View the recording here.
Join the CGS Team in welcoming Benjamin A. Bross, PhD, on Wednesday, April 12 at 12PM (CST) in person (International and Area Studies Library, Room 309) and on Zoom for his lecture, "Mexico City Zócalo: Spatial Production and the Ongoing Construction of a National Identity."
The lecture examines one of Latin America’s most important and symbolic spaces: Mexico City’s Zócalo. The lecture begins by posing questions about how the identity of a place emerges, how it evolves and why are spatial identities dynamic. To answer these questions, Bross weaves together historic events and corresponding morphological changes in the urban environment of a specific place, the Zócalo (Plaza de la Constitución), to explain the emergence and evolution of Mexican spatial identities over time.
Starting from the pre-Hispanic period to present day, the lecture will illustrate how the Zócalo reveals a spatial production that embodies a larger socio-cultural zeitgeist. By focusing on the history of changes in spatial production – what Henri Lefebvre calls society’s "secretions" – Bross traces how cultural, social, economic, and political forces shaped the Zócalo’s spatial identity and, in turn, how the Zócalo shaped and fostered new identities in return. It will be a fascinating read for architectural and urban historians investigating Latin America.
