1. The Urban Century: Theory and Practice
Urban Foundation Course
Fall 2010 / Class 10, November 8
Modes of Intervention 1
Urban Plans and Theories
Part I

2. I. Some basic questions about Urban Plans
…what? why? who? how? when?…
II. Reading one city:
Barcelona
analyzing growth, and impacts of urban planning
reflecting through BCN ab/ some of the dense texture of urban
planning: the city in the garden, the city of monuments, the
city of towers, the city of sweet equity, the city on the Highway,
and the post metropolis transformations (P. Hall + E. Soja)
Outline

3. I. Basic questions
What do we need to know about urban plans and theories?
… depends on what purposes…
What is an urban plan?
“an orderly scheme of action
to achieve accepted objectives
in the light of known constraints” (Peter Hall p.240)
… …

4. 20th C: Urban Plan
Urban Project
Strategic Urban Planning
The concept of “Urban Plan”
has been historically constructed
Post Modern Mov, 1960s - New approach that gives shapes to a fragment of the
city, without taking into account the totality of the city.
.
Late 19th. C & beg 20th. C Defines the shapes of the city as a unity or totality.
Implies complex interactions between public
decisions and private and free choices.
Late 1980s- The Urban Project is one dimension of strategic planning.
The technocratic-centralized management is replaced by
modalities of management agreed upon among multiple urban agents
that participate in the production of the city
Novick Alicia. “Planes versus proyectos: algunos problemas constitutivos del urbanismo moderno. Buenos Aires,
1910-1936 ”

5. conceptual framework & assumptions?
actions (goal/ nature/opportunity/…)?
elements or categories (transport system,
zoning, land use…)
structure of relations?
the formalization of space and shapes?
The authors or creators of the urban plans?
or the conditions of creation?
D. Burnham, Chicago Plan 1909
Daniel Burnham, 1893
Urban Plans: What should we look at?

6. The conditions of implementation?
…context, triggering problems, expected results?
? role of Urban Plans creators or designers
? role of the state & municipal government, institutions
? role of the people, community organizations
Urban Plans: villains or saints?
Impact of urban planning on the growth / building of the cities?
El Raval, BCN Diagonal Mar BCN

7. Urban Plans >
are included in general urban policies:
* imply a conceptual framework
(knowledge, values, goals)
* an organized society of some sort
(coordination, decision making chain..)
* a legal framework or a contexts for acceptance
But, Urban Plans are distinct from other urban policies
(economic, social, political, etc)
because they have at the foreground:
Material Spaces and Shapes
(structures of fixed and mobile physical elements)

8. Urban Plans >
are based on the assumption
that Space and Shapes
can determine (+ / - )
fundamental aspects of societies’ life:
health, livable housing, jobs, mobility,
education, creative leisure, …
Following Peter Hall’s definition,
this “orderly scheme of actions” involves many layers
of social, political, cultural actions,
but must involve decisions
about spaces and shapes of the city
and its evolution or change through time
Hugh Ferriss, Metropolis of Tomorrow

9. the knowledge needed
is not only about how to understand urban life,
or only to read in an innovative way
everyday life,
but deep knowledge about the relation of space and society
oriented to act on both sides:
on society,
and on space
Then, it also needs specific knowledge about designing and building
physical space and shapes:
knowledge about the
URBS

10. In Roman tradition:
Latin: Civis (citizen) comes from Civitas (city)
Civitas > people living together, collectivity of citizens (classic & medieval use)
Urbs > material part of the grouping of buildings (modern use)
urbe (Spanish)
urban
urbanization
suburbs
Modern Urbanism or Urban Planning: 19th Century. Urbanization, URBS ?
Palmanova, Italy,16thc CPiero de la Francesca, Ideal City, 15C Ducal Palace, Urbino

11. II. Looking at a City as URBS
Reading Barcelona

12. Barcelona
Head of one of the Spain Autonomous Regions: Catalunya
Population, 2008: c.1,600,000 city / c.5m metropolitan area
Limited space to grow: a City between Mountains and Sea
Different densities> high density in the city “ensanche” around Sagrada Familia 500/ha
A long history of + 2,000 years
invasions, cultural hybrids, commercial development,
power and decay,
expansion, building and planning (with success..)
Today, Barcelona has an international recognition:
First in the ranking of streets & urban public spaces !

13. Barcelona, the challenge of success

14. Expanding economy and tourism since the Olympics in 1992
» Outpacing Spain in all economic indicators
Ramblas
Ciudad Gotica

15. Ciudad Gotica
Plaza Real

18. Expansion through history : from BC to 21th Century

19. Iberian Barkeno Roman Barcino 1st C BC
Roman “Planning”? > religious rituals/ control / defense
"cardo maximus" + "decumanus"
intersection: Forum
walls /4 gates/ 74 towers

20. Medieval Barcelona : Urban Growth 11th,12th, and 13th C.:
1200 1280
1000 1100
Muslim invasion 8th C , Francs 9th
Mediterranean commerce up to 16th C
spontaneous..?
institutions?

21. 1519 (Austrias / Carlos V)
Building of another
big public work:
La Muralla del Mar
14th C. bldg. Second Wall 15th C. Third Wall
Consejo
del Ciento

22. “Ramblas” (from ramla, arenal –sand-- in arab)
Road, creek running along the 2nd wall, with convents built along the creek
Once demolished, and built the 3rd wall, the “Arrabal” was included into the city.
Today, barrio: El Raval
Ramblas: started to be fully urbanized at early 18th C

23. 1854 > a sudden opening of rural land
19th C: A Century of Development and Urban Change
invasions, internal wars, kingdom – republic - kingdom again,
meantime Barcelona growths and expands
developing industry and commerce (Mediterranesn Sea)
population 250,000
1854 demolition of the walls
1860 “Ensanche” approved
Planner : Idelfonso Cerda

24. The opportunity:
* Sudden opening of the surroundings
* Health, housing and social problems in a crowded industrial city
* Institutions: strong state / municipality
* Availability of a proposal developed through time (Cerda’s)
but it was not the only one
(formal, artistic, monumental proposals, Mila, renaixance,
romanticism, starting of the Catalan regionalism )
Idelfonso Cerda 1860 plan approved by the State, not the Municipality

25. Cerda > (1815 – 1876) Engineer trained in Madrid
studying “scientifically” the city since 1844
published “General Theory of Urbanization” (1867)
… a “scientific” treatise … an enlightened approach

26. Cerda attempted to integrate opposites :
basically > the individual freedom and the rules of planning
Intended to strike a balance between multiple pairs
of opposed and complementary notions
as: “* law and economics,
* duties and rights,
* liberty and authority,
* advantage and disadvantage,
* income and expenditure”
And, specifically to the “new discipline” of urbanism
“* solitude and sociability,
* quietude and mobility,
* town and country”

27. From analysis of practical details to a general theory (an overview):
“to create something that in the practical realm of application
could prove useful to humanity…
to resolve an eminent social problem: urbanization”
…an algebraic altruist…
by establishing:
“a body of principles, doctrine and rules to be applied so that,
rather than narrowing, degrading and corrupting social man’s
physical, moral and intellectual faculties,
buildings and grouping of buildings would serve
to stimulate his development and energies and increase
individual well-being,
the sum of which created public happiness”. (1867)

28. Reviewing housing problems, traffic, technical, but also
the economic feasibility, “something can not be technically good
if it is economically bad”(1862)
municipal regulations,
politics, social impact:
e.g. published “Statistical Monograph of the Working
Classes of Barcelona in 1856”
analyzing
* health levels,
* promiscuity,
* lack of services,
* traffic pile-ups,
* miserable nature
of mean public spaces,
* risks of epidemics.

29. Plan Cerda 1859
Five Bases of the General Theory of Urbanization:
1. Technical Base, ways, interways, street-blocks, grouping
2. Legal Base, rights and duties of property owners and administration
3. Economic Base, established mechanisms for funding urbanization works
and for cost and benefit sharing
4. Administrative Base, building ordinances, general principles
5. Political Base, to harmonize desirable with possible,
requires multiple “transactions”

30. The street as “a connective entity of ways, and buildings”
and as forecourt to the house
Streets as elements of a single network of ways,
“the great universal viality” / movements in all scales
The first law of viability: “continuity of movement”

31. Cerda’s different ways of circulation
modern urban ideal
universal access to networked infrastructures
acces to public spaces
democracy
unbundled by end of 20th C. See Splintering Urbanism (Graham and Marvin)

32. a radio concentric plan, was not approved

33. Analyzing and grouping streets & buildings
viality & housing
public & private space

34. Chamfers (20 meters): shape of nodes to ease movement “viality”
but also a corner meeting point

35. Today
creating options for many combinations

36. inside the block
private/public
over & under
circulation & drains

37. Connection
of the old & the new

38. Flexibility / Adaptation

39. Previous uses of The Grid
Hipodamo de Mileto
French Bastides
Ideal Cities
Chicago
New York
Latin America
Buenos Aires
Mexico
Lima…
…meaning of the grid?

40. C. 1850s Barceloneta
a military design
of 1753

42. Barceloneta …no corners

43. Corners in Cerda’s “Ensanche” (enlargement)

46. Plan of La Pedrera, Gaudi
Cerda’s Corners

48. 1900: BCN population 544,000
Noucentismo
Modernismo
Local Identity
Gaudi
Domenech i Montaner