New towns

New towns

during the Spanish Enlightenment

The "New Towns" are one of the most remarkable experiences of Spanish urban planning. These newly founded cities were carried out in line with policies undertaken by enlightened rulers.

Based on a ample graphic and written documentation, the experience is reconstructed, framing it in the historical context in which it occurred and relating it to similar examples from other countries.

The analysis of the proposals of theoreticians and technicians (architects, military engineers and surveyors) reveals the different ways to plan a city ex novo, without the conditions or defects of the existing ones. The definition of urban form appears polarized in the case of the "New Towns", between the colonial checkerboard, backed by extensive experience and its critics, who support the emerging possibilities of the picturesque.

Regarding the overall use of land, special attention is drawn to the incipient debate on urban development systems, resulting from the initial negative effects of urban crowding. Thus, anti-urban ideology, physiocratic rural prefereneces and social utopianism are also found in the "New Towns".

A true alternative essay on territorial planning, a valuable example of rural-urban balance, supported by the size of populations and an extensive system of cities, villages and house plots.