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The new town of Angra (Terceira, the Azores): confirming a contested urban planning history using reverse historical analysis and flood modelling tools

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 February 2020

Antonieta Leite Open the ORCID record for Antonieta Leite [Opens in a new window]  and
João Leitão
Antonieta Leite*
Affiliation:
Centre for Social Studies (CES), University of Coimbra, Colégio de São Jerónimo, Largo D. Dinis, apartado 3087, 3000–995 Coimbra, Portugal
João Leitão
Affiliation:
Department of Urban Water Management, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag), Überlandstrasse 133, 8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

The Portuguese discovered the uninhabited Azores archipelago in 1427 and started to settle it during the fifteenth century. Angra, located on Terceira Island, soon became the most important Azorean city, leading to rapid urban development. This article investigates the overlooked role of streams in the rise of Angra as a pivotal Atlantic urban centre. Through the intersection of historical and flood modelling methods, it makes a unique contribution to our understanding of Angra's urban morphologic development, highlighting the potential of applying urban flood modelling to analysis of the rise of coastal urban settlement.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 48 , Issue 1 , February 2021 , pp. 20 - 36
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

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Footnotes

†

The research for this article was supported by the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation under the Strategic Project (UID / SOC / 50012/2019).

References

1 Henceforth referred to as Angra, since the adjective Heroísmo, which means heroic, was only added in the nineteenth century.

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3 Funchal, on the island of Madeira, was founded as a town half a century earlier and elevated to a city in 1508; however, its development was apparently not the outcome of such rigorous urban planning. Nevertheless, this is an issue that needs more study, and only future analyses can cast new light on the evolution of Funchal's urban morphology.

4 Only three towns were founded on the mainland after those reigns, until the eighteenth century, namely, Vila Nova de Portimão 1463, Vila Nova de Mil Fontes 1486 and Caldas da Rainha 1488.

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17 Ibid..

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21 A theory presented in Fernandes, J.M., Angra do Heroísmo (Lisbon, 1989)Google Scholar, 38, and developed in Fernandes, J.M., Cidades e casas da macaronésia (Porto, 1996), 178–85Google Scholar. Fernandes, J.M., Angra do Heroísmo: aspectos urbano-arquitectónicos (Angra do Heroísmo, 2008)Google Scholar, 39.

22 A hydrological catchment is an area in which water falling on or flowing across the land surface drains into a particular water stream and flows ultimately through a single point or outlet. Bales, R.C., ‘Hydrology, floods and droughts: overview’, in North, G.R., Pyle, J.A. and Zhang, F. (eds.), Encyclopedia of Atmospheric Sciences (Amsterdam, 2015), 180–4. DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-12-382225-3.00166-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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25 UNESCO Central Zone of the Town of Angra do Heroismo in the Azores, 1983–2014. http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/206/documents/, accessed 9 Jan. 2018.

26 Leite, A.R., Açores cidade e território. Quatro vilas estruturantes (Angra do Heroísmo, 2014), 47–162Google Scholar.

27 Ibid.

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29 This is our own translation from Portuguese. In the original: ‘se abrirão os alicerces da Igreja pellos annos de 1637…Estes pela banda do Leste que confronta com a rua do Marquez se achou o Centro deles nas primeiras superfícies tão mal seguro que denotarão serem compostos de hu emundice occazionada dos enchentes das ribeiras que provinhão dos altos da Cidade, e que atulharão aquele cham, que el algum tempo fora vale, e tanto assim he que tradição antiga, que o lugar em que hoie existe a Praça d Angra contiguo com o colégio era alagoa.’ Maldonado, M.L. [1644–1711], Fenix Angrense, vol. III (Angra do Heroísmo, 1989), 160Google Scholar.

30 According to Frutuoso, by the end of the sixteenth century Angra had 300 masons and 150 wood workers (namely for shipbuilding). Frutuoso, Livro VI saudades da terra, 14.

31 The channelled stream can still be partially seen in Angra´s town plan in our own day, in the interior of the east urban blocks of Rua Direita in the city centre.

32 This is our own translation from Portuguese. In the original: ‘Afora a ribeira do Telhal, que corre pela parte do oriente, perto da freiguesia da Concepção, pelo meio desta cidade corre outra grossa ribeira de água, a qual vem ter ao porto, com que se regam muitos jardins que nela há e moem doze moinhos dentro, na cidade, que são serventia de toda esta parte do sul, a qual ribeira procede de várias fontes, que estão quase uma légua da cidade contra uma grande serra, e ao pé dela mesma nasce outra fonte, de muita cópia de água, com arca fechada, da qual por canos vem ter à cidade e se reparte por quatro principais chafarizes, afora outro que sai junto do cais, donde se provêem todos os navegantes e armadas; e, além disso, se reparte por todos os mosteiros e algumas casas principais, com que fica a cidade muito fresca e abundante; de modo que são por todos doze chafarizes.’ Frutuoso, Livro VI saudades da terra, 14.

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40 Ibid., 163–5, 173–6.

41 Arruda, Colecção de documentos relativos ao descobrimento e povoamento dos Açores, 163–5, 173–6.

42 This is our own translation from Portuguese. In the original: ‘he provida com tanta abundancia de agua, que quando a Cidade quer, faz vir tal ribeyra della, que entrando nas largas ruas, por as calçadas dellas corre entre os ladrilhos, deyxando-os feccos, & vai parar ao mar, & o mefmo também fuccede quando chove muyto’. Cordeiro, História insulana das ilhas a Portugal sugeytas no oceano occidental, 274–5.

43 Ibid., 274–5.

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49 For example, a two-year return period rainfall event occurs, on average, once every two years. The longer the return period, the less likely the rainfall event is to occur and the higher its intensity.

50 A return period, also known as a recurrence interval, is a statistical average time or an statistical estimated average time between events, such as floods, to occur.

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53 Leite, ‘A sé de Angra’.

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56 In ibid., respectively 306–16, 387–404, 460–76.

57 Leite, Açores cidade e território, 163–229.

58 For such studies, see Fernandes, Angra do Heroísmo: aspectos urbano-arquitectónicos, 39.