Madrid's Modern Landscapes (1780-1900)

A seminar to study the changing relationship between landscape, architecture, and society during Madrid’s modernization, from the late eighteenth century to the early twentieth. Considers representations of gardens, parks, and “natural" landscapes around the Spanish capital as expressions of how writers, planners, and intellectuals envisioned changes in ideas of national identity, gender relationships, class consciousness, and artistic perception. Readings, presentations, and group discussions are designed to promote a sustained analysis of such concepts as modernization, nature, the city and the country, with an eye not only to Madrid’s past but also to our own relationship to landscape in the present.