JSAH Virtual Issue: Architectural History of Mexico
In conjunction with the 79th annual international conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, which is being held in Mexico City, Mexico, April 15–19, 2026, the editors of the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians are pleased to make available this special online-only virtual issue of archival articles and reviews from JSAH that explore histories of architecture in Central Mexico, especially Tenochtitlan/Mexico City.
It is worth noting that JSAH, in its initial guise as the Journal of the American Society of Architectural Historians, highlighted the organization’s early connections to Mexico City in a “News Item” published in 1944 (vol. 4, issue 2) announcing the establishment of the Sociedad de Arto Moderna in Mexico City, whose board of directors included ASAH member John McAndrew. Not long thereafter, George Kubler served as the guest editor for the first edition of the renamed JSAH (vol. 5, 1945–46): an expanded special issue on Latin American Architecture, which included essays by Diego Angulo Iñíguez and Manuel Toussaint (linked below).
We trust that the essays in this virtual issue will be of interest to conference attendees, as well as those wanting to learn more about the region’s architecture.
Table of Contents
Articles about Mexico City
(available for free online for a limited time)
A Triumphal Arch for the Count of Moctezuma: Architectural Poetics and Artistic Competition at the Cathedral of Mexico City, ca. 1670–1700
Michael Schreffler
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (2020) 79 (4): 414–37.
Staging Entrapment in Mexico City: La Máquina de Teatro’s Reconstruction of the Massacres in Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco
Ruth Hellier-Tinoco
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (2014) 73 (4): 474–477.
Responsive Eyes: Urban Logistics and Kinetic Environments for the 1968 Mexico City Olympics
George F. Flaherty
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (2014) 73 (3): 372–397.
Guardians of Their Own Health: Tuberculosis, Rationalism, and Reform in Modern Mexico
Kathryn E. O’Rourke
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (2012) 71 (1): 60–77.
Postwar Modernism in Mexico: Luis Barragán’s Jardines Del Pedregal and the International Discourse on Architecture and Place
Keith Eggener
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (1999) 58 (2): 122–145.
Sociocultural Implications of House Types in the Teotihuacán Valley, Mexico
Thomas H. Charlton
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (1969) 28 (4): 284–290.
The Ornamental Niche-Pilaster in the Hispanic World
Joseph A. Baird
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (1956) 15 (1): 5–11.
Colonial Towns of Spanish and Portuguese America
Robert C. Smith
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (1955) 14 (4): 3–12.
Angahua
Manuel Toussaint
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (1945–46) 5: 24–26.
Eighteenth-Century Church Fronts in Mexico City
Diego Angulo Iñíguez
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (1945–46) 5: 27–32.
Architectural Histories of Mexico beyond the Capital Region
(available for free online for a limited time)
Serpent and Atlantean Columns: Symbols of Maya-Toltec Polity
George Kubler
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (1982) 41 (2): 93–115.
Radial Pyramids and Radial-Associated Assemblages of the Central Maya Area
Marvin Cohodas
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (1980) 39 (3): 208–223.
In addition to the research articles listed above, JSAH has published numerous book and exhibition reviews, roundtable essays, and other forms of content looking at Mexico's rich architectural history. In the pursuit of comprehensiveness, we include a listing of this content below. Please note that these reviews and essays remain behind JSAH's paywall.
Book Reviews
Delia Cosentino and Adriana Zavala. Resurrecting Tenochtitlan: Imagining the Aztec Capital in Modern Mexico City
Benjamin Ibarra-Sevilla
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (2025) 84 (4): 581–582.
Kathryn E. O'Rourke, Modern Architecture in Mexico City: History, Representation, and the Shaping of a Capital
Cristina López Uribe
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (2020) 79 (2): 222–23.
Edward R. Burian, The Architecture and Cities of Northern Mexico from Independence to the Present
Sarah L. Lopez
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (2017) 76 (4): 554–555.
William L. Fash and Leonardo López Luján, editors, The Art of Urbanism: How Mesoamerican Kingdoms Represented Themselves in Architecture and Imagery
John Janusek
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (2012) 71 (4): 555–56.
Luis E. Carranza, Architecture as Revolution: Episodes in the History of Modern Mexico, George F. Flaherty
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (2011) 70 (3): 386–87.
Patrice Elizabeth Olsen, Artifacts of Revolution: Architecture, Society, and Politics in Mexico City, 1920–1940
Edward R. Burian
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (2011) 70 (2): 263–64.
Gloria Fraser Giffords, Sanctuaries of Earth, Stone, and Light: The Churches of Northern New Spain, 1530–1821
Jacinto Quirarte
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (2009) 68 (4): 574–575.
Daniel Nierman, Ernesto H. Vallejo, Mardith Schuetz-Miller, The Hacienda in Mexico
Chris Wilson
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (2005) 64 (2): 241–42.
Samuel Y. Edgerton, Theaters of Conversion: Religious Architecture and Indian Artists in Colonial Mexico
Jeanette Favrot Peterson
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (2003) 62 (1): 150–52.
James Early, The Colonial Architecture of Mexico; Robert J. Mullen, Architecture and Its Sculpture in Viceregal Mexico; Oscar Mazín Gómez, El cabildo catedral de Valladolid de Michoacán
Jesús R. Escobar
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (1999) 58 (1): 84–87.
Carolyn E. Tate, Yaxchilan: The Design of a Maya Ceremonial City
Virginia E. Miller
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (1994) 53 (3): 356–357.
Mardith Schuetz, editor, Architectural Practice in Mexico City: A Manual for Journeyman Architects of the Eighteenth Century
Clara Bargellini
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (1989) 48 (3): 302–303.
Sidney David Markman, Architecture and Urbanization in Colonial Chiapas, Mexico
Warren T. D. Barbour
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (1988) 47 (3): 308.
George F. Andrews, Maya Cities: Place-making and Urbanization; William M. Ferguson, in collaboration with John Q. Royce, Maya Ruins of Mexico in Color; John S. Bolles, ed., intro. by John H. Jennings, Las Monjas: A Major Pre-Mexican Architectural Complex at Chichen Itza
Clemency Coggins
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (1979) 38 (1): 78–80.
René Millon, R.B. Drewitt, and G.L. Cowgill, Urbanization at Teotihuacán, Mexico, Vol. 1
George Kubler
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (1978) 37 (1): 58–59.
Esther Paztory, The Murals of Tepantila, Teotihuacan
Arthur G. Miller
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (1977) 36 (3): 207–208.
Mary Carolyn Hollers Jutson, Alfred Giles: An English Architect in Texas and Mexico
Bainbridge Bunting
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (1974) 33 (2): 175.
Jorge Hardoy, Urban Planning in Pre-Columbian America
Jon Erik Simpson
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (1970) 29 (4): 358–359.
Exhibition Catalogue Reviews
Wendy Kaplan, ed., Found in Translation: Design in California and Mexico 1915–1985
Kathryn E. O’Rourke
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (2020) 79 (4): 493–95.
Exhibition Reviews
Ecologies of the Machine: Landscapes of Cement and Power
Proyector, Mexico City, 4 November 2023–9 December 2023.
Marcelo López-Dinardi
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (2024) 83 (4): 551–553.
Design for Eternity: Architectural Models from the Ancient Americas
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 26 October 2015–18 September 2016
Yumi Park Huntington
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (2017) 76 (1): 120–121.
Félix Candela 1910–2010
Institut Valencià d’Art Modern, Valencia, Spain 21 October 2010–2 January 2011; Museo Extremeño e Iberoamericano de Arte Contemporáneo, Badajoz, Spain 17 March–14 August 2011; Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City 22 September 2011–15 January 2012; Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University 11 February–31 March 2012
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (2013) 72 (2): 268–70.
Roundtable Essays
Urban Fantasies of Racial Segregation in Spanish America and the Philippines
Barbara E. Mundy
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (2024) 83 (3): 268–286.
Encoded Architecture: Embedded Spolia as Resistance and Perseverance of Indigenous Knowledge Systems in Colonial Mexican Architecture
Pilar Regueiro Suárez and Juan Luis Burke
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (2024) 83 (3): 268–286.
Building in the Brush in the Era of Exclusion
Jonathan Cortez
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (2024) 83 (1): 6–28.
Labor Unimagined
María González Pendás
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (2022) 81 (2): 148–151.
Field Notes
Juan O’Gorman versus the International Style: An Unpublished Submission to the JSAH
Keith Eggener
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (2009) 68 (3): 301–7.
If you are not a subscriber and would like to secure ongoing access to JSAH, please ask your library to subscribe and/or become a member of the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) to receive access to JSAH, as well as member grants and fellowships, annual conference opportunities, and online academic resources.
If you will be attending the SAH conference in Mexico City and would like to learn more about the journal, JSAH Editor Claire Zimmerman and Associate Editor Sheila Crane will be participating in the following roundtables:
Thursday, April 16, 1:30-3:00 pm
Meet the JSAH Editors
Friday, April 17, 1:30-3:00 pm
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