View of the Plaza Mayor of Mexico City, Cristóbal de Villalpando (c. 1695)
EMPIRE LINES23 Sep 2021

View of the Plaza Mayor of Mexico City, Cristóbal de Villalpando (c. 1695)

Dr. Juan Luis Burke reorders urban spaces in colonial Mesoamerica, through Cristóbal de Villalpando's 1695 painting, View of the Plaza Mayor of Mexico City.

The Plaza Mayor sits at the historical heart of the sprawling megalopolis of Mexico City. Previously the ancient Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán, it became the Mesoamerican capital of the Spanish Empire in the 16th century. With his expansive, bird’s eye view, Cristóbal de Villalpando depicts everyday encounters between classes and clashes against the colonial urban order for the viceroyalty's eye. Now housed in England, this colonial commission shows the Plaza as a marketplace of imperial ideas, revealing co-option and cooperation between indigenous Mexicans, Asian merchants, and European and Spanish colonisers. Five hundred years after the fall of the ancient Aztec imperial capital, Tenochtitlán, the Plaza Mayor in Mexico City remains a site of protest today.

PRESENTER: Dr. Juan Luis Burke, Assistant Professor of Architectural and Urban History at the University of Maryland.

ART: View of the Plaza Mayor of Mexico City, Cristóbal de Villalpando, (c.1695).

IMAGE: ‘View of the Plaza Mayor of Mexico City'.

SOUNDS: Victrola.

PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic.


Follow EMPIRE LINES at: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936

Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines

Episoder(166)

Every Monument Will Fall, Dan Hicks (2025) (EMPIRE LINES Live at Common Ground, Oxford)

Every Monument Will Fall, Dan Hicks (2025) (EMPIRE LINES Live at Common Ground, Oxford)

In this special episode, author, curator, and archaeologist Dan Hicks joins EMPIRE LINES live, to trace the origins of contemporary conflicts over art, history, memory, and colonialism, through their ...

18 Des 20251h 14min

Introducing: Wormcasts, from the Chelsea Physic Garden

Introducing: Wormcasts, from the Chelsea Physic Garden

Wormcasts is a podcast from Chelsea Physic Garden, created by the Young Producers – a group of 16 – 24 year olds working to engage more young people with the garden.  This series explores the global h...

8 Des 20252min

Colorless Green Freedoms Sleep Furiously, Miloš Trakilović (2023), with Jelena Visković (EMPIRE LINES Live at Forma, Artists' Film International 2025)

Colorless Green Freedoms Sleep Furiously, Miloš Trakilović (2023), with Jelena Visković (EMPIRE LINES Live at Forma, Artists' Film International 2025)

In this special episode, contemporary artists and filmmakers Miloš Trakilović and Jelena Visković join EMPIRE LINES live, exloring narratives of war, displacement, and visual cultures in the collapse ...

20 Nov 202544min

Voiceless Mass, Raven Chacon and Scottish Ensemble (2025) (EMPIRE LINES x Fruitmarket, Edinburgh Art Festival 2025)

Voiceless Mass, Raven Chacon and Scottish Ensemble (2025) (EMPIRE LINES x Fruitmarket, Edinburgh Art Festival 2025)

Composer and artist Raven Chacon amplifies the Catholic Church’s complicity in the suppression of Indigenous people in the Americas, through their composition for organ, Voiceless Mass (2021).Raven Ch...

6 Nov 202518min

The Trembling Museum, Manthia Diawara and Terri Geis (2023-2024) (EMPIRE LINES Live at PEACE FREQUENCIES, The Hunterian)

The Trembling Museum, Manthia Diawara and Terri Geis (2023-2024) (EMPIRE LINES Live at PEACE FREQUENCIES, The Hunterian)

In this special episode, filmmaker, cultural theorist, and curator Manthia Diawara joins EMPIRE LINES live, to discuss Édouard Glissant’s relations with natural environmental disasters, connecting the...

23 Okt 202519min

Burial, Emilija Škarnulytė (2022) (EMPIRE LINES x Folkestone Triennial 2025, Tate St Ives)

Burial, Emilija Škarnulytė (2022) (EMPIRE LINES x Folkestone Triennial 2025, Tate St Ives)

Contemporary artist Emilija Škarnulytė snakes from the decaying control rooms of the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant in Lithuania, to Dungeness on the English Channel, exploring time and geology through ...

2 Okt 202516min

If They Survive, They are Refugees, Duong Thuy Nguyen (2024) (EMPIRE LINES Live at SLQS Gallery)

If They Survive, They are Refugees, Duong Thuy Nguyen (2024) (EMPIRE LINES Live at SLQS Gallery)

In this special episode, contemporary artists Hoa Dung Clerget and Duong Thuy Nguyen, and gallerist Sarah Le Quang Sang, join EMPIRE LINES live, exploring the legacies of French and British colonialis...

18 Sep 202543min

Introducing: BUZZWORDS: Care with Jasmina Cibic

Introducing: BUZZWORDS: Care with Jasmina Cibic

BUZZWORDS is a new pilot podcast from Open City, produced in collaboration with the arts and culture podcast EMPIRE LINES. The podcast unpacks words and phrases often overused in the fields of art and...

4 Sep 202529min

Populært innen Samfunn

rss-spartsklubben
giver-og-gjengen-vg
aftenpodden
aftenpodden-usa
konspirasjonspodden
intervjuet
rss-nesten-hele-uka-med-lepperod
popradet
rss-henlagt-andy-larsgaard
lydartikler-fra-aftenposten
grenselos
wolfgang-wee-uncut
min-barneoppdragelse
synnve-og-vanessa
rss-dette-ma-aldri-skje-igjen
rss-espen-lee-usensurert
frokostshowet-pa-p5
fladseth
krisemoter
relasjonspodden-med-dora-thorhallsdottir-kjersti-idem