La ciudad hispanoamericana, medieval, renacentista y americana

Abstract

The urban project is related to the correspondent culture of each epoch and the stylistic categories of that culture. In this article, we shall examine different aspects of sixteenth century Spanish American urban projects as a social Spanish-American phenomenon of the new world in the transition from de Middle Ages to Renaissance and the clash with the American. Before 1530, Caribbean and Tierra Firme Spanish foundations, which put into practice a Medieval urbanism, were made with fairly regular "traza" or city plan but did not conform a grid pattern or a central space grouping all the major buildings. We assume that, around 1530, new cities were laid out in checkerboard arrangement; the urban structure and the functional organization are of renaissance character. The main qualities of this urban design are regularity, geometry, modulation, simplicity and centrality, the same renaissance qualities we see in the architectural public design at the times of Charles V. But we can also observe medieval forms in the townscape of the new cities and an astonishing scale of the blocks and the "plaza"(major square), that suggest an American origin.