The organic language of Arturo Soria: the antecedent of ecological urban planning

Abstract

Between 1881 and 1883, Arturo Soria y Mata published a series of articles on urban issues in the newspaper El Progreso, in which he exposed the roots of his urban theory and outlined his proposal for a Linear City. In these first writings, the organic vision of the urban phenomena developed by Soria integrates the processes of consumption of matter and energy necessary for urban life in a concept of the city that is both unique and complex. The development of this organic metaphor entails the recognition of urban metabolism as an opportunity for improving living conditions. The parallelism between the urban organism and the human body is the key of this operational methodology, through which the author conceives advanced supply, communications or waste collection systems based on the potential of new technologies to organize and improve the cities of his time. It was from this vision that his definitive proposal for urban growth was born, the Linear City, which was fated to establish a residential network that connected the core of the existing cities, preserved as business and leisure centers. Soria’s organic thinking is an important historical precedent to the consolidation of an urban ecology. The purpose of studying and advocating it is to reconcile contemporary urban challenges and aspirations with an underrated chapter of the foundations of modern urban theory.