Between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Latin America experienced a profound transformation from agrarian to urban societies. An initial period of development at the turn of the century saw many Latin American cities begin to take on their modern forms, and rapid mid-century industrialization sparked a second phase of intense growth. While many contemporary observers and scholars since have tended to view these periods of urban growth with great alarm, others have celebrated the possibilities of urban cosmopolitanism and deployed the rapid transformation of the city as a means to consolidate power, prestige, and capital.

This panel seeks to unpack the distinct cultures of planning within Andean capital cities from the 1880s to the 1990s. It focuses on how imaginaries and images help articulate allegorical signifiers and shape urban space at moments of great transitions both urban and political. The three papers together consider the role of political power, the mobility of capital and people, and the tools and technologies deployed to construct and capitalize on these allegorical imaginaries. Through analyzing these images and allegories on their own terms, the papers each disrupt narratives of the Andean capital city as either a cosmopolitan jewel or a retrograde and isolated hamlet. They also help to consider the ways in which planning efforts, transportation, street networks, and air quality were themselves discursively created. While similar histories of image-making may be found in many Latin American cities, the focus on Andean capitals will propel a consideration of the specificity of this region’s urban experience as opposed to the more widely studied cases of metropolises like Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro or Mexico City.

The panel purposely seeks to highlight new voices in the field that are reconsidering just what we mean by urban space, urban planning, and urban imaginaries in the Andean context. Daniela Samur (Cornell University) considers the role of capital mobility within the production and consumption of urban space in Bogotá beginning in the 1880s. She highlights how these processes of beautification necessitated both the circulation of capital largely garnered within rural and agricultural pursuits into easily accessed mobilities across the city with an eye toward engaging the wider world. Leopoldo Prieto Páez (Universidad Nacional de Colombia), telescopes upon the importance of centennial celebrations in Bogotá, Quito, and Lima in promoting a new urban spatiality. He particularly emphasizes the crucial role played by advertisements in shaping the imaginary of these transformations of urban space and the consolidation of political power within capital cities serving both as bureaucratic hubs and as symbols for the nation. Andra Chastain (Washington State University Vancouver) provides a history and representation of smog in Santiago from the 1960s to the 1990s, with a special focus on the ways in which the greying skies of Chile’s capital city came to allegorically represent the oppressive Pinochet regime. The panel will be chaired by Ernesto Capello (Macalester College) and Joshua Savala (Rollins College) will provide a commentary.