Ildefons CerdÃ
Ildefonso Cerdà i Sunyer [ ildəfɔns sərda suɲe i ]; Born December 23, 1815 in Centelles; † August 21, 1876 in Caldas de Besaya at Santander) was a progressive Catalan urban planner who designed Barcelona's Eixample district.
Biography
Originally, he was a civil engineer. When the government finally gave in to public pressure and the walls of Barcelona demolished, he realized that they had to plan the expansion of the city, so that the new district would be effective and worth living, as opposed to disease- prone and clogged downtown. He could not find any reference works, which is why he decided to write one himself. Meanwhile, he designed the Eixample and thereby made use of some ideas of his contemporaries to create a unique, creating thoroughly modern integrated and carefully thought-out concept.
For the rest of his life he worked on new projects to improve existing designs, but he also developed new theories on a larger level. Through this development, he lost his entire family heritage and died when heavily indebted man, for he was never paid for his masterpiece Eixample.
He was a multi-faceted man chasing a steady job in civil engineering gave up his dream, it turned to the polls and member of the Cortes Generales ( the Spanish parliament), useful groundbreaking laws designed, created an incredibly detailed topographic overview map of the surroundings of Barcelona and a essay for each of its major projects wrote. He is also responsible for the emergence of new Spanish words, including urbanización.
Operation
He focused on basic needs of the people in the city: sunlight, ventilation, plants, effective sewage and refuse disposal and transportation of people, goods, energy and information.
His designs is a networking concept that was ahead of its time, as a basis. Its street layout and grid design was optimized for pedestrians, carts, horse-drawn trams, light rail (which were completely unknown ), natural gas supply and large wastewater treatment plants in order to prevent regular flooding; but he did not forget private gardens and other amenities. The latest technical innovations were included in his designs when they were conducive to the integration, but Cerdà also brought new concepts of its own with one, including a system for Bodennivellement, which was essential for the success of its projects and also a statistical analysis of the situation of working class at the time allowed.
Controversy
His plans for Barcelona experienced two major revisions, the second version, agreed to by the Spanish Government, you can still make today layout of the Eixample, although the low-rise buildings and gardens quickly disappeared in each district. Only one of the two planned diagonal streets were really built. Eixample was and is still inhabited by the upper class, rather than shared by all layers. Many Catalan architect criticized his ideas and even accused him of propagating views of socialism. After all, most ended but trying to design the modernist facade of the district.
Political developments in Spain and Catalonia, however, led to a revisionist version that Cerdà the official approval for its plan caught.
In fact, Cerdà developed his designs under the supervision of the authorities of the time, the Spanish Government and the City Council. A politically altered local government and the new city council then tried to revise the decisions taken by 1859 advertised for a project competition. Nevertheless, Cerdà's design, however, could prevail, not to annoy without the affected landowners.