Foreign specialists, republican ideology and urban government (Buenos Aires, 1810-1830)

FAVELUKES, GRACIELA

Chicago

Conferencia; 13th International Planning History Society Conference; 2008

International Planning History Society

The breaking of the Hispanic order in 1810 posed the new authorities of the Río de la Plata the issue of the shortage of skilled professionals committed to the revolutionary cause, who in their perspective should also take part in a better and fairer distribution of the land. Furthermore, it was needed a precise knowledge of the city?s and province?s situations, and a method to survey them. These goals led to the search of European professionals, who slowly but persistently started arriving at Buenos Aires from the revolution onwards. Among them were several Spaniards who had engaged in the napoleonic ranks and, since their defeat, could not return to Spain. Loaded whit republican ideals,the South American independence experience offered them a vast array of possibilities with regard to the many projects which linked technical progress to the emancipation and happiness of the people. Along the 1820s and 1830s emigrating engineers joined the newly created state offices, thus contributing with their technical background, their rational methods and their foreseeing abilities. These professionals organized the technical divisions, the university, the channels to training and accrediting surveyors, and introduced renewed control methods regarding the form of the city by means of the recently formulated descriptive geometry of polytechnic background. It is our aim to present some of the modifications introduced in the government of the city on the basis of the participation of the new experts, as well as to examine how they eventually reformulated or adapted their skills on the basis of the local conditions.