Jesús Escobar

Jesús Escobar is Associate Professor of Art History at Northwestern University. He began his studies at Columbia University and received his Ph.D. from Princeton University. He teaches courses and publishes scholarship on the art, architecture, and urbanism of the early modern Spanish Habsburg world. His first book, The Plaza Mayor and the Shaping of Baroque Madrid, won the Eleanor Tufts Award from the American Society for Hispanic Art Historical Studies and was published in a Spanish-language edition in 2008 by Editorial Nerea. He is currently completing a book project examining the relation between architecture and government tentatively titled, “Baroque Madrid: Architecture, Space, and the Spanish Habsburgs.” His publications touch on Spanish cities such as Madrid, Santiago de Compostela, and Seville, as well other imperial centers such as Lima, Mexico City, Palermo, and Antwerp. The recent article “Architecture in the Age of the Spanish Habsburgs” [Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 75/3 (2016)], sets the stage for a long-term project underway that surveys the architecture and urbanism of the early modern Spanish world from a transnational perspective. Escobar has served on the Board of the Directors of the Society of Architectural Historians and is Editor for the scholarly book series, Buildings, Landscapes, and Societies, published by Penn State University Press.