Podcast Summary

Episode Overview

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Keldin Vu
Guest: Fernando Luiz Lara, Professor of Architecture, University of Pennsylvania
Book Discussed: Spatial Theories for the Americas: Counterweights to Five Centuries of Eurocentrism (U Pittsburgh Press, 2024)
Date: January 13, 2026

This episode explores Fernando Luiz Lara’s ambitious rethinking of architectural theory and history in the Americas. The discussion examines how Eurocentric narratives have systematically erased and marginalized the rich spatial traditions, knowledge, and histories of the American continents. Lara argues for new frameworks—rooted in drawings, theories, and resistance practices from the Americas themselves—that push back against five centuries of European dominance in knowledge production about space, architecture, and urbanism.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Intellectual Journey and Crossing Disciplinary Boundaries

• Background: Lara is known for moving fluidly among architectural theory, history, design studios, and administration, opposing the academic pressure to specialize.
  • Quote:
    “I was never very happy with that. And I was more interested in the movement, in the translations from one topic to another.” (02:24, Lara)
• The book as a 'time marker': Lara views the book as a record of thoughts evolving over a decade—capturing changes in his own perspective and the field.

2. Storytelling and Connecting Disparate Dots

• Ambition: Lara frames his work as an attempt to connect "shiny new points of light" into a new constellation—challenging the under-theorization of American spaces.
  • Quote:
    “I'm just a storyteller connecting the dots... trying to show you a new constellation. Let’s call this exercise an attempt at theorizing...” (04:10, Lara)
• Method: Instead of national boundaries, he examines the Americas as a whole, deliberately tearing down the border between North and Latin America to see hidden patterns and erased histories.

3. Erasure and Under-theorization of the Americas

• Canon Problem: Canonical architectural histories typically dismiss the Americas as irrelevant, echoing statements in 19th-century texts.
  • Exercise: Lara asks students to write about someone their age who lived in their neighborhood 500 years ago—revealing widespread ignorance of pre-colonial histories in the Americas.
  • Quote:
    “The history that we know always starts with the arrival of the Europeans. And there you go. To me, it's a major problem.” (09:36, Lara)
• Persistent Gap: Non-European spatial knowledges remain “under the surface” and untapped in contemporary reflection and education.

4. Architecture and Colonization: Instrument and Consequence

• Thesis: Architectural profession as systematized in Europe arose together with colonization, as both processes dealt with controlling space from a distance.
  • Quote:
    “Architecture was systematized as a process to control spaces from afar... This Systematization of spatial control is a process that gave birth to architecture and gave birth to colonization and modernization.” (15:20, Lara)
• Counter to Diffusionism: Rather than being a recipient, American spaces directly influenced European architectural forms, such as the Baroque.

5. Counter-Influence: The Baroque and Open Chapels

• Polemical Argument: European Baroque urban theater drew from spatial practices in Mexico and Peru, particularly the “open chapels” developed for indigenous worship.
  • Quote:
    “Those are exactly the same things. They took the idea of open theater from Mexico and Peru... At the same time that they adopted it in Italy...” (18:00, Lara)
• Neglected Literature: Despite bits of evidence, this counter-influence remains largely unexplored in mainstream scholarship.
  • “If it's a Jesuit style... it's an American style. That's where they were. They were in Macau, Goa, Japan, but they were mostly in the Americas.” (22:08, Lara)

6. Methodological Innovations: Juxtaposition, Patchworks, and Constellations

• Avoiding Eurocentric Methods: Lara borrows from decolonial theorists like Arturo Escobar to resist methodological traps—like comparison—that always privilege the European “original.”
  • Juxtaposition: Instead of comparing, he juxtaposes cases to de-center hierarchy and highlight relational development.
  • Patchworks and Constellations: Emphasizes knowledge as “patchwork,” embracing partiality and complexity rather than grand universalizing narratives.

7. Relational Urbanism versus Abstraction

• Critique of Abstraction: Traditional architectural education emphasizes abstraction, reducing reality to geometric lines, which excludes memory, emotion, and community relations.
  • Quote:
    “They are discarded because we developed a method that have no space for them.” (26:51, Lara)
• Relational Urbanism: Suggests new approaches centering embodiment, materiality, and humanized nature, seeking to re-integrate neglected forms of knowledge into design thinking.

8. The Grid: A Counter-History

• Multiple Origins: The grid is often wrongly claimed as a Greek invention, but appears globally as an instrument of power and control (Romans, Chinese dynasties, Nahua, Incas).
  • Quote:
    “What I see in common is that the grid is a manifestation of power and control. Always, every time that a governing body wants to show off how powerful they are, they use the grid.” (29:56, Lara)
• The Right Angle: The privileging of the “orthogonal” grid (the “right” angle) is arbitrary, serving power and domination.
  • “We could have infinite numbers of grids... but we choose to use 1. The 90 degree grid as the correct one and that has strong connections to... power.” (34:16, Lara)

9. Abundant American Theorizing

• Challenging the Narrative: Lara points out the abundance of theorizing in the Americas—Frank Lloyd Wright, Lucio Costa, Jane Jacobs, Denise Scott Brown, and more—excluding and under-recognized by the architectural establishment.
• Gender and Geography: Highlights foundational roles for women (Bower, Porcinio, Jacobs, Scott Brown) in 20th-century theorizing, along with parallel developments in Latin America (CEPAL, liberation theology, Paulo Freire) critiquing Eurocentric modernism.

10. Favelas and Informality as Resistance

• Territories of Resistance: Afro-Brazilian literature frames favelas as active forms of resistance rather than “informal” marginal spaces.
  • Quote:
    “Those buildings have form. Architecture is basically about creating form. When we name something informal, what we are doing, we are placing it outside the boundaries of architecture.” (42:55, Lara)
• Undrawn vs. Informal: Prefers “undrawn” to “informal”—arguing their resistance includes a refusal to submit to state control via architectural drawing.
  • “To draw means to submit yourself to the rules and regulations of the state by not drawing. They are... rebelling against those regulations.” (46:30, Lara)

11. Reception and Future Work

• Reception: Overwhelmingly positive responses in the Americas, India, and Africa; silence from continental Europeans, whom Lara says are not his intended audience.
  • Quote:
    “I didn’t write the book for the Europeans. I wrote the book for the people of the Americas who need to engage with the spaces of the Americas in a more conscious manner.” (48:55, Lara)
• Further Reading Recommendation:
  Arturo Escobar’s Designs for the Pluriverse and his recent work on design as empowerment (49:43, Lara).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Theory as Storytelling:
  “I’m just a storyteller connecting the dots... trying to show you a new constellation.” (04:10, Lara)

• On the Problem of Erasure:
  “The history that we know always start with the arrival of the Europeans. To me, it’s a major problem.” (09:36, Lara)

• On the Relation of Architecture and Colonization:
  “Systematization of spatial control is a process that gave birth to architecture and gave birth to colonization and modernization.” (15:20, Lara)

• On the ‘Jesuit Style’:
  “If it's a Jesuit style... it's an American style. That’s where they were.” (22:08, Lara)

• On Why He Doesn’t Use ‘Informal’:
  “When we name something informal, what we are doing, we are placing it outside the boundaries of architecture.” (42:55, Lara)

• On Drawing as Resistance:
  “To draw means to submit yourself to the rules and regulations of the state by not drawing. They are... rebelling against those regulations.” (46:30, Lara)

Timestamps of Key Segments

| Timestamp | Topic | |-----------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:51 | Lara’s professional journey and interdisciplinary approach | | 04:10 | Framing the book as “connecting the dots”—new constellations | | 07:53 | Discussing centuries of erasure and problem of canonical histories | | 13:42 | Architecture as instrument and consequence of colonization | | 17:03 | The “counter-influence” of American spaces on European Baroque | | 23:26 | On methods: mapping, juxtaposition, “patchworks,” and decolonial theory | | 25:57 | Relational urbanism versus spatial abstraction | | 29:54 | Counter histories of the grid | | 36:36 | Abundant theorizing in the Americas: Wright, Jacobs, CEPAL, Freire, etc. | | 41:28 | Favelas as “territories of resistance”—argument for “undrawn” over “informal” | | 48:05 | Book’s reception and intended audience | | 49:43 | Further reading: Arturo Escobar’s recent work |

Tone and Style

The episode is richly conversational, reflective, and marked by a spirit of critical engagement. The tone is thoughtful, insistent on inclusivity and historical reckoning, while remaining accessible and rooted in specific anecdotes and stories.

In Summary

Fernando Luiz Lara’s Spatial Theories for the Americas challenges the Eurocentric dominance of architectural theory and invites listeners to rethink history, design, and knowledge from the perspective of the Americas. The episode dives into the politics of knowledge, the complexity of spatial traditions, and the urgent need for new, relational ways of theorizing our environments. With memorable arguments about the ‘undrawn’ resistance of favelas, the contested origins and uses of the grid, and the global flows of architectural influence, Lara calls for both scholars and practitioners to create new constellations—recovering the erased, the overlooked, and the relational in American space.