0138 George Kubler Shifting South: Architecture History Following Geopolitics

Eliana Sousa Santos

doi:10.11588/riha.2016.1.70205

Authors

Eliana Sousa Santos

University of Coimbra, Portugal

Eliana Sousa Santos is a postdoctoral researcher and an assistant professor in architecture. She was a visiting postdoctoral research fellow at Yale University in 2013/14. She is currently working on the project "George Kubler’s Shape of Time: The Historiographical Effect of Portuguese Plain Architecture in Post-revolutionary Portugal" at CES, University of Coimbra. She has a degree in architecture from the Technical University of Lisbon, a master degree from University of Coimbra and a PhD from the University of London. She has worked at West 8 and at Sousa Santos Arquitectos. She has taught at ESAD.CR and is currently assistant professor at Dept. of Architecture ECATI ULHT.

Downloads

Abstract

This essay aims to present the shifting relations between North America and the South - South America and the South of Europe - through the work of the historian George Kubler. At the beginning of his career as a scholar, Kubler was invited by the Department of State to participate in a conference on inter-American relations. Later, with the positioning of the United States in World War II, the transatlantic relationship between the US and Europe became more prominent. Kubler’s research interests followed this change: His research shift from South America to peripheral Southern Europe reflects an availability of funding given his country's geopolitical interests. So far, artists and other scholars have praised Kubler’s vast work regarding the art and architecture of different 'Souths' mainly as a sign of 'nonalignment' and of his attention to the condition of peripheral countries.

Published in 2016: Special Issue "Southern Modernisms"

Date

2016-07-15

DOI

https://doi.org/10.11588/riha.2016.1.70205

URN