Spanish Urban Planning: A Historical Overview
Types of City Plans in Spain
Spanish cities exhibit diverse urban plans, often combining open spaces with built-up areas. While some cities maintain a single plan type, larger and older cities typically feature a mix. Common plan types include irregular, orthogonal, and radiocentric (circular).
Irregular Plans
The oldest plan type, found in ancient and medieval cultures, is characterized by a lack of formal planning. Narrow, non-rectilinear streets result in poor circulation, limited ventilation, and minimal sunlight, leading to hygiene issues. However, this design fosters a sense of community and adapts well to warmer climates by providing shade. In modern cities, irregular plans are mainly found in unplanned slums and suburbs, though variations like Open Planning promote non-rectilinear roads to manage traffic flow, with the Garden City as a notable example.
Orthogonal Plans
Originating in the reconstruction of Miletus and widely used in Roman cities and medieval settlements, orthogonal plans feature a grid-like structure with intersecting streets. This design simplifies planning, facilitates land division, and reduces infrastructure costs. However, it’s best suited for flat terrain and can create long distances and monotonous streetscapes. Subtypes include herringbone, strassendorf (street village), and the Ciudad Lineal.
Radiocentric Plans
Common in medieval times, radiocentric plans center around a focal point, often a castle or church, reflecting the defensive needs of earlier settlements. While less prevalent in modern times, they are still used in new neighborhoods and housing developments. This plan offers a clear hierarchy and easy access to the center, adapting well to sloped terrain. However, it can overemphasize the center and require complex design. Variants include star-shaped, hexagonal, polynuclear, and concentric circle plans.
Urban Planning and Urban Theories
Rapid urban growth during industrialization led to new urban planning theories. In Spain, the Ciudad Lineal and Garden City were particularly influential.
Ciudad Lineal
Designed by Arturo Soria y Mata in 1882, the Ciudad Lineal aimed to combine nature and efficient transportation. A main road was designed to accommodate around 30,000 people, but financial issues and speculation limited its implementation to a five-kilometer stretch, now integrated into Madrid’s urban area.
Garden City
Following similar principles to the Ciudad Lineal, the Garden City sought to combine urban and rural living. Low-density urbanization with single-family homes proved successful, leading to numerous garden city neighborhoods in major Spanish cities during the first half of the 20th century.
Orthogonal City
Ildefonso Cerdá’s Barcelona expansion plan exemplifies the orthogonal city. The grid-based design with two axes leading to the port, a third parallel to the coast, and a central avenue was intended to accommodate 900 residential and institutional blocks. However, speculation and deviations from the plan hindered its full realization.
Other Urban Theories
Other theories, such as the functional city (Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier), the community city, and Open Planning, saw limited implementation in Spain, with some examples in major cities and peripheral residential areas.
Urban Structure and Functions
Modern cities are defined by various urban functions and land uses, primarily residential, industrial, business, rural-urban, and business districts.
Residential Areas
Occupying most of the urban fabric, residential areas are dynamic and influenced by factors like time, property values, housing saturation, pollution, services, and area attractiveness.
Industrial Areas
: the industry has been attracted by the city as it is a market for their products, abundant labor, good transportation systems, complementary companies, research opportunities, abundance of services, etc. It tends to move outside the city, where land is cheaper and where the problems generated are lower. + The business areas: they tend to be scattered across the city, but are particularly concentrated in the so-called CBD. Small stores are located in the historic centers. The great track history or hypermarkets are located in areas of the periphery one hundred communicated so that they can go with comfort that a great number of people. Rurubanas areas: the city boundaries are not always accurate, as there are places that are mixed with urban and rural areas. This is increasingly common, individual houses are appearing in residential areas where contact with raw nature and the search for greater peace of mind. Thus, it is slowing the growth of U.S. cities for areas of influence. + The business areas: in the more industrialized there is often a great economic activity cheese is typically placed in a specific area than in the Anglo-Saxon countries are called CBD (Central Business District) The CBD is characterized by a number of features: easy accessibility ; high concentration of traffic, lack of enough parking spaces, concentration of tall buildings, and results in a rent or high prices of the buildings. “The functions of the ciudades.Hay cities that have specialized in a particular function, or at least largely dependent on a single function. In Spain there are sometimes very significant: + F.turistica: Benidorm (Alicante), Torremolinos (Malaga). + F.religiosa: Santiago de Compostela (A Coruña), the village of Rocio in Almonte (Huelva). + F.politica and administrative: Madrid, Merida (Badajoz). + F.militar: El Ferrol (A Coruña), Rota (Cadiz). + F.industrial: Aviles (Asturias), Vigo (Pontevedra). + F.cultural and university. Salamanca, Granada. + F.comercial or transport of goods and passengers: Algeciras (Cadiz), Palma de Mallorca.