Miraflores: San Antonio's Mexican Garden of Memory

by Anne Elise Urrutia, Tomás Ybarra-Frausto (Foreword)

Aureliano Urrutia, a prominent physician in Mexico City, built Miraflores garden after immigrating to Texas during the Mexican Revolution. A man of science, he valued nature, art, literature, history, and community. The garden, whose name roughly translates to “behold the flowers,” was built primarily from 1921 to 1945. Its plants, architecture, sculpture, and artisanship formed a cultural landscape reflecting Urrutia’s love for and memory of his homeland. Though recent decades have rendered much of the garden decayed and barely recognizable, it is now part of San Antonio’s historic Brackenridge Park. San Antonio’s Mexican Garden of Memory recounts the garden’s history and celebrates the importance of the cultural, historical, and artistic meaning of a place.

144 pages, Paperback

Published June 28, 2022

Reviews

[Chris Sotelo · Rating 4 out of 5]

If it wasn’t for Dionicio Rodriguez’s work, I never would have stumbled on this book. I’m glad I did, Miraflores is perhaps the single most important labor of love in San Antonio, a city rich in Mexican culture.

[Stephanie Long · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a graduate student at Texas State, and I'm reading this as background research for my thesis. This is exactly the perspective, design detail, and historical information I was looking for!