Modernity for the Masses

Ana María León is an architect and a historian of objects, buildings, and landscapes. An assistant professor at the University of Michigan, León has cofounded several collaborations laboring to broaden the reach of architectural history, including the Feminist Art and Architecture Collaborative, the Settler Colonial City Project, and Nuestro Norte es el Sur. She sits on the board of the Global Architectural History Teaching Collaborative, the Architecture Lobby, and Anales de Arquitectura, and is an editor-at-large at The Avery Review.

Robert Alexander González, University of New Mexico, author of Designing Pan-America: U.S. Architectural Visions for the Western Hemisphere:
"Modernity for the Masses poses two key modernist questions: how do you house 'the masses,' and how do you improve city life with built form? Ana María León explores answers through a study of Antonio Bonet’s largely unbuilt housing proposals in Buenos Aires—work that would otherwise be ignored by the canons of modern history—and along the way maps out the fertile intellectual entanglements that informed Bonet’s work as an architect, theorist, and urbanist. This is an important work that will appeal to anyone interested in Latin American architecture or modern architecture in general."

Eduardo Elena, University of Miami, author of Dignifying Argentina: Peronism, Citizenship, and Mass Consumption:
"Modernity for the Masses offers a fascinating exploration of what happened when avant-garde modernist architecture met the social and political realities of mid-twentieth-century Latin America. Focused on the transatlantic crossings of Antonio Bonet and his projects for Buenos Aires, this book is replete with insights on the era’s spatial politics. Written with great flair, León’s book shows how modernist architects yearned to transform the lives of social majorities, while demonstrating how popular movements and state power shaped their scope of action. It makes an intriguing case for why failed dreams can reveal as much as those that were realized."