Journal of the Southwest articles from March 2003

Journal of the Southwest archives from March 2003

Architecture: some musings on the state of the art.
March 22, 2003... This special double issue of the Journal of the Southwest, with architecture as its theme, arrives at a period when the theory and practice of that discipline is in an extremely exciting, as well as critical, phase. Not since the early part of...

Churches of the Valley along the Southern Rio Grande.
March 22, 2003... During numerous trips along the Rio Grande River in southern New Mexico, I noted the styles and locations of many churches and meditated about the era, people, and land that fostered the construction of these churches. Upon closer contact with...

Parallel universes on the Colorado Plateau: indications of Chacoan integration of an earlier Anasazi focus at Canyon de chelly.
March 22, 2003... Certainly one of the hallmarks of "civilization" has always been the scale, style, and prestigious location of works of architecture. In today's largely electronically mediated, thematic world, however, it is becoming increasingly clear that...

A Jesuit Mission in the Sierra Tarahumara.
March 22, 2003... During the 1970s, an El Paso architect by the name of Ewing "Bill" Waterhouse (1905-2000), whether from professional stress, boredom, or mainly a sense of adventure, would periodically venture into northern Mexico and document...

A tale of two cities: the failed urban renewal of downtown Tucson in the twentieth century.
March 22, 2003... There is no cultural crime more heinous than the wanton destruction of a city. Over the centuries, urban clearance has been used as harsh punishment during military campaigns where combatants trying to impose their will destroy their opponents'...

Plaza San Agustin.
March 22, 2003... The proposed Plaza San Agustin is a vision brought forward from the "grass roots" by citizens who can see a bright future for downtown Tucson. Chris Tanz and Jean Paul Bierny, neighborhood activists and longtime Tucsonans, have believed...

Sustainable Urban Design and Outdoor Space Analysis: a case study of the Rio Nuevo project in Tucson.
March 22, 2003... Like many cities throughout the world, Tucson, Arizona, has been witnessing the death of its downtown core through exodus to suburban areas. Simultaneously, the adjacent Santa Cruz River basin, once the fertile riparian area upon which Tucson...

Three Tucson architects / tres proyectos: Arboretum at flagstaff research and conservation complex.
March 22, 2003... LINE AND SPACE ARCHITECTS HENRY TOM, PROJECT DESIGNER Nestled within the pines, and sited away from the public gardens, the 20,000 square foot Research and Conservation Complex is dedicated to the study of sustainability on the Colorado...

Transitional architecture or espacios de Paso y Simulacro.
March 22, 2003... INTRODUCTION Drawing from various photographic studies and interviews, this article provides a critical comparison between the architecture of border cities in the U.S. Southwest and those on northwest Mexico's northern limit. The...

Preserving old buildings in Mazatlan: cultural preservation or change?
March 22, 2003... When I lived in Mazatlan, foreign tourists sometimes asked me what they could do away from the beaches, restaurants, shops, discos, and fishing tours. I would inquire whether they had been to downtown Mazatlan, and they almost always told me...

Reflections on the cultural landscape: conflicting results in the American production of space.
March 22, 2003... What we enjoy about the early-nineteenth-century American landscape is the ease with which it can be read and interpreted. The farm stands in the midst of its fields and clearly reveals its degree of prosperity and contentment. Each church has...

A Surreal garden in Alamos, Mexico.
March 22, 2003... In the southern part of the Mexican State of Sonora, in a bioregion where desert flora intermingles with plants of the tropics, is the celebrated colonial town of Alamos. Although located above the Tropic of Cancer, Alamos is in a tropical zone...

The Geometry of San Xavier del Bac and La Purisima Concepciop de Nuestra Senora de Caborca.
March 22, 2003... Early Renaissance architects retained the tradition from master builders of the Middle Ages of using the square, equilateral triangle, and eight-pointed star in designing monumental edifices. Indeed, these basic geometric forms had been used...

From Azulejos to Zaguanes: the Islamic legacy in the built environment of Hispano-America.
March 22, 2003... They lack our faith, but we lack their works.--Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros Prior to the Spanish colonization of the Americas, beginning at the end of the fifteenth century, Spain was completing the final chapters of the Reconquest of the...