The Historic Centre in Spanish Industrial and Post-Industrial Cities

Abstract

The congestion of the city area within the walls along the 19th century and the economic and social crisis of historic centres during most of the 20th century led to their deterioration. The theoretical conceptualization and practical implementation of domestic improvement and reform programmes have changed with time. With the beginning of the new century, urban dynamics in a globalized space are making historic places into real scenes for economic exploitation related to massive and residential tourism with a cultural brand design, as well as to property for well-to-do population. As a consequence, the social component took a secondary place in town planning theory. In this context, our essay is aimed at studying the response of town planning to the recovery of a historic city fully sharing the dynamics of a postmodernist and global metropolis. In the last few decades, the structure and morphology of the Spanish city have undergone dramatic changes. Spatial processes from the Anglo-Saxon world have an influence on the building of the contemporary Spanish city. In the global information society, film images of shopping malls, crowds in edge cities or theme parks are the best publicity for the building of these new urban landscapes (1), which are a reality in almost every city. The dense city developed until the 70's was followed by a dispersed city built with new elements from counterurbanization and suburbanization. The city organized around its heritage and the centrality of the pre-industrial city were followed by a new kind of city promoted by means of large heritage containers which -in too many ocasions- can even hide the importance and quality of the old town. In such a situation we wonder if a resident of Bilbao can feel more identified with the whole postmodern landscape built around the Guggenhaim Museum than with the Casco Viejo (historic core of the city) or the interesting 19th- century Ensanche de Poblacion (urban extension). Or if someone from Valencia boasts more about Santiago Calatrava's architecture (City of Arts and Sciences) than about the architecture in the Ciutat Vella (old town) and its extensive monumental heritage. It is not easy to answer these questions with certainty. In a way it could be so, but we must not forget that new architecture sectors are no more than leisure and shopping areas, mostly located in the outskirts - not in the case of Bilbao-, usually without a district structure and therefore places where no social relations exist. This is precisely a kind of relation easy to find in the dense and central city of the pre-industrial period (historic centre) and the first pre-industrialization (urban extension). In these conditions, the present historic city took on the principles of urban and intraurban competition in terms of tourism, leisure, business, population, cultural events, etc. The analysis of the 21st-century historic city is dealt with from a double point of view. Firstly, the analysis of the physical, social and landscape consequences of comprehensive town planning and restoration along the last three decades. In order to do this, a comparison is made on the evolution of intervention policies in historic centres, from the 19th-century renovation actions up to the all- embracing restoration carried out since the 80's. Secondly, the analysis of the resulting processes will help us understand some of the most important socio-territorial dynamics developing in the historic centre as a product of the present city. Specifically, the place of spatial organization in the current city, as competition or complement to the new urban areas resulting from suburbanization processes.