An approach to some urbanistic aspects in Ardemans City Urban Regulations

Abstract

In 1719 Tcodoro Ardemans, Master of Public Works to the City of Madrid and Royal Architect, published an important study on City Urban Regulations in Madrid. So as to cover the insufficiencies in these at that time and in an attempt to palliate the ominous consecuences that the lack of a suitable legislative compendium had occasioned in the planning of the City of Madrid for several centuries. In the present article the historic importance of some aspects of the above mentioned study are analyzed, specifically those related to the «adornament» and «decorum» of the city namely the proceedings previous to starting a constructions. Governing its height and appearance, public health, safety precautions and damage prevention through the rational distribution of urban areas by trade groups; and their relations to historic precedents since 1561, when the Court is definitively established by royal decision in Madrid, which occasioned numberless unforseen urbanistic problems, not known prior to that date and whose consecuences in a number of cases would reach the epoch of Ardemans. His attitude to the previous norms a similar attempt undertaken by Juan de Torija in 1661 and the achievements in the theorical and practical fields brought about by his study in both these aspects are all evaluated in this article.