La costruzione della Ciudad Lineal di Madrid. Imprenditoria, architettura e urbanistica / The Construction of Madrid’s Ciudad Lineal. Entrepreneurship, Architecture and Urbanism

Ciudad Lineal today is nothing more than the name of a neighborhood in Madrid whose footprint bears witness to an original urban idea that has almost completely lost its primigenial architectural components. The late 19th century project was initiated by entrepreneur Arturo Soria y Mata and his joint-stock company, with the aim of building a new urban prototype: the linear city. Perfectly aligned with the culture of the time, Soria y Mata observed the problematic industrial city and outlined an alternative to be built from scratch in order to remedy the systemic issues. With an empirical attitude, Soria y Mata proposed a simple plan: a main axis of networked services, flanked by two strips of low-density building fabric. The company’s house organ promoted the ideal housing model by drawing inspiration from international journals. Despite the intention, the adherence to an entrepreneurial rather than a scientific urban planning process was one of the factors that led the failure of this experiment.