From Aztec to High Tech: Architecture and Landscape Across the Mexico-United States Border(Creating the North American Landscape)

The United States and Mexico share a 2000-mile boundary where landscape and architecture clash in a vivid contrast of two cultures. This is an exploration of the architectural future of interdependent neighbours who share a history, an economy and a landscape in the borderlands of northern Mexico and the south-western United States. After reviewing three key periods in Mexico's 3000-year-old architectural past - indigenous, Spanish colonization, and modern - author Lawrence A. Herzog then focuses on the border territories of northern Mexico and the southwestern United States, particularly the California border region. He traces southwestern architecture from its origins to present-day barrios and illegal living spaces in Mexican immigrant neighbourhoods. Through 80 black-and-white photographs and interviews with architects from both sides of the border, this is a picture of how traditional Mexican architecture has intersected with the post-industrial, high-tech urban style of the USA - a mix that offers an alternative to the homogenization of architecture north of the international border. North America, Herzog notes, is in a crisis of urban space and place. By incorporating design traditions from Mexico's indigenous and Spanish colonial periods into new building in the borderlands and beyond, the southwest may be spared the corporate blandness that contributes to the sense of placelessness in other urban areas in the USA.

About the Author :
Lawrence A. Herzog is a professor of city planning in the School of Public Administration and Urban Studies at San Diego State University.

Review :
"From Aztec to High Tech is full of interest and ideas... Scott's approach is essentially chronological and the geographical range is very broad... [making the book] a much more stimulating read." -- Valerie Fraser, Journal of Latin American Studies "A good introduction for the general reader." -- David Steinberg, Albuquerque Journal "Herzog reflects on the two-thousand-mile border between Mexico and the U.S. that stretches between San Diego, California, and Brownsville, Texas... Herzog perceives this area in terms of a crisis of 'space and place, ' conveying loss of identity and loss of community. He has personally interviewed architects, investigated buildings, and covered much of the ground of the book, reaching all the way back to Aztec Mexico." -- Choice "The author creatively captures the tension between memory and futurism, between old and new, and ponders what the twenty-first century will be." -- Joseph L. Scarpaci, Latin American Research Review "This is a fascinating study, and one that is very relevant to our rapidly evolving age." -- British Bulletin of Publications "A good introduction for the general reader." -- David Steinberg, Albuquerque Journal "From Aztec to High Tech is full of interest and ideas... Scott's approach is essentially chronological and the geographical range is very broad... [making the book] a much more stimulating read." -- Valerie Fraser, Journal of Latin American Studies "Herzog reflects on the two-thousand-mile border between Mexico and the U.S. that stretches between San Diego, California, and Brownsville, Texas... Herzog perceives this area in terms of a crisis of 'space and place, ' conveying loss of identity and loss of community. He has personally interviewed architects, investigated buildings, and covered much of the ground of the book, reaching all the way back to Aztec Mexico." -- Choice "The author creatively captures the tension between memory and futurism, between old and new, and ponders what the twenty-first century will be." -- Joseph L. Scarpaci, Latin American Research Review "This is a fascinating study, and one that is very relevant to our rapidly evolving age." -- British Bulletin of Publications