On the Plaza

by Low, Setha M.

• ISBN13: 9780292747142
• ISBN10: 0292747144
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-04-01
• Publisher: Univ of Texas Pr

Summary

"This is one of the best accounts of a place's history and meaning I have ever read. Low's book should be widely read and 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 Friendly gossip, political rallies, outdoor concerts, drugs, shoeshines, and sex-for-sale--almost every aspect of Latin American life has its place and time in the public plaza. In this wide-ranging, multi-disciplinary study, Setha M. Low explores the interplay of space and culture in the plaza, showing how culture acts to shape public spaces and how the physical form of the plaza encodes the social and economic relations within its city. Low centers her study on two plazas in San Joseacute;, Costa Rica, with comparisons to public plazas in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere. She interweaves ethnography, history, literature, and personal narrative to capture the ambiance and meaning of the plaza. She also uncovers the contradictory ethnohistories of the European and indigenous origins of the Latin American plaza and explains why the plaza is often a politically contested space.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	ix
Preface	xiii
Acknowledgments	xvii
Part I: Introduction
Notes from the Field	3	(28)
A Personal Account
Public Space and Culture	31	(16)
The Case of the Latin American Plaza
Part II: Histories
The History of the Plaza in San Jose, Costa Rica	47	(37)
The Political Symbolism of Public Space
The European History of the Plaza	84	(17)
Power Relations and Architectural Interpretation
The Indigenous History of the Plaza	101	(26)
The Contested Terrain of Architectural Representations
Part III: Ethnographics
Spatializing Culture	127	(27)
The Social Production and Social Construction of Public Space
Constructing Difference	154	(26)
The Social and Spatial Boundaries of Everyday Life
Public Space and Protest	180	(27)
The Plaza as Art and Commodity
Part IV: Conversations
The Park and the Plaza in Costa Rican Literature	207	(12)
Imagined Places
Conversations on the Plaza	219	(19)
Remembered Places
Public Space, Politics, and Democracy	238	(10)
Appendix: Recent Costa Rican Presidents and Their Terms	248	(1)
Bibliography	249	(18)
Index	267