Robert B. Textor Prize for Excellence in Anticipatory Anthropology, American Anthropological Association, 2000
Honorable Mention, Victor Turner Award, Society for Humanistic Anthropology, 2001
Leeds Prize, Society of Urban, National, and Transnational/Global Anthropology, 2001

Friendly gossip, political rallies, outdoor concerts, drugs, shoeshines, and sex-for-sale-almost every aspect of Latin American life has its place and time in the public plaza. In this wide-ranging, multi-disciplinary study, Setha M. Low explores the interplay of space and culture in the plaza, showing how culture acts to shape public spaces and how the physical form of the plaza encodes the social and economic relations within its city.

Low centers her study on two plazas in San Jose, Costa Rica, with comparisons to public plazas in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere. She interweaves ethnography, history, literature, and personal narrative to capture the ambiance and meaning of the plaza. She also uncovers the contradictory ethnohistories of the European and indigenous origins of the Latin American plaza and explains why the plaza is often a politically contested space.

"This is one of the best accounts of a place's history and meaning I have ever read. Low's book should be widely read and used in courses in architecture, urban design, planning, landscape architecture, and historic preservation, as well as Latin American studies and anthropology. What a wonderful book!" -- Dolores Hayden, Professor of Architecture, Urbanism, and American Studies, Yale University

About the Author
Setha M. Low is Professor of Environmental Psychology and Anthropology and Director of the Public Space Research Group at The Graduate Center, City University of New York.

Reviews
"This is one of the best accounts of a place's history and meaning I have ever read. Low's work should be widely used in courses in architecture, urban design, planning, landscape architecture, and historic preservation, as well as Latin American studies and anthropology. What a wonderful book!" Dolores Hayden, Professor of Architecture, Urbanism, and American Studies, Yale University "Combining ethnography, history, and spatial theory, this interdisciplinary book brings the Latin American plaza to life as a spatial expression of culture and politics. A paean to the plaza as democratic public space, it is as absorbing as it is unconventional." Neil Smith, Department of Geography and Center for the Critical Analysis of Contemporary Culture, Rutgers University



Book Information
ISBN 9780292747142
Author Setha M. Low
Format Paperback
Page Count 296
Imprint University of Texas Press
Publisher University of Texas Press
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 20mm