Puerto Rican Architecture
From Amanda Guzman
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Welcome back!
We continue our speaker series with Gloria Colom Braña who is a current PhD candidate in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University, Bloomington. Her research is based in the documentation and analysis of oral traditions and material culture, or more specifically, that of the built environment.
She enters the class conversation as we begin a new section on space with a focus on putting the historical turning points of Operation Bootstrap (1940s) and Hurricane Maria (2017) into conversation as we consider the ways in which Puerto Ricans have constructed, navigated, modified and defied cultural space formations on the island and in the diaspora. We explored the event parallels of widespread stateside diaspora, the continued practice of traditional skills in the face of change, and uneven socio-economic transformation.
We questioned the future of space on the island. What does it look like? Who will create it? Who is it for? We analyzed both the complexity of rebuilding the island's fragile infrastructure post-Hurricane Maria with the variable factor of government aid as well as the legacy of economic tax incentives evidenced in the migration of American businesses and the local emergence of privileged spaces.
We questioned the future of space on the island. What does it look like? Who will create it? Who is it for? We analyzed both the complexity of rebuilding the island's fragile infrastructure post-Hurricane Maria with the variable factor of government aid as well as the legacy of economic tax incentives evidenced in the migration of American businesses and the local emergence of privileged spaces.
Colom begins and ends with a slide of memes created for the space of our class to bring attention to the Puerto Rican spaces of our popular imagination and more importantly, those of historical reality. Centered in the latter, she presents a survey of the island's architectural styles from the pre-contact period to today with an emphasis on decentralizing the capitol city of San Juan for a more holistic picture and on highlighting the diverse cultural influences as well as the past cultural spaces that informed Puerto Rico's history of architectural grammar. She makes pointed contrasts between the styles that are and are not traditionally centered in academic discourse.
Colom critically materializes 20th century promises of modernity and progress in an overview of how land was re-distributed, and how new housing typologies (from public housing to urbanizaciones) began to take shape and redefine residential life. Describing recent disasters (e.g. hurricanes, earthquakes) as "stress tests," she complicates popular media visions of Puerto Rico as a site of ruin as she unpacks the remarkable, however asymmetrical resilience of contemporary island housing structures, grounded in traditional, intergenerational knowledge.
Colom critically materializes 20th century promises of modernity and progress in an overview of how land was re-distributed, and how new housing typologies (from public housing to urbanizaciones) began to take shape and redefine residential life. Describing recent disasters (e.g. hurricanes, earthquakes) as "stress tests," she complicates popular media visions of Puerto Rico as a site of ruin as she unpacks the remarkable, however asymmetrical resilience of contemporary island housing structures, grounded in traditional, intergenerational knowledge.
- Amanda Guzman
To learn more about Colom's academic work and art practice, see:
- https://dertindiana.wordpress.com/2018/03/20/documenting-disaster-folklore-in-the-eye-of-the-storm-a...
- https://iupress.org/author/gloria-m-colom-brana/
- https://www.artbygloriacolom.com/
- https://www.instagram.com/artbygloriacolom/
Indexing work completed by Trinity undergraduates, Elaine Ren and Xiaohan Liu. To access the indexing chapters for this talk, click the icon at the top left of the video.
- https://dertindiana.wordpress.com/2018/03/20/documenting-disaster-folklore-in-the-eye-of-the-storm-a...
- https://iupress.org/author/gloria-m-colom-brana/
- https://www.artbygloriacolom.com/
- https://www.instagram.com/artbygloriacolom/
Indexing work completed by Trinity undergraduates, Elaine Ren and Xiaohan Liu. To access the indexing chapters for this talk, click the icon at the top left of the video.
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