ARQ Docs Graciela Silvestri
Graciela Silvestri; Alejandra Bosch, Francisco Quintana, Stephannie Fell (eds.)
Softcover
12 x 17 cm | 140 pp.
English / Spanish
ISBN: 978-956-6204-35-0
March 2026
The 36th book in the ARQ docs series brings together two essays by architect and historian Graciela Silvestri. In them, the author focuses on cultural operations that reconfigured the Latin American architectural imagination, shifting attention from the analysis of built works towards the formation of modern ways of seeing.
Contents
Prologue — Alejandra Bosch
Side A — The Art of the Tourist: Le Corbusier on the Banks of the Paraná
Le Corbusier's journey to South America is usually recounted as an anecdote in the architect's biography. The first essay proposes a different reading: drawing on letters, sketches, and lectures, Silvestri reconstructs how physical displacement becomes a device for territorial reading for Le Corbusier, positioning this journey as a decisive moment in the architect's formation of a modern sensibility to the territory.
Side B — How We Imagine the City of the Future. Architecture, Film, and Comics in the World of Fantascience
The second essay explores the urban imaginaries produced by fantascience in cinema and comics, asking how they shaped twentieth-century architectural culture. From El Eternauta to Blade Runner, Silvestri situates image-making alongside disciplinary debates, proposing that the modern Latin American city was built not only through plans, but also through fictions that anticipated—and put pressure on—its possible forms.
Graciela Silvestri is an architect and holds a doctorate in History from the Universidad de Buenos Aires. Her professional career unfolded between independent research—as a member of Argentina's Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) until her retirement in 2019—and teaching. She is recognised for her work on the history of landscape and its relationship to the formation of cultural and political territorial identity. She is currently Emeritus Professor at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata—where she held a full professorship until her retirement in 2023—and a visiting professor at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. She is the author of an extensive body of work, including El color del río. Historia cultural del paisaje del Riachuelo (Editorial de la Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, 2004); El lugar común. Una historia de las figuras de paisaje en el Rio de la Plata (Edhasa, 2011); and Las tierras desubicadas. Paisajes y culturas en la Sudamérica fluvial (Editorial Universitaria de Entre Rios, 2021).
See more →
Prologue — Alejandra Bosch
Side A — The Art of the Tourist: Le Corbusier on the Banks of the Paraná
Le Corbusier's journey to South America is usually recounted as an anecdote in the architect's biography. The first essay proposes a different reading: drawing on letters, sketches, and lectures, Silvestri reconstructs how physical displacement becomes a device for territorial reading for Le Corbusier, positioning this journey as a decisive moment in the architect's formation of a modern sensibility to the territory.
Side B — How We Imagine the City of the Future. Architecture, Film, and Comics in the World of Fantascience
The second essay explores the urban imaginaries produced by fantascience in cinema and comics, asking how they shaped twentieth-century architectural culture. From El Eternauta to Blade Runner, Silvestri situates image-making alongside disciplinary debates, proposing that the modern Latin American city was built not only through plans, but also through fictions that anticipated—and put pressure on—its possible forms.
Graciela Silvestri is an architect and holds a doctorate in History from the Universidad de Buenos Aires. Her professional career unfolded between independent research—as a member of Argentina's Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) until her retirement in 2019—and teaching. She is recognised for her work on the history of landscape and its relationship to the formation of cultural and political territorial identity. She is currently Emeritus Professor at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata—where she held a full professorship until her retirement in 2023—and a visiting professor at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. She is the author of an extensive body of work, including El color del río. Historia cultural del paisaje del Riachuelo (Editorial de la Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, 2004); El lugar común. Una historia de las figuras de paisaje en el Rio de la Plata (Edhasa, 2011); and Las tierras desubicadas. Paisajes y culturas en la Sudamérica fluvial (Editorial Universitaria de Entre Rios, 2021).
Ediciones ARQ - tienda
El Comendador 1936, oficina 101, Escuela de Arquitectura UC, Providencia, Santiago de Chile
Horario: Lun-Jue 10:00 a 17:30, Vie 10:00 a 15:30 hrs (excepto festivos)
tienda online︎︎︎
+56 22 3545630 | editorial@edicionesarq.cl
El Comendador 1936, oficina 101, Escuela de Arquitectura UC, Providencia, Santiago de Chile
Horario: Lun-Jue 10:00 a 17:30, Vie 10:00 a 15:30 hrs (excepto festivos)
tienda online︎︎︎
+56 22 3545630 | editorial@edicionesarq.cl