerindian Perspectivism. Lara introduced Relational Urbanism in his 2024 book Spatial Theories for the Americas: Counterweights to Five Centuries of Eurocentrism. This new theory critiqued Western Cartesianism by emphasizing the interconnectedness between indigenous cultures and nature in Latin America, advocating for the importance of relational knowledge as well as respect between humans and nature in design and architecture. The theory is structured around three key categories: Humanized Nature (rejecting separation between humans and nature, instead implying a spectrum), Materiality (humanizing nature and materials…
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Autopoiesis
Autopoiesis, a term coined by Chilean biologists and philosophers Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela in the 1970s, refers to the self-generating and self-sustaining nature of living systems, emphasizing how organisms continuously reproduce and maintain themselves through internal processes. The term, derived from the Greek words auto (self) and poiesis (creation or production), signifies the ability of a system to define and regulate itself independently. In decolonial and design theory, thinkers like Arturo Escobar extend this concept to social and cultural systems, particularly in relation to autonomous design and communal world-making. For instance, Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities resisting extractive economies and globalized development models are practicing autopoiesis by maintaining their own…
