Society of Architectural Historians 2026 Annual International Conference.
Session: Cultural Entanglements: European and Ibero-American Baroque Architecture.
Berthold Hub.

Ibero-American historiography tends to explain Spanish Baroque architecture as the outcome of purely internal Iberian developments. The rich surface decoration, which covers façades and retablos in particular, but sometimes also entire rooms, are explained by the Islamic and Morisco or Mudejar ornamentation and its continuation in the so-called Plateresque style of the sixteenth century, in short: by “invariantes castizos,” according to Fernando Chueca Goitia.

Numerous motifs, however, appear to originate from the so-called “column books” of northern Alpine carpenter architects such as Wendel Dietterlin and Vredeman de Vries. Although John Moffitt rightly attributed the Spanish form of the Estípide to Dietterlin as early as 1984, the investigation of the paths of the German treatise to Spain and in Spain and the reasons for and contexts of its reception have not yet been examined in detail. Moreover, the influences of northern alpine Mannerism on the Spanish Baroque go much further and were by no means limited to Dietterlin or the “column books,” but also took place via other media and the exchange of artists, architects and patrons. And how did European mannerist and baroque forms and concepts reach Latin America?

By examining treatises, drawings and architects and their routes within Europe to Spain or between Spain and Latin America, this panel aims to contribute to a better understanding of artistic connections between geographically separated cultural areas in particular and to phenomena of cultural entanglement in general, in which culture is not transferred top down, but is only received on the basis of a certain disposition and transformed during the process. Both case studies and investigations of more general developments as well as methodological or historiographical contributions are welcome.

For questions please contact: Berthold Hub, berthold.hubbht-berlin.de

Please submit your abstract of max. 300 words and a two-page CV before June 5 via:
https://www.sah.org/2026/call-for-papers-mexico-city