Natural geography and disperse urban development: residential developments on mount montjuÏc in Barcelona in the Nineteenth century

Abstract

With regard to the nineteenth century, planned extension projects have been widely studied whereas semi-planned urban development plans have been researched rather more vaguely. The number of instances, situations and solutions of this latter type of disperse urban development, and its notable impact on current times, is the reason behind this research into twelve semi-planned residential developments on Mount Montjuïc in Barcelona between 1864 and 1868. They are examples of suburban settlements that represented a new way of hybrid living between the city and the countryside and, therefore, an attempt to come halfway between regular, repetitive urban planning and the natural, irregular, free reality forced by the underlying topography. This research article provides material for reflection on the history of urban planning linked to the natural environment, and above all on the contemporary origin of a new relationship between predictable (reversible) urban planning and the unpredictable (irreversible) natural geography in the definition of the suburban landscape