The Mexican hacienda was a work place, a residence, a place of leisure and of religion—in short, a closed and self-sufficient rural world in which landowners and workers engaged in agricultural and livestock production. Constructed and modified from the sixteenth until the beginning of the twentieth centuries, they are today some of Mexico's architectural treasures. The hacienda's layout and buildings, though derived from earlier Spanish forms, constitute a uniquely Mexican vernacular architecture that deserves to be widely known and celebrated.

The Hacienda in Mexico is the first detailed architectural study of these rural communities. In this beautifully illustrated book, Daniel Nierman and Ernesto Vallejo present color and black-and-white photographs, site plans, building plans, and elevations to document all aspects of the hacienda—the compound, big house, chapel, spaces for production, materials and construction methods, and architectural details. In the accompanying text, they discuss each of these elements, as well as the hacienda's historical development and the ways in which its productive activities shaped its architecture.

To produce this work, the authors traveled extensively in the states of Hidalgo, Tlaxcala, and San Luis Potosí, photographing and drawing haciendas, interviewing their owners and state and federal authorities, and researching in hacienda archives. This in-depth treatment of the hacienda clearly identifies the architectural elements that make it unique, while adding a new chapter to architectural history and to the history of New Spain.

Translated by: Mardith Schuetz-Miller
Introduction by: Elena Poniatowska