Old Mexico: An Architectural Pilgrimage

By Alfred C. Bossom

London-born architect Bossom's detailed sketches and commentary, and his wife's fine photographs, were published in 1924 in this handsome book — which also includes 18th-century missions in California and San Antonio. Tiled facades, quiet courtyards, and other architectural elements are graphically preserved in this valuable record of classic Latin American architecture. 110 illustrations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Release date: Oct 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9780486147505

Book preview

Plate I

STREET SCENE, ZACATECAS

Old Mexico

An Architectural Pilgrimage

Alfred C. Bossom

Bibliographical Note

This Dover edition, first published in 2004, is an unabridged republication of the work originally published as An Architectural Pilgrimage in Old Mexico by Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, in 1924.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bossom, Alfred C., 1881–1965.

[Architectural pilgrimage in old Mexico]

Old Mexico : an architectural pilgrimage / Alfred C. Bossom.

p. cm.

Published in New York in 1924 under title: An architectural pilgrimage in old Mexico.

9780486147505

1. Architecture—Mexico. I. Title.

NA750.B6 2004

720’.972—dc22

2004055141

Manufactured in the United States of America

Dover Publications, Inc., 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, N.Y. 11501

Table of Contents

Plate I

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

FOREWORD

PLATES

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED

TO MY WIFE

WHO ACCOMPANIED ME ON MY TRAVELS

IN MEXICO

AND HELD THE CAMERA IN

MANY INSTANCES

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My reason for writing this is the desire to particularly thank Miss Jacqueline Overton for her most painstaking co-operation in the arrangement of the photographs, etc., in this book.

And also, to thank Mr. Harold A. Parker and Mr. H. A. Taylor, and Mr. C. B. Waite of Mexico City, who enabled me to get a number of the photographs.

FOREWORD

ALL that an age signifies is written on the open book of its architecture. The architect is, at best, the conscious recorder of the culture of a race; the thrall of his times. Chief builder he may be, but even though he direct a thousand pairs of skillful hands, he is but the interpreter of the progress and aspirations of his fellowmen. A nation without buildings can leave no vivid transcript of the ideals and temperament of its people.

If one would know the genius of the New World which Columbus gave to Castile and Leon, one must seek those architectural fabrics most typical of the spirit of all the Americas.