Colonialism is a system in which a country controls another country or area, a definition that acquires complexity when considering the different disciplines that research this field, not to mention the evolving narratives and interests of both, authors and audiences. The focus in this volume is on colonialism and human geography, involving cities, architecture and the actors concerned with designing, developing and inhabiting the urban space in colonial Latin America. Within this focus, there are issues related to identity – which is central to spatial conceptualisations of colonial domination that cover private buildings, the public space as well as the inhabitants and users of these spaces. Identity in turn is understood here as a fluid and yet constrained concept affected by culture and politics but also, as this volume shows, by architecture and the urban context. The demographic explosion of the eighteenth century increased the demand for property while the financial gains made by entrepreneurs of the expanding trade created the necessary surplus for investment in real estate assets. No other urban centre exemplifies this phenomenon better than Buenos Aires, the fastest growing city in the Spanish world at the time of the establishment of the viceroyalty of the River Plate in 1776. Since then and until the end of the viceroyalty in 1810, the reduction of contraband trade, the opening of commerce and the regulation of land titles and urban planning helped the local economy and consolidated the basis for a flourishing real estate market.

Although these were spatial and economic measures brought by the Bourbon dynasty in Spain, the century was also characterised by a new way of thinking known as the Enlightenment. The movement was exemplified by freedom in thinking, where science and reason guided humanity. Nevertheless, an all-encompassing definition remains a challenge, as some countries used the concept to support absolutism while for others it represented republican ideas. Furthermore, studies have also shown the importance of geography particularly in colonial societies where the Enlightenment was more revolutionary than the independence movements themselves.

Notwithstanding, politics is not the only contradiction posed by the Enlightenment. By 1750, the power of the church in Europe had begun to decline favouring the ‘disenchantment of the world’ or the search for a more rational explanation of the world and the working of its natural forces.