Arturo Soria Y Mata (Architect and Engineer)
be kiosks and shops, and in the centre
 Born in Madrid in 1844, lived in Madrid
most of his life and died in La Ciudad
Lineal in 1920
 A linear streetcar suburb of Madrid that
he and his associates created as a pilot 
"linear city"
 In 1875 - Established first tramline
 Invented a urban telephone network
(According to his entry in Enciclopedia
Universal Ilustrada - Espasa-Calpe S.A.,
Madrid-Barcelona, 1927)
 In 1894, he got initial approval for
a "railway-tram" and he was also
advocate of a subway system for
Madrid.  Development with Housing and
Idea of Arturo Soria Y Mata of the Linear City
(1882)
 It's is a replaced the traditional idea of
the city as a centre and a periphery with
the idea of constructing linear sections
of infrastructure- roads, railways, gas,
water, etc.
 As compared to the concentric
diagrams of Ebenezer Howard and
other, Soria's linear city creates the
infrastructure for a controlled process
of expansion that joins one growing city
to the next in a rational way, instead of
letting them both spawl.
Linear City: A step away from city Nucleus
 He was the first of a series of planners
who have refused the conventional city
nucleus for an extended type of a
regional plan.
The Distinctive Characteristics of "Linear City"
 Soria theorized a single developed strip
in the north east of Madrid City of no
more than 500 metres in width, with a
central tram and roadway and
residential and commercial plots.
 The intersections of which there would
of which there would be schools,
hospitals, courtrooms.
o No point in the city would be
more than a few hundred
metres from the countryside.
o Moreover, this five hundred
metre strip could be as long as
humanity required.
The Linear City
 It's goal is to expand the city along the
spine of transport
 It is a Conscious Form of Urban
Industry Growing Along the highway
between existing cities and contained
by the continuous open space of the
rural countryside.
Advantages
 high accessibility
 adaptibity to linear growth
 useful along the limited
edge
Disadvantages
 very sensitive to blockage
requires control of growth
 lacks focus
 The choice of connection or
of direction of movement
are much less.
La Ciudad Lineal (Linear City)
 a district in Madrid, Spain
 It comes from the model of
organization by Arturo Soria, the linear
city, based on the idea of the line.
 Proposed to unite the old cities with
new development elongated 500m
wide, with a central line of 40m wide by
circulating the train.
  The growth of the city must always be Existing Services:
longitudinal and parallel to the main
 Provided space for vegetables gardens
road.
and groceries.
 The total area of the city, a fifth would
be for housing and the rest in part to  Paid attention to leisure, culture and
sports.
the industry, but especially for
agriculture. INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION PROBLEMS:
 In each family plot 400 sq. m were
provided, 80 sq. m for the house and Two theories to solve the problems:
320 sq. m for a garden-garden.
 Naturistic Theory: Each house should
 This model only took place in Madrid,
have a garden and an orchard
with 700 single-family homes over 5km
 Hygenist Theory: To improve city
in 1920 housed 4,000 inhabitants (now
sanitary conditions of the city. by
Calle Arturo Soria).
building wider streets and building new
 The construction began in 1894 and one
types of housing.
5 kilometer section was completed in
o Most important objective:
the 1910's-- a linear suburb of fairly
 Combine nature and
dense low-rise housing all along the axis
city
of a combined railway/ tramway/
boulevard. New Housing Plan:
The Objectives of "Linear City"  To act upon these objectives, Soria
introduced two types of order:
 Unwind the city of Madrid by making
o Detached Housing
the city more rural and making the
countryside more urban. o Semi-detached Housing
 Turn Madrid into a more  Death (Arturo Soria)
human city, a city which was 
closer to nature.   He died in November 6,1920 at the age
 Solve some of the problems that of 75 in La Ciudad Lineal.
Madrid had at that time:  After the death of Arturo Soria, C.M.U.
transportion, over-population and (Compania Madrillena de Urbanizacion-
sanitary conditions.  company in charge of Linear City
project) went through a period of
His Achievements in "Linear City" economical crisis. Due to this, the
New services: original idea was changed.
 As time passed, the price of the ground
 He established a transportation increased and building became very
network by founding the first tramline expensive.
at Madrid in 1875, streetcar  Today the only remains of the linear city
connections within the city and also are the central line of the main street
was an advocate of a subway system to and some middle-class houses.
connect Madrid City with its suburbs.
 He invented urban telephone networks
and introduced steam power to the
city.
EXAMPLES OF LINEAR CITY available in a regular orthogonal grid
occupying a very important part of the
The Cité Linéaire Belge (Linear City Project, right bank of the Seine.
Belgium)
 Plan Voisin is called for 18 cruciform
 Hilarión Gonzalez del Castillo's glass office towers, placed on a
proposed Belgian Linear City of 1919. rectangular grid in an enormous park-
It's description of the Cité Linéaire like green space, with triple-tiered
Belge’s city center shows its importance pedestrian malls with stepped terraces
in structuring the entire plan. placed intermittently between them.
 Its social and economic profile Extending perpendicularly to the west,
conforms to the contemporary there would be an adjacent rectangle of
metropolis: low-rise residential, governmental, and
All urban agglomeration is a living cultural buildings amid more green
organism. As the human organism has space.
a heart that pumps blood and carries
activity, life and movement to the
whole body, so the city needs a center
of activity that irradiates urban life and
business life. The planned heart of the
Cité Linéaire Belge, which I have named
Forum, will have, like the ancient roman
forum, a triple aspect of place of
amusement, center of public life and
business center. (H. G. del Castillo,
1919, p. 14)

Hilarión Gonzalez del Castillo

 A Spanish diplomat/planner
 Worked closely with Arturo Soria y
Mata in the development of the Linear
City theory
 In 1919, he presents his own version of
a linear city: the Cité Linéaire Belge,
having as main characteristic the
addition of a fully functional center.

Plan Voisin for Paris

 The Plan Voisin is a solution for the

center of Paris, drawn between 1922
and 1925 by Le Corbusier. 
 The plan for 1925 seems to be a direct
transposition of the diagram of
Contemporary City for three million
drawn in 1922. Included are buildings