Ana María Leon in Conversation with Fernando Luis Martínez Nespral “A History of the Arab Component in Ibero-American Architecture”
Event Description
Hosted by the Frances Loeb Library at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Faculty Author Talks provide a venue for GSD faculty members to launch newly published books, discuss recent or in-process publications or research in which they are currently engaged, or present their thoughts on pedagogy and innovative approaches to teaching.
Upcoming Events
Please join in the library for a conversation between Ana María Leon and Fernando Luis Martínez Nespral on the recent publication, a History of the Arab Component in Ibero-American Architecture, published by Brill.
Fernando Luis Martínez Nespral is an architect (Universidad de Buenos Aires) with a PhD in History from Universidad Torcuato Di Tella. He is Full Professor of Architectural History and Director of the Instituto de Arte Americano e Investigaciones Estéticas at the School of Architecture, Design, and Urbanism, UBA, where he also edits the journal Anales del IAA. His work explores Islamic architecture and its connections with the Ibero-American world, most recently in A History of the Arab Component in Iberoamerican Architecture (Brill, 2026), along with numerous publications in English and Spanish. He is a member of several international networks, including the Society of Architectural Historians, the Global Architectural History Teaching Collaborative, and Our North is the South, which he co-founded.
Ana María León’s work traces how spatial practices and transnational networks of power and resistance shape the modernity and coloniality of the Americas. Her research and teaching foregrounds the agency of populations under struggle and the multiple forms of bias embedded in the built environment and its histories. León is invested in collaborative approaches to learning, teaching, and writing. Attention to multiple critical positions, particularly those of historically underrepresented groups, she argues, grounds our understanding of history in the politics of coliberation.
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