Infographic restitution of the historic centre of the Spanish town of Oviedo

Abstract

Our historic town centres possess an evocative quality that has recently led to considering these town centres a subject of scientific research, overtaking, if not contradicting, the romantic vision by which they obtained importance in the Western world from the late 18th century.Thus, the present work is framed in the existing and ultimately consolidated method of European universities, which analyse, with an increasing scientific rigour from many different perspectives, the knowledge of the abundant and rich historic town centres that geographically define our living environment.This study focuses on the reconstruction of the urban shape of the town of Oviedo in a series of stages that are marked by the cartographic data collected during the time of the study and that involve substantial changes to the urban fabric of the town. The study attempts to be a historical analysis of urban transformation. This research established a systematic study of earlier times when the urban form offered space patterns different from existing patterns. Using the current structure of the historic centre of Oviedo and the analysis of its pathologies throughout history as a starting point, this study considers the possibility of a methodical study of the past.This project presents the coexistence of parallel textual and visual accounts, which can be read together, as a new methodology to understand the spatial formation and transformation of urban landscapes.