The first Aswan Dam was built at the dawn of the twentieth century and celebrated as a triumph of imperial engineering. Five years after its completion, workers returned to extend the dam. Photographer D. S. George recorded both the building and extension projects for the Egyptian Public Works Department in a series of images that give a unique…[Read more]

This article outlines the formation of architectural theory in Portugal and Brazil during the nineteenth century, arguing that such theory was initially contained within the social circle and methodological scope of literary history. It makes this case by following the architectural discourses of writers, literary critics, and ethnographers. This…[Read more]

Brazilian architect. He was an influential eclectic architect highly active in Rio de Janeiro and a professor at the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes (ENBA). Soon after graduating from the ENBA, he established his firm in 1898. The son of Custódio José de Mello, a republican admiral and cabinet minister, Mello benefited from his family’s con…[Read more]

This chapter examines a few of the landmark narratives on the issue of national character published between 1880 and 1940. Following the views of Lucio Marcal Ferreira Ribeiro Lima Costa patron, Costa held that it was instead the simple architecture of anonymous master builders that embodied the functional, technical, and aesthetic homogeneity of…[Read more]