The first of two histories written in English on Mexican architecture in the entire colonial period, Early's book sheds new light for North Americans on the diverse and changing society of the scene of colonial New Spain.

Mexico City became one of the centers of architectural modernism in the Americas in the first half of the twentieth century. Invigorated by insights drawn from the first published histories of Mexican colonial architecture, which suggested that Mexico possessed a distinctive architecture and culture, beginning in the 1920s a new generation of architects created profoundly visual modern buildings intended to convey Mexico's unique cultural character. By midcentury these architects and their students had rewritten the country's architectural history and transformed the capital into a metropolis where new buildings that evoked pre-conquest, colonial, and International Style architecture coexisted. Through an exploration of schools, a university campus, a government ministry, a workers' park, and houses for Diego Rivera and Luis Barragan, Kathryn O'Rourke offers a new interpretation of modern architecture in the Mexican capital, showing close links between design, evolving understandings of national architectural history, folk art, and social reform. This book demonstrates why creating a distinctively Mexican architecture captivated architects whose work was formally dissimilar, and how that concern became central to the profession.

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Classic study by noted authority traces Spanish architectural influence in Florida, the Gulf Coast, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. 195 photographs and 50 measured drawings.

In a profusely illustrated work, art historian Robert J. Mullen provides an overview of Mexican colonial architecture and its attendant sculpture. Writing both for students and general readers, he places the architecture in its social and economic context, showing buildings in the larger cities closer to European designs, while those in pueblos often included prehispanic indigenous elements. 172 photos. 20 line drawings. 5 maps.

Mexico's churches and conventos display a unique blend of European and native styles. Missionary Mendicant friars arrived in New Spain shortly after Cortes's conquest of the Aztec empire in 1521 and immediately related their own European architectural and visual arts styles to the tastes and expectations of native Indians. Right from the beginning the friars conceived of conventos as a special architectural theater in which to carry out their proselytizing. Over four hundred conventos were established in Mexico between 1526 and 1600, and more still in New Mexico in the century following, all built and decorated by native Indian artisans who became masters of European techniques and styles even as they added their own influence. The author argues that these magnificent sixteenth and seventeenth-century structures are as much part of the artistic patrimony of American Indians as their pre-Conquest temples, pyramids, and kivas. Mexican Indians, in fact, adapted European motifs to their own pictorial traditions and thus made a unique contribution to the worldwide spread of the Italian Renaissance. The author brings a wealth of knowledge of medieval and Renaissance European history, philosophy, theology, art, and architecture to bear on colonial Mexico at the same time as he focuses on indigenous contributions to the colonial enterprise. This ground-breaking study enriches our understanding of the colonial process and the reciprocal relationship between European friars and native artisans.

Haciendas features traditional and modern hacienda architecture in Mexico and southwestern United States. Sumptuous photography portrays the increasing fascination with hacienda architecture today, as evidenced by the movement to renovate classic adobe homes, the abundance of new hacienda designs, and the inspiration Spanish colonial architecture provides to homeowners, designers, and architects worldwide. The estate hacienda was traditionally the family home for Spanish nobles in the newly settled Mexican territories and included farmed land, orchards, stables, livestock, and servants. These extraordinary homes, many of which are owned by descendants of the original owners, are being meticulously preserved, or carefully transformed, into popular inns and tourist attractions. Today, the style is influencing residences throughout North America.With more than 250 photographs, Linda Leigh Paul presents the best haciendas, representing past and present designs: From large country estates to small adobe hideaways, the rugged beauty, rich color palette, and natural materials of the hacienda are brought to life in a book that is as delightful as a walk through the adobe arches and cool, tiled rooms of a Spanish colonial casa.

This book investigates the role of the architectural façade as an indicator of individual and communal cultural identities, focusing on a residence of a conquistador rather than religious and monarchial structures.

Invite the rich colors, natural textures, and romantic beauty of Mexico into your home. With a vast architectural legacy spanning four centuries, Mexican haciendas express a rugged romantic beauty and compelling sense of history. Today, the hacienda's graceful arcaded silhouette, grand-scale proportions, carved-stone ornament, rich colors and natural textures have become an ever-increasing influence for architects and designers worldwide. Hacienda Style invites you into Mexico's artful, hacienda havens resplendent with private collections of colonial and contemporary art, antiques and found relics. Witynski and Carr's antiques and accents have appeared in national magazines, television programs and feature films, including Architectural Digest, Western Interiors, HGTV's Takeover My Makeover, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and The Alamo. Other books by the same authors: Mexican Country Style, The New Hacienda, Casa Adobe, Adobe Details, Casa Yucatan, and Mexican Details.