1 The treatises of Münster (15 May 1648); Osnabrück (24 October 1648) and, most importantly, the Peace of the Pyrenees (1659), gradually weakened Spanish power in Europe and diminished its territories. See Joseph Pérez, ‘España moderna (1474–1700). Aspectos políticos y sociales’, in Historia de España (1476–1714), ed. Manuel Tuñón de Lara (Madrid, 1984), v, pp. 243–49.

2 Scott, H. M., Enlightened Absolutism. Reform and Reformers in Late Eighteenth-Century Europe (London and Basingstoke, 1990), p. 1 Google Scholar. It should be pointed out that education in the Spanish colonies was an urban activity that was restricted to the upper classes (primarily to men and only to a lesser degree including women). The great mass of the population was illiterate and the education imparted to the Indian population by the religious orders was orientated to evangelization. See Hardoy, Jorge E. and Aranovich, Carmen, ‘The Scale and Functions of Spanish American Cities Around 1600: An Essay on Methodology’, in Hardoy, Jorge et al., Urbanization in the Americas from its Beginnings to the Present (Paris, 1978), p. 88.Google Scholar

3 Lynch, John, Spanish Colonial Administration, 1782–1810. The Intendant System in the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata (New York, 1969)Google Scholar; Socolow, Susan M., The Merchants of Viceregal Buenos Aires: Family and Commerce 1778–1810 (Cambridge, 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Socolow, Susan M., The Bureaucrats of Buenos Aires, 1769–1810: amor al real servicio (Durham, N. Carolina, 1987)Google Scholar. In addition, a comprehensive review of research carried out prior to 1984 can be found in Socolow, Susan M., ‘Recent Historiography of the Río de la Plata: Colonial and Early National Periods’, Hispanic American Historical Review (hereafter HAHR), 64 (1984), pp. 105–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 The economic situation of the Spanish Empire at this time was complex. In brief, it can be said that in the colonies the mines were not as productive as they had been during previous centuries (on this subject, see Brading, David, ‘Bourbon Spain and its American Empire’, in The Cambridge History of Latin America, ed. Bethell, Leslie (Cambridge, 1984), 1, p. 419)Google Scholar; meanwhile, contraband trade was on the increase and Spain was missing out on commercial profits while other European countries were collecting the returns from its domains (the problem was particularly acute in the River Plate region, see Zacarías Moutoukias, ‘Power, Corruption and Commerce: The Making of the Local Administrative Structure in Seventeenth Century Buenos Aires’, HAHR, 68:4 (1988), p. 771). In addition, the sale of offices, notably the appointment of key administrative positions in the colonies to the highest bidder, although it had provided short-term economic relief, was by the late eighteenth century extremely costly, given the fact that many officials thus appointed put personal interests before those of the Crown (see Lynch, , Bourbon Spain 1700–1808 (Oxford, 1989), pp. 333–34 Google Scholar; also Pietschmann, Horst, ‘Burocracia y corrupción en hispanoamérica colonial’, Nova Americana, 5 (1982), pp. 11–37)Google Scholar.

5 Socolow, The Bureaucrats of Buenos Aires, p. 3.

6 The extension of the River Plate Viceroyalty comprised part of today’s Bolivia and Paraguay, and the entirety of Uruguay and Argentina. The first Viceroy of the River Plate was appointed by Royal Order of 1 August 1776. The Viceroyalty was established, as the order decreed, completely independent of the Viceroyalty of Peru, of which the River Plate region had formerly been part. New administrative offices were created, but the immediate advantage was that bureaucratic procedures were now dealt with in Buenos Aires instead of documents having to be sent to offices in Lima or Charcas, as was formerly the case. As will be explained later, this speeded up the process of regularizing land titles and commercial activities related to property. See Archivo General de la Nación Argentina (hereafter AGNA), Documentos referentes a la guerra de la independencia y emancipación política de la República Argentina y de otras secciones de América a que cooperó desde 1810 hasta 1828, 3 vols (Buenos Aires, 1914), 1, pp. 17–19.

7 The intendancy was a government system developed during the seventeenth century in France with the intention of supporting the centralizing policies of French absolutism. It was introduced into Spain at the beginning of the eighteenth century and into the Spanish colonies in the 1770s. The intendant was the official in charge of the new offices; in capital cities he was known as Superintendant, because all other provincial intendants had to report to him. An excellent review of the introduction of this system into the River Plate can be found in Lynch, Spanish Colonial Administration. For the creation of the intendancy of Buenos Aires, see AGNA, Documentos referentes a la guerra, 1, p. 27, Royal Order 21 March 1778.

8 Urquijo, Mariluz, Estudios sobre la real ordenanza de intendentes del Río de la Plata (Buenos Aires, 1995), p. 29.Google Scholar

9 Laura San Martino de Dromi, Constitución indiana de Carlos III (Buenos Aires, 1999), p. 19.

10 According to his memorias, Viceroy Vértiz (in office 1778–84) regulated the practice of medicine in the city; opened an orphanage and children’s hospital, a women’s prison and a women’s hospital; created the first university and a hospice for beggars; and began many urban works that were continued by his successors (Archivo General de Indias (hereafter AGI), Seville, Spain, Mapas y Planos, Libros Manuscritos, 60, fols 34–35, Memorias del gobierno del Virrey Vértiz, 12 March 1784). Viceroy Amat, in Lima, became famous for the improvements he made to the capital during his term of office (1761–76), and was later described by an eighteenth-century traveller as a ‘genius, superior to all other viceroys in matters of civilization and good manners’ (Alonso Carrió de la Vandera, El lazarillo de los ciegos caminantes, desde Buenos Aires hasta Lima (Buenos Aires, 1997), p. 269).

11 Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras (hereafter UBAFFL), Documentos para la historia Argentina, 48 vols (Buenos Aires, 1918), ix, p. 306.

12 AGI, Mexico, 1433, Policía de México, art. 1, Conde de Revillagigedo, 7 December 1782. Lima experienced a similar problem with the development of houses arranged around a common patio (callejones), forming alleys populated by the lower classes, who were difficult to control. See Osório, Alejandra, ‘The King in Lima: Simulacra, Ritual, and Rule in Seventeenth-Century Peru’, HAHR, 84:3 (2004), p. 456.Google Scholar

13 de Paula Sanz, Francisco, ‘Instrucción que debe observarse para la composición uniforme de las calles’, 4 February 1784, in UBAFFL, Documentos para la historia Argentina, ix, pp. 23–31.Google Scholar

14 UBAFFL, Documentos para la historia Argentina, ix, pp. 101–07.

15 Problems regarding legal possession of the land were constant throughout Spanish America during the colonial period, and Buenos Aires was no exception. See Roberto H. Marfany, ‘El régimen colonial de la tierra’, in Ricardo Levene, Historia de la provincia de Buenos Aires, 2 vols (La Plata, Argentina, 1940), I, p. 50.

16 The Crown was often forced to issue a moratorium in order to give people the opportunity to rectify their land titles, one of these procedures was called the composición, established in 1591 whereby it became possible to legalize irregular occupation of land by payment of a fee. The system greatly improved the Crown’s finances, and the law was enacted retrospectively. See Capdequí, Juan María Ots, España en América. El régimen de tierras en la época colonial (México City, 1959), p. 102.Google Scholar

17 The connexion between land, censuses and taxes established by the Spanish system of colonization was reinforced in the eighteenth century when concerted efforts were made to increase royal revenues. The new laws specified that block and house numbers should be allocated to each property in all cities in order to determine the taxes to be paid by citizens. See López, Xavier Perez, Teatro de la legislación universal de España y de las Indias, por orden cronológico de sus cuerpos, y decisiones no recopiladas; y alfabético de sus títulos y principales materias, 3 (Madrid, 1793), pp. 423–24.Google Scholar

18 It is not known why the applications appear to suddenly stop in 1792. No further files have been found in the archives but no records state that the regulation was discontinued before the end of the colonial period (1810). It is possible that the law remained in effect and that planning permissions continued to be required, but that the relevant files have since been misplaced or lost.

19 AGNA, Sala IX, Acuerdos, libro XLVI, fols 97–97V, 5 August 1784. The head builders were sometimes referred as alarifes [master builders] in Cabildo records.

20 Ponz, Antonio, Viaje de España. En que se dá noticia de las cosas más apreciables, y dignas de saberse, que hay en ella, 18 vols (Madrid, 1774), 4, p. 19.Google Scholar This work by Ponz was well known throughout the Spanish world, including in Buenos Aires, and was frequently used and cited in urban matters. For written treatises available in the River Plate region at the time, see Gutiérrez, Ramón, Arquitectura colonial teoría y praxis. Maestros, arquitectos, gremios, academias y libros (s. XVI-XIX) (Resistencia, Argentina, 1979)Google Scholar. In 1776 Ponz was appointed secretary of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, the body that regulated all the arts in Spain; see Frank, Ana Isabel, El viaje de España de Antonio Ponz (Berlin, 1995), pp. 36–37.Google Scholar The area of stylistic influence of Buenos Aires did not comprise the entire Viceroyalty of the River Plate, since cities such as Potosí (in today’s Bolivia) were more likely to be under the sphere of other capitals, such as Lima. The reference in this article to the River Plate region, which was a smaller area within the Viceroyalty that comprised the area around Buenos Aires and also what was then known as Banda Oriental (Uruguay), is therefore more suitable in terms of architectural styles. For stylistic differences within the Viceroyalty of the River Plate, see Buschiazzo, Mario J., ‘La arquitectura de los siglos XVII y XVIII en la Argentina’, in Iñiguez, Diego Angulo et al., Historia del arte hispanoamericano, 3 (Barcelona, 1956), p. 612.Google Scholar

21 Ponz, Viaje de España, pp. 21–22.

22 Ponz was himself an example of this. He travelled widely through Europe and many of his trips were sponsored by the Spanish monarchy, which was also keen to find out how other states were developing their cities. The fruit of his travels was his second work, Viaje fuera de España, where he assessed other European societies according to their arts, architecture and ways of living. His criticisms were directed mainly at the British and the French, possibly because they had previously written travel accounts about Spain and its culture which Ponz found unflattering. See his introduction to Viaje fuera de España (Madrid, 1791), p. 5; see also Frank, El viaje, p. 11.

23 See de Miranda, Pedro Alvarez, Palabras e ideas: el léxico de la ilustración temprana en España (1680–1760) (Madrid, 1992), p. 293 Google Scholar. On this topic the author further reflects on the obsession that characterized the Spanish culture of the eighteenth century: the idea of buen gusto — good taste — and its intellectual qualities, only achievable through education, which were considered essential for distinguishing between the exquisite and the ordinary (ibid., pp. 499–500).

24 The relationship between urban image and discourses of power during the Enlightenment has been discussed in Borsay, Peter, ‘Fat Sources and Big Ideas: Society, Enlightenment and the Town’, Journal of Urban History, 24:5 (1998), pp. 643–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 Frank, El viaje, p. 13. In Madrid, for example, it was argued that before the paving of the streets began in the 1760s their condition ‘put the city to shame’ in the eyes of other European courts. See y Goitía, Fernando Chueca, ‘Madrid y las reformas de Carlos III’, in Urbanismo e historia urbana en el mundo hispano, ed. Correa, Antonio Bonet, 2 vols (Madrid, 1982), II, p. 928.Google Scholar

26 See, for example, the application made by Don Manuel de Rosales in AGNA, Sala IX, División Colonia, Permisos para edificar, legajo 11.1.2, doc. 158, 13 March 1787.

27 AGNA, Sala IX, División Colonia, Permisos para edificar, legajo 11. 1. 1, doc. 195, March 1787.

28 See, for example, the case of Juan José Castro, who was made to buy a portion of the land next to his property in order to build right up to the wall of the neighbouring house so that no alleyway would be left between the two properties, as this was considered dangerous for policing the area (AGNA, Sala IX, División Colonia, Permisos para edificar, legajo 10.10.8, doc. 254, 1785). A similar claim was made in Manila, towards the end of the century, stating that alleyways ‘offered cover for all sorts of ill-intentioned opportunists and thieves’; see AGI, Estado 46, doc. 35, the Governor of the Philippines Rafael Maria de Aguilar to the Principe de la Paz, Manila, 28 February 1797.

29 Sambricio, Carlos, La arquitectura española de la ilustración (Madrid, 1986), p. 235.Google Scholar

30 See Madrid Alvarez, Vidal de la, ‘El pòrtico del convento de Santo Domingo de Oviedo, una propuesta herreriana en el siglo XVIII’, in Actas del simposio Juan de Herrera y su influencia (14 /17 Julio 1992), ed. Aramburu-Zabala, Miguel Ángel (Cantabria, 1993), p. 263.Google Scholar

31 The subject of Hispanic ephemeral art has been widely researched. Publications dealing with the eighteenth century include del Rio Barredo, Maria José, Madrid urbs regia. La capital ceremonial de la monarquía católica (Madrid, 2000)Google Scholar; Osório, Alejandro, ‘The King in Lima: Simulacra, Ritual, and Rule in Seventeenth-Century Peru’, HAHR, 84 (2004), pp. 447–74 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cañeque, Alejandro, The King’s Living Image. The Culture and Politics of Viceregal Power in Colonial Mexico (London and New York, 2004)Google Scholar. Primary sources can be found in AGI, Indiferente General 1606, Exequias por Carlos III y proclamación de Carlos IV hechas por las autoridades y pobalciones de América y Filipinas, 1789–91.

32 AGNA, Sala IX, División Colonia, Permisos para edificar, legajo 11.1.2, doc. 249, 1792.

33 AGNA, Sala IX, División Colonia, Permisos para edificar, legajo IX-i 1–1–1 1787.

34 See Szuchman, Mark D., ‘The City as Vision. The Development of Urban Culture in Latin America’, in I Saw a City Invincible. Urban Portraits of Latin America, ed. Joseph, Gilbert M. and Szuchman, Mark D. (Willmington, USA, 1996), p. 10.Google Scholar

35 The Real Ordenanza (1782) directly linked accurate knowledge of the local population with demographic information, mapping and tax collection. The document refers repeatedly to these topics which highlights the importance of population knowledge for the new authorities; see, for example, San Martino de Dromi, Constitución indiana, art. 31, p. 152, for the control of accounts and taxes, and art. 53, p. 163, for the drafting of maps and regional data. It was also a requirement to acquire information not only on people but on their means of production, natural resources, state of roads, and ‘anything that could be useful’ for the benefit of the area. These reports were to be sent annually to the Crown by the intendants of each region; see San Martino de Dromi, Constitución indiana, art. 54, pp. 163–64.

36 AGI, Mexico, 1433, Conde de Revillagigedo, ‘Colección que se cita en el compendio de providencias de policía de Mexico dictadas en la mayor parte y las que no sostenidas igualmente y hechas observar por el Exmo señor Conde de Revillagigedo’, 7 December 1782 (hereafter AGI, Mexico, 1433, Policía de México, Conde de Revillagigedo, 7 December 1782).

37 Ibid., Revillagigedo, art. 1.

38 For population numbers at the time, see the census ordered by Viceroy Vértiz in 1778 (see Moreno, Nicolás Besio, Buenos Aires puerto del Rio de la Plata y capital de la Argentina: estudio crítico de su población 1536–1936 (Buenos Aires, 1939), pp. 336–40)Google Scholar.

39 Prieto y Pulido was born in Castille in 1737 and in 1762 moved to the River Plate region. He studied law and graduated in 1766. Like many Spanish bureaucrats, he married into an important family of the porteño elite, the Aguirres. Despite encountering several problems during his career, his circle of influential friends enabled him to acquire the position of notary in the Real Audiencia in 1785, a position that he retained until his death in 1798 (see Parada, Alejandro E., De la biblioteca pública a la biblioteca particular (Buenos Aires, 2002), p. 37 Google Scholar, and also Udaondo, Enrique, Diccionario biográfico colonial argentino (Buenos Aires, 1945), p. 728 Google Scholar. He was also well known for owning the third largest private library in Buenos Aires and kept a meticulous record of all books loaned within his circle of friends, which even included the viceroy (see Zimmermann, Ana Maria Peruchena, ‘Libraries in Argentina, an Overview’, Official Journal of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, 30:2 (2004), pp. 108–28 (p. 110))Google Scholar.

40 In the Hispanic world the preferred height of houses throughout the eighteenth century was at least two storeys, which not only indicated the use of better quality materials (since such buildings could not be executed with adobe bricks), but also demonstrated a more complex structure, in turn indicating that an architect, engineer or master builder had been involved in the project. In Madrid, the majority of houses were three storeys high, but in some areas around the Plaza Mayor were of five storeys. See Chueca y Goitía, ‘Madrid y las reformas de Carlos III’, p. 935.

41 AGNA, Sala IX, Tribunales, legajo 36–3–3 doc. 36, February 1777.

42 For the spatial distribution of classes during the late eighteenth century in Buenos Aires, see Murray, Claudia, ‘Architecture, Power and Urban Space in Buenos Aires during the Viceroyalty 1776–1810’ (unpublished PhD dissertation, King’s College London, 2007), ch. 3 Google Scholar.

43 AGNA, Sala IX, División Colonia, Permisos para edificar, legajo 11–1–1 doc. 144, 1787.

44 AGNA, SALA IX, División Colonia, Relación nominal de albañiles y carpinteros, legajo 36–2–6doc. 37, 1780.

45 The Castilian vara that was used in Buenos Aires measures 0.866 metres.

46 This type of house, with many patios where the family could grow their vegetables and keep a small number of animals, was recommended by Phillip II in the Ordinances of 1573 (Rafael Altamira y Crevea, Felipe II hombre de estado. Su psicología general y su individualidad humana (México, 1950), p. 271).

47 AGNA, Sala IX, División Colonia, Permisos para edificar, legajo, 11–1–2 1787.

48 For example, see AGNA, Sala IX, División Colonia, Permisos para edificar, legajo 11-1-1, doc. 263, 1787; AGNA, Sala IX, División Colonia, Permisos para edificar, legajo 10-10-7, doc. 39/ 1785; AGNA, Sala IX, División Colonia, Permisos para edificar, legajo 11-1-1, doc.76, March 1787; AGNA, Sala IX, División Colonia, Permisos para edificar, legajo 10-10-8, doc. 320, 1785; AGNA, Sala IX, División Colonia, Permisos para edificar, legajo 10-10-7, doc. 262, 1785.

49 Furlong, Guillermo Cardiff, Arquitectos argentinos durante la dominación hispánica (Buenos Aires, 1956), p.374.Google Scholar

50 Herrero, Manuel Arranz, ‘El sector de la construcción en una ciudad manufacturera (Barcelona siglo XVIII)’, in Correa, Bonet, Urbanismo e historia urbana, p. 1020.Google Scholar

51 AGNA, Sala IX, División Colonia, Permisos para edificar, legajo 11-1-1, docs 121 and 125, 1787.

52 AGNA, Sala IX, División Colonia, Permisos para edificar, legajo 10-10-8, doc. 255, 1785.

53 It seems that the label ‘quarto para hombre’ [room for a man] has been misplaced; it probably refers to the one that simply reads ‘quarto’ [room] and vice versa. This solution can also be found in other similar corner plots found in the archive. See for example the plan presented by Domingo Bellón in 1785 where the room adjacent to the parlour is part of the main house while the room adjacent to the hallway is to let with its own independent entrance. AGNA, Sala IX, División Colonia, Permisos para edificar, legajo 10-10-8, doc. 272, 1785.

54 There seems to be another mistake in this plan. The shop should be connected to the storage room (trastienda), this room only having a window facing the street and no doors. It is assumed that the draughtsman made a mistake and forgot to include the door that linked this area with the shop.

55 AGNA, Sala IX, División Colonia, Permisos para edificar, legajo 10.10.7, 1785.

56 Inside the houses, the display of silver goods was also used as a form of distinction. See Nelly Raquel Porro Gorardi and Estela Rosa Barbero, Lo suntuario en la vida cotidiana del Buenos Aires virreinal. De lo material a lo espiritual (Buenos Aires, 1994), p. 43.

57 AGNA, Sala IX, División Colonia, Permisos para edificar, legajo 11-1-1, doc. 166, 1787.

58 AGN, Sala IX, División Colonia, Permisos para edificar, legajo 10-10-6, doc. 119, 1785.

59 See Velich, Vanesa and Virgili, Daniel, ‘Transitando el sendero de la prosperidad: los patrones de la inversión’, in Pulperos y pulperías de Buenos Aires (1740–1830), ed. Mayo, Carlos (Buenos Aires, 2000), pp. 79–82.Google Scholar

60 See also the following applications Domingo Antonio Viñan AGNA, Sala IX, División Colonia, Permisos para edificar, legajo 11-1-1, doc. 174, 1787; José Riera AGNA, Sala IX, División Colonia, Permisos para edificar, legajo 10-8-8, doc. 320, 1785; and Pedro Díaz Chávez AGNA, Sala IX, División Colonia, Permisos para edificar, legajo 10-10-7, doc. 262, 1787.

61 AGNA, Sala IX, División Colonia, Permisos para edificar, legajo 11-1-1, doc. 133, 1787. For other, similar cases, see the applications made by Valeriano Estrada (AGNA, Sala IX, División Colonia, Permisos para edificar, legajo 10-10-7, doc. 70, 1785), or Antonio Fernández (AGNA, Sala IX, División Colonia, Permisos para edificar, legajo 10-10-6, doc. 79, 1785).

62 Some rented rooms in the Cabildo, paying eight pesos per month at the beginning of the Viceroyalty (AGNA, Sala IX, Acuerdos, Serie III, vol. V, book XL, fol. 1v, 15 April 1776). By 1779 the Cabildo considered raising this rent, mainly due to the high demand (Agna, Sala IX, Acuerdos, Serie III, vol. VI, book XLII, fol. 81, 28 April 1779).

63 AGNA, Sala IX, Colección Santa Coloma, Libro 648, Santa Coloma to Francisco Zeballos, 26 August 1803.

64 AGNA, Sala IX, División Colonia, Permisos para edificar, legajo 11-1-1, doc. 263, 1787.

65 Vandera, El lazarillo, p. 185.

66 See Weber, Max, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, trans. Henderson, A. M. and Parsons, Talcott (London, 1964), p. 324.Google Scholar