Episódios Significativos de Espacialização Urbana a partir do Automóvel (Os Planos Gerais de Urbanização;1934 - 1960)

Abstract

The motor car is a key factor in the Framework of the Great technological changes occurring at the turn of the 20th century continuing during it. The territory and what is understood by it changes radically with the motor car. The area is no longer measured by distance units, but by the relationship of area/time. At the same time, the city is transformed both in size and definition, and the ways and parking areas that accommodate the new machine. These only make sense because of the car, based not only on functional reasons but also assuming to be the mirror of an apology. But at the time when - in the whole world and since its emergence or when the mass production seemed eminent - there has been theorization and experimentation on the territory, the greatest pretexts and/or motivation is in this vehicle, although Portugal did not follow the international trends. There are no patents or production doctrines (prepared with the aim of assuming that status) that allows for the assessment of the impact of the new means of mobility, mechanical and for personal use, in the city. In this Context, it is important to understand the contribution of the motor car for the urban reform in our country. Due to the lack of theoretical production, the comprehensive programme resulting from Law Decree 24 802, of 21 December of 1934, for the provision of the Planos Gerais de Urbanização [General Urban Planning) - in more than 400 settlements - is the ideal ground to study the ideas of the town planners/architects concerning the link of the motor car and the city, since it is for the first time planned in a systematic manner, over an extended territory and based on the impact of this vehicle, from the small to the great agglomerates from the North to the south; considering that the country is, still in a phase assertion and dissemination of this machine and simultaneously subject to new spatial and formal concepts, due to external influences. We are concerned with the concepts and ideas that incorporate the urban plan, since the concrete achievement on the territory is not a basic requirement. We therefore base the study in the research of the word, as a central instrument to the conceptualism (this includes written texts and drawings for approval by the state supervisory body) without neglecting the plan drawings as an implementation of this. In short, we try to understand the role that the motor car assumed in the production of references and ideas of shapes and urban spaces. O Time period of the research starts in the 30's with the beginning of the programme to the 60's. We point out that the 60's corresponds to an explosion of tendencies and the end of the myth that the city could be planned and programmed like a set drawing as tried in the Planos Gerais de Urbanização. With this study, we conclude that, in Portugal, each action is not as radical as what we can find in the foreign historiography and amongst the assumptions of the most prominent ideologists of the international scene. The models are not all accepted in the same manner. The ideological concepts set among us on the political side, while the propaganda instruments, of economic development and the celebration of the race, the territory and of the great achievements of the past. Tourism and the motor car articulate in that sublimation of the Portugal heir of another, that being more than a memory, is promoted like a script for the future. The new urban plan compositions reflect an inherited flair, coexisting with the frontrunner, or the motor car. In summary, it is not correct to say that urban planning is about the motor car, but the latter is very important, as shown in the spaces, shapes and the impact created for the integration, dissemination and the use of this machine when planning the city. That is its significance, although inevitably incorporated in the theoretical tendencies that come from the outside, is the result of a summary that would only make sense in a country that is inward looking.