López-Durán, Fabiola, author.

Eugenics in the garden : transatlantic architecture and the crafting of modernity / Fabiola López-Durán.

First edition.

Austin : University of Texas Press, 2018.
©2018

xiii, 296 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm.

Lateral exchanges: architecture, urban development, and transnational practices

"As Latin American elites strove to modernize their cities at the turn of the twentieth century, they eagerly adopted the eugenics theory that improvements to the physical environment would lead to improvements in the human race. Based on Jean-Baptiste Lamarck's theory of the "inheritance of acquired characteristics", this strain of eugenics empowered a utopian project that made race, gender, class, and the built environment the critical instruments of modernity and progress. Through a transnational and interdisciplinary lens, Eugenics in the Garden reveals how eugenics, fueled by a fear of social degeneration in France, spread from the realms of medical science to architecture and urban planning, becoming a critical instrument in the crafting of modernity in the new Latin world. Journeying back and forth between France, Brazil, and Argentina, Fabiola López-Durán uncovers the complicity of physicians and architects on both sides of the Atlantic, who participated in a global strategy of social engineering, legitimized by the authority of science. In doing so, she reveals the ideological trajectory of one of the most celebrated architects of the twentieth century, Le Corbusier, who deployed architecture in what he saw as the perfecting and whitening of man. The first in-depth interrogation of eugenics' influence on the construction of the modern built environment, Eugenics in the Garden convincingly demonstrates that race was the main tool in the geopolitics of space, and that racism was, and remains, an ideology of progress" -- Book jacket.

9781477314951 hardcover ; alkaline paper
1477314954 hardcover ; alkaline paper
9781477314968 paperback ; alkaline paper
1477314962 paperback ; alkaline paper
library electronic book
9781477314975
non-library electronic book
9781477314982

Architecture and society History 20th century.
Architecture, Modern 20th century.
Eugenics History.
Social change Environmental aspects.
City planning 20th century.
Architecture et société Histoire 20e siècle.
Architecture 20e siècle.
Eugénisme Histoire.
Architecture and society.
Architecture, Modern.
City planning.
Eugenics.
Architektur
Eugenik
Gesellschaft
Sozialer Wandel
Stadtplanung
Umwelt

History.

Lateral exchanges.

Location: Library main 300441
Call No.: BIB 246624
Status: Available