The planning dialectic of continuity and change: The evolution of metropolitan planning in Madrid¹

1. Lead author's note: this research was conducted in situ during a 6 month residency in 1993–1994, supplemented by visits of 1 to 3 weeks each during the summers of 1992, 1994, 1995, and 2000; and a visit by the second author in the summer of 2003. Over 40 interviews of a minimum of 1 to 2 hours in length were conducted in Spanish with key protagonists and other informants. The research was supported financially by a Fulbright Fellowship, the United States Department of Education, Texas A&M University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the Program of Cultural Cooperation between the Spanish Ministry of Culture and United States Universities.

Abstract

City planning deals with designing and managing institutions that affect the future quality of urban places. The research reported in this article is on the evolution of urban planning in Madrid from 1857 to 1995. In Madrid, important aspects of planning have changed over this period, while others have remained almost unaltered. The tension between forces supporting continuity or struggling for change provided an animating dialectic that explains the evolution of urban planning and its institutions in Spain's capital. This dialectic of continuity and change is inherent in the nature of planning institutions themselves, as we argue in the conclusion, and has important implications for planning theory.

Notes

1. Lead author's note: this research was conducted in situ during a 6 month residency in 1993–1994, supplemented by visits of 1 to 3 weeks each during the summers of 1992, 1994, 1995, and 2000; and a visit by the second author in the summer of 2003. Over 40 interviews of a minimum of 1 to 2 hours in length were conducted in Spanish with key protagonists and other informants. The research was supported financially by a Fulbright Fellowship, the United States Department of Education, Texas A&M University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the Program of Cultural Cooperation between the Spanish Ministry of Culture and United States Universities.

2. The legal-administrative context for the plan stretches back to 1833. Then the provincial system was set up to divide the Spanish territory into 49 provinces. The provinces were modeled on French ‘départements’. The central government appointed the Civil Governors of the Provinces. The real power resided with the military Captain General, who was superior to the Civil Governor. The Province of Madrid appears in 1833 with the geographic boundaries which it and the autonomous regional government the Comunidad de Madrid still have today. In 1845 the Municipal Government Law was adopted. It specified that the crown appoint mayors of towns with populations of 2000 persons or more, and that the Civil Governor of the province appoint mayors in the smaller towns.

3. It was not until 1892 that the city adopted Ley de 26 de julio de 1892, Ley del Ensanche y Extensión (Law of Expansion and Extension), for the growth planned for in the Castro Plan. In 1895 it passed a companion law for the existing historic city inside the ensanche, Ley de 18 de marzo de 1895, Ley de Saneamiento y Mejora Interior (Law of Public Hygiene and Interior Improvement). These laws each acted on different parts of the city. They exercised their authority directly on the land itself and its property owners. It did not direct any other agencies.

4. Anonymous (1911) ‘Datos Acerca la Ciudad Lineal’, Compañia Madrileña de Urbanización: Madrid; Consejería de Política Territorial (1990) Los Planes de Ordenación Urbana de Madrid, Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid: Madrid; Antonio Fernández García (1993) Historia de Madrid, Editorial Complutense: Madrid; Fernando de Terán (1968) La Ciudad Lineal: Antecedente de un Urbanismo Actual, Editorial Ciencia Nueva: Madrid.

5. The first of many positive comments on the proposal is by the editors, 1930, “Concurso Urbanístico Internacional de Madrid”, Arquitectura, XII:140, cover page (December).

6. Taken from Gran Madrid, Boletín Informativo de la Comisaría General para la Ordenación Urbana de Madrid y sus Alrededores, 1:1, 5 (1948). The use of city planning to project ‘capitalidad’ existed long before Franco. See Alvar Ezquerra, Alfredo (1989) El Nacimiento de una Capital Europea: Madrid entre 1561 y 1606. Turner Libros: Madrid, particularly pp. 238–289 ‘Urbanismo y Capitalidad’; and del Corral, José (1990) Madrid 1561: La Capitalidad, Ediciones La Librería: Madrid.

7. Bidagor travelled to Berlin, published articles on Berlin and German planning in the Revista Nacional de Arquitectura (“Reforma Urbana de Carácter Político en Berlin”) and in Boletín Gran Madrid. For more on German and Italian influences on Bidagor and Madrid's planning, see these articles and Fernando de Terán (1982).

8. Comisaría General de Ordenación Urbana de Madrid y sus Alrededores (1961) Plan General de Ordenación Urbana del Área Metropolitana de Madrid, Ministerio de Vivienda: Madrid, p. 50 first quote, p. 48 second quote.

9. The original law, Ley 121/1963 de 2 de diciembre, sobre el Area Metropolitana provided for 22 municipalities, including Madrid. One year later Las Rozas was added for a total of 23. In 1982, the last full year of COPLACOs existence, Alcalá de Henares, Fuenlabrada, Móstoles and Parla were added for a total of 27.

10. Throughout the entire period since the approval of the General Plan of 1963, the management of COPLACO has been limited fundamentally to final approvals [of local plans and ordinances] and the control of planning and development infractions, lacking the necessary elements to realize true metropolitan development. Ridruejo Brieva, Juan A. (1978) Madrid y su Gestión Urbana Metropolitana, 4 volumes, COPLACO: Madrid, vol. I, p. 10.

11. COPLACO itself later admitted these failings. As of 1967 “the 1963 plan was already unsuited to the pattern of development, and in 1972 the regulations in force were essentially distinct from the original plan.” COPLACO (1979) Analysis of Problems and Opportunities: Existing planning and committed land, Ministerio de Vivienda: Madrid, p. 50. Author's translation of Spanish title.

12. Decreto 2432/1972 de 18 de agosto de 1972, sobre Bases para concursos de ejecución de urbanizaciones en Madrid. This decree implemented article 22 of the revised text of the Ley del Plan del Desarrollo Económico y Social, Decreto 1541/1972 de 15 de junio de 1972. See also Fernández Rodríguez, Tomás Ramón (1974) El Urbanismo Concertado y la Reforma de la Ley del Suelo, Instituto de Estudios Administrativos, Cuadernos de Administración Publica: Madrid. Tomé and Velasco quoted in Manuel Castells (1977).

13. Agencies able to intervene in regional development because of their capital investment capacity, such as the Dirección General de Carreteras (highways) and the Dirección General de Infraestructuras wrote their own plans and invested in accordance with their plans, not COPLACOs. These two examples are especially revealing since they are part of the Ministry of Public Works and Planning, the same that housed COPLACO as of 1977. For criticisms of the Special Plans see Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Madrid (COAM), 1976, “Texto de la alegación presentada por el COAM ante COPLACO en relación con el Plan Especial de Infraestructuras de Transportes de la Provincia de Madrid”; and J.R.S., 1976, “Se Reparten Madrid” in Doblón, July 10–16, pp. 17–27. At least one of the special plans, for transportation, was written to justify projects underway or programmed. This ex post facto planning, along with the intent to write a Plan Director Territorial de Coordinación (PDTC) piecemeal, by sectors, was roundly criticized by observers and participants. (The PDTC was modeled on the recent Plan Directeur for the region of Paris.) The 1975 revision to the national planning law called for the PDTC to be prepared before the Planes Especiales, the latter implementing the former.

14. There were hundreds of volumes of data collected in the PAIs. A partial listing is presented here to provide a sense of their monumentality. Most were compiled by consulting firms, usually composed of sociologists or planners, with the aid of the neighborhood associations.

–	Programa de Actuación Inmediata (PAI) de los barrios 101–117 [Madrid], 71 volumes, 1979.
–	PAI Suroeste I [municipality of Pinto], 9 volumes, 1979.
–	PAI Suroeste [municipality of Getafe], 17 volumes, 1979.
–	PAI Suroeste [municipality of Alcorcón], 17 volumes, 1979.
–	PAI Suroeste [municipality of Leganés], 15 volumes, 1979.
–	PAI Chamartín [neighborhood of Madrid], 41 volumes, 1979.
–	PAI de los barrios 34 and 35 [neighborhoods of Ibiza and Jerónimo, Madrid], 20 volumes, 1979.

15. Interview by the author with Ignacio Solana, September 20, 1994.