Acknowledgments
اللَّهَ يَشْكُرُ لَا النَّاسَ يَشْكُرُ لَا مَنْ
Whoever does not show gratitude to people does not show gratitude to God
hadith Sunan Abū ʾDāwūd (4811)
∵
This book is the outcome of nearly forty years of work,1 and therefore, there are many people to whom I am deeply indebted.
First and foremost, I wish to thank my wife, Vicky, who was also my first English teacher and the mother of our four children, Rocío, Mercedes, Francisco, and Juan, for forty years of companionship and support.
Among my academic colleagues, I wish to begin with Hamurabi Noufouri, who first introduced me to this field when I was a student in 1986, and with whom I have sustained a relationship of friendship and collaboration for decades. I am also grateful to my tocayo,2 Fernando Luiz Lara, who encouraged me to write this book and generously contributed a warm and insightful foreword.
I have also had the honor and good fortune of learning from major scholars such as Ramón Gutiérrez and Rafael López Guzmán, the leading authorities in the study of Ibero-American architecture and Mudéjar architecture, respectively.
I would also like to extend my gratitude to the members of the GAHTC (Global Architectural History Teaching Collaborative), an initiative led by Mark Jarzombek and Vikram Prakash, who welcomed my work with great interest and offered a stimulating space for dialogue and scholarly exchange with colleagues from around the world. My special thanks go as well to the friends of the group Nuestro Norte es el Sur,3 with whom I share a vocation for the study of Architectural History in the Americas.
At the institutional level, I owe much to the University of Buenos Aires, which for forty years has provided me with an exceptional environment for intellectual and professional growth. There, I have had the privilege of engaging with thousands of students and colleagues, from whom I learned far more than I could ever have taught.
Finally, I extend my gratitude to the editors of this series, who from the outset expressed their interest in this work and, together with the publishing house, made its publication possible. Above all, I am grateful to the readers, who I hope will find in these pages an incentive to continue advancing in the knowledge of this subject.
Buenos Aires, September 2025
Accordingly, while the themes and ideas addressed here have, in part, been explored in previous lectures, courses, and publications, their present articulation has been conceived and arranged as an integrated whole specifically for this volume.
Among Ibero-Americans, the term tocayo refers to two people who share the same given name and are therefore assumed to possess a kind of kinship. If ever there were an appropriate example of the term, it would be our case, for we share not only both names (Fernando and Luis-z), but also the profession, the generation, and a common perspective on architecture and history.
A group we founded with Ana María León in 2018, which has remained active and has continued to grow ever since.