The incipient recognition of the historic city before the arrival of the industrial city: from the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century

Abstract

The aim of this article is to explain how the historic city was recognized at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, through a historiographic study, in order to understand that this recognition obeys very specific circumstances, beyond an aesthetic assessment, behind it is a discourse referring to the controversial arrival of modernity and the ideal of progress that permeated the 19th century, which will be reflected in the way in which the city is conceived, and in the generation of various projects of urban intervention, which will be the triggers for a certain group of intellectuals to notice the threats generated by the urban transformation that accompanies the discourse of modernity. Likewise, reference is made to the specific case of Hausmmann’s intervention, the city of Paris, as a detonator that, although severely criticized by conservatives, becomes a watershed in the process of recognition of the historic city. In essence, this work seeks to present a more horizontal scenario with respect to the genesis of the valuation of historic cities, to glimpse in a more integral way how this process was conceived and, above all, to understand that the actions and judgments emitted by diverse characters of the time were fruit of a specific historical period, reason for which they must be judged from a broader understanding of the past.