Configuration of the urban social and cultural space in the modern Córdoba

Abstract

This study is aimed at identifying, recognizing and analysing the geo-historic process of configuration of the urban space from a sociocultural perspective in Córdoba from 1886 to 1910, with a particular emphasis on the representation of the modernity in its planning and construction. The governing elite of Córdoba involved in a liberal ideology of order and progress planned to civilize and modernize the city with a view to modifying its old appearance associated with the underdevelopment, the disorder and the decline, that is to say, the “barbarity”. This issue was approached through the analyses of cultural artefacts such as the Grilla Urbana, the boulevards and avenues, the park and the monuments from the perspective of materiality, functionality and symbolic meaning. This study allows us to identify, analyse and understand the main processes and ideologies of the urban social spatial configuration of Córdoba at the end of the 19th century and the urban configuration of the emerging city of Formosa in the same period, with a view to contributing to the local and regional history.