Architecture at the Edges of Empire: Castilian Architectural Theory, Stylistic Censorship, and Narrative Constructions of the “Spanish-Islamic” in Andalusia & the Iberian Indo-Pacific, 16th—18th cen.

Amy Y.T. Chang, M.A.

Although Andalusia and island Southeast Asia may seem to be far-flung geographies today, before the Spanish conquest, the ever-shifting collectivity of islands that the Spanish Crown sought to claim under the name “Islas Filipinas” were largely Islamic. Thus, in the early modern Spanish Empire, Andalusia and the Islamic frontier holdings in the Iberian Indo-Pacific were considered together to be dual theaters of a single anti-Muslim frontier, and to be territories across which imaginaries and legal precedents could be shared. They were written about, imagined, and legislated with a mutual formerly Islamic identity in mind up until the loss of the last Spanish imperial overseas territories in the Spanish-American War. By locating the Philippines’ indigenous and Islamic cannons and traditions within the rich network of shared textual, artistic, and architectural vocabularies of island Southeast Asia and the broader Indian Ocean Islamic world, this project brings new sources to bear on the study of the vanished indigenous and colonial architectures of Iberian Asia, and reorients our understanding of the Spanish Empire and the “Spanish-Islamic” through the unique conditions of its Indo-Pacific frontier. In doing so, it aims to increase our understanding of the construction and reception of the ‘Spanish Islamic’ in Andalusia and the Iberian Indo-Pacific; the migration and transformation of Spanish and Italian Baroque architectures in Asia; and the influence of Indo-Pacific architectures and environments on Spanish imperial architectural thought, environmental engineering, and territorialization of the sea.