THE STREET AS URBAN SCENOGRAPHY. THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF CALLE LARIOS AND CALLE ALCAZABILLA IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Abstract

Contrary to the private world, the streets, as the primary structure of the city, are one of the main meeting places for its inhabitants. Designed to connect different points, their layout, development and conformation reflect their city, the complexity of their functions and the society that builds, uses and enjoys them. In this sense, the analysis of the transformations that two of the main streets in the historic centre of the city of Malaga, Calle Larios and Calle Alcazabilla, have undergone during the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, serves as an example to study how lifestyles have evolved in the last 130 years, and how currently important concepts, such as heritage and mobility, have been changing.

The construction of a street normally stems from an urban intention, and responds to a historical moment in our case studies. Calle Larios initially responded to a canonical strategy of nineteenth-century urban transformation, while Calle Alcazabilla was built more by chance and evolution through history, although their purposes finally converge at the beginning of the 21st century.