Urban Layout of the First Ibero-American Cities on the Continent through Conventual Foundations: The Cases of Santo Domingo (1502) and Panama Viejo (1519)

Antonio Cubero-Hernández (), Eudes Raony Silva and Silvia Arroyo Duarte
Additional contact information
Antonio Cubero-Hernández: Department of Urbanistic and Land Management, Higher Technical School of Architecture, University of Seville, 41004 Sevilla, Spain
Eudes Raony Silva: Buildings Department, Federal Institute of Paraíba, Patos 58700-000, Brazil
Silvia Arroyo Duarte: Departamento de Arte, Facultad de Arquitectura y Diseño, Universidad de Panamá, Panama 3366, Panama

Land, 2022, vol. 11, issue 12, 1-17

Abstract: In the present investigation, we study the influence of conventual foundations on the origin of the urban layout of two of the first cities in the Spanish colonization of America: Santo Domingo (1502) and Panama Viejo (1519), examples of early colonial urbanism. Starting with cartography and historical bibliography, as well as recent studies on their urban evolution and using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for graphic representation, a comparative study is carried out between both cities divided into stages of urban expansion until their consolidation (or disappearance in the case of Panama in 1671). We have been able to verify how, in Santo Domingo, the religious orders settled on the outskirts of the city, marking the axes of expansion as an instrument of control and consolidation of an urban layout closer to the idea of a grid, which will materialize more precisely in later cities. Meanwhile, in Panama Viejo, the city was formed longitudinally on the streets occupied by the convents, which served as the main axes that defined the urban design of the city. This article aims to demonstrate the importance of the role of religious power in the formation of the cities presented here.

Keywords: convents; heritage; Panama; Santo Domingo; urban layout; historic cities; urban heritage; colonial architecture (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/12/2144/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/12/2144/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:11:y:2022:i:12:p:2144-:d:986409

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().