Doctoral Thesis
This dissertation addresses teaching the history of art and architecture to architects in the fine arts academies of Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro during the mid-19th century. The first two fine arts education institutions for architects in the Americas were established in these capitals: in Mexico, the chronology of the founding of the Academia de las Tres Nobles Artes de San Carlos dates back to 1781; in Brazil, the Escola Real de Ciências, Artes e Ofícios was founded in 1816, and began operating ten years later under the name Academia Imperial de Belas Artes (Aiba). From 1854 onwards, this institution initiated a review of its teaching methods, led by the artist and writer Manuel de Araújo Porto-alegre (1806-1879). In the Mexican academy, the architecture course underwent a comprehensive revision starting in 1857, overseen by the Italian architect, archaeologist, and civil engineer Francesco Saverio Cavallari (1810-1896). By placing these two events within a broader context and considering the simultaneous discussions on architectural education in other European and American locations, we observed that similar teaching revision processes were occurring concurrently. Examining the biographies of those who led these reforms shows that they lived during a significant period of rearticulation of historical time. This context seems crucial for understanding the focus on reshaping the history of art and architecture within these educational reforms. These efforts are closely connected to the challenge of crafting national histories. Therefore, the central objective of this work is to understand which notions of historical time – and, thus, which historiographies of art and architecture – contributed to and were shaped by the revisions in architectural education at these fine arts academies. The study will be based on the approaches of comparative history and connected histories, focusing on the displacements of the reformers, on the attention to their biographies, and on the recognition that these individuals share the construction of a common way of understanding the world, which we refer to
THESIS LINK
Date: 20/08/2025
Person
- Ana Maria Pessoa dos Santos
- Daniela Ortiz dos Santos
- Elizabeth Fuentes Rojas
- Gustavo Rocha-Peixoto [contributor]
- Karolyna de Paula Koppke [author]
- Niuxa Dias Drago
- Priscilla Alves Peixoto [contributor]
Course
- Doctor of Architecture PROARQ
ResearchLine
- Theory and Teaching of Architecture