In 1867, Barcelona’s urbanist Ildefons Cerdà set the science of making cities known as urbanization. 150 years later, his work is now translated into English thanks to the initiative of IAAC founder Vicente Guallart, who will be presenting Cerdà’s work as well as new IAAC’s project urbanization.org at Harvard University on 4th April.
Barcelona’s engineer Ildefons Cerdà, author of the Plan for the Reform and Extension of Barcelona, published his General Theory of Urbanization in 1867. It was the first book in history in which the process of designing and building cities known as urbanization was systematically analyzed and defined as a science. In it, Cerdà linked this process to individual well-being and public prosperity.
Today, in the midst of the digital revolution and cities swelling at an astonishing pace, the first full English translation of the Theory has been published together with its statistical analyses in graphs and interactive maps on the open data platform urbanization.org hopi
On April 4, IAAC founder Vicente Guallart, in conversation with Harvard GSD professors Joan Busquets, Neil Brenner and Charles Waldheim will present the English edition of Cerdà’s work. The event includes a presentation of the book and the digital platform of urbanization.org as well as a conversation about the important work from Cerdà. The event is organized by IAAC Faculty Daniel Ibañez together with Spain GSD and Harvard Spain and supported by Real Colegio Complutense at Harvard, the Harvard GSD Urban Theory Lab, the Harvard GSD Office for Urbanization and the MDES Urbanism, Landscape and Ecology programme.
