Volume 40, Number 16 · October 7, 1993
The Master Builder
By Jonathan Brown
Juan de Herrera: Architect to Philip II of Spain
by Catherine Wilkinson Zerner
Yale University Press, 216 pp., $50.00
To the English-speaking world, Spain is a country with architecture but no architects. Everyone, of course, knows of Antoní Gaudí, although his claim to Spanish nationality would be hotly contested by Catalans, who interpret his works as embodying their historical identity. Otherwise, the buildings constructed in Spain roughly between 1500 and 1900 apparently just came into being through some mysterious combination of men and materials. Architecture without architects is 'vernacular' architecture, which may be admirable in a folksy sort of way, but offers no competition to architecture by high artists. Thus four centuries of Spanish architectural history are usually neglected.
Review, 3509 words
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