New Forms for New Spaces:

Benjumeda and the Food Market of Puerto Real

Abstract

The location of the dossier and the initial plan of the project for the construction of the Puerto Real food market, the work of the architect Torcuato José Benjumeda, will allow us to analyse the development of this typology in the context of the Enlightenment in the Bay of Cadiz. The construction process, which lasted from 1792 to 1798 and in which Antonio Ruiz Florindo was the master builder, will be an interesting example of the management procedure followed in the construction of public buildings, in this case municipal buildings, during this period. Likewise, of the contradictions generated between the project "thought up" and the building constructed, and of the decisions taken in the face of the difficulties that arose. Puerto Real, in the geographical and cultural context of the Bay of Cádiz, thus became the recipient of the trial of a typological formula that had been attempted to be developed in the surrounding area but which only materialised in this city, being, moreover, a notable antecedent of the great food market of Cádiz, also the work of Benjumeda. This architect's typological essay, which dominated the so-called neoclassical architecture, was extended with another project, this time for a slaughterhouse that was not finally built, but which also marks an interesting spatial design for buildings that are, shall we call them, pre-industrial.