Ordinary Places/Extraordinary Events
This book reveals the recent urban history of ten major Latin American cities – Mexico City, Havana, Santo Domingo, Caracas, Bogotá, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Lima, Santiago, and Buenos Aires – through studies of their public spaces and the events that have taken place there. The case studies provide an unprecedented opportunity to look at cities with comparable cultural and political histories, and to investigate the use and meaning of urban space by ordinary people in extraordinary, history-making events.
While some argue that public spaces are a prerequisite for the expression, representation and reinforcement of democracy, equally they can be said to be used in the pursuit of totalitarianism. In Latin America, there have been the experiences of the Santiago of Pinochet, the Buenos Aires of Videla, the Asuncion of Strossner, or the Caracas of Pérez Jiménez, among others. Yet even here political demonstrations in public spaces played a critical role in the eventual revocation of those regimes, and/or in the subsequent re-establishment of democracy.
For the two opposing political visions – democracy versus totalitarianism – public streets and spaces, in both the past and present, have been the site for the enactment and contestation of various stances on democracy and citizenship. Indeed, the public sphere, as the intangible realm for the expression, reproduction, and/or recreation of a society’s culture and polity, usually encompasses opposing political visions and nurtures acute social confrontations which are played out in tangible space.
By exploring the use and meaning of public spaces in Latin American cities over time, the book sheds light on contemporary redefinitions of citizenship and democracy in the Americas, and by extrapolation, the world.
Clara Irazábal is the Latin Lab Director and Assistant Professor of Urban Planning in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University, New York City.
Contents
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- The Contributors
- Prologue Ordinary Places, Extraordinary Events in Latin America
- Clara Irazábal
- 1 Citizenship, Democracy, and Public Space in Latin America
- Clara Irazábal
- Part I: Cities, Democracies and Powers
- 2 Political Appropriation of Public Space: Extraordinary Events in the Zócalo of Mexico City
- Sergio Tamayo and Xóchitl Cruz-Guzmán
- 3 Reinventing the Void: São Paulo’s Museum of Art and Public Life along Avenida Paulista
- Zeuler R. Lima and Vera M. Pallamin
- 4 A Memorable Public Space:The Plaza of the Central Station in Santiago de Chile
- Rodrigo Vidal Rojas and Hans Fox Timmling
- 5 Lima’s Historic Centre: Old Places Shaping New Social Arrangements
- Miriam Chion and Wiley Ludeña Urquizo
- 6 The Plaza de Bolívar of Bogotá: Uniqueness of Place, Multiplicity of Events
- Alberto Saldarriaga Roa
- Part II: Place, Citizenship and Nationhood
- 7 Space, Revolution and Resistance: Ordinary Places and Extraordinary Events in Caracas
- Clara Irazábal and John Foley
- 8 The Struggle for Urban TerritoriesHuman Rights Activists in Buenos Aires
- Susana Kaiser
- 9 Iconic Voids and Social Identity in a Polycentric City: Havana from the Nineteenth to the Twentieth Century
- Roberto Segre
- 10 Unresolved Public Expressions of Anti-Trujilloism in Santo Domingo
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Robert Alexander González
