Historical cartography as a tool to study urban change. The case of Garriga i Roca’s quarterons

Abstract

In the year 1858 the Barcelona City Council commissioned the architect Miquel Garriga i Roca with the creation of a topographic map of the city confined within the city walls. As a result he produced 119 very detailed maps with a scale of 1:250 which are
known as the “Quarterons Garriga i Roca”. Due to their high level of detail and geometric quality these plans are a window to the past which can be used by scholars to study how Barcelona was. By using GIS these maps can be integrated with current cartography and therefore analyse in detail how the city’s urban fabric has changed in the last 150 years. By using a series of selected quarterons this paper explores which is the best method to integrate past and current cartography and which challenges must be overcome in
order to do it successfully.

Keywords: Quarterons, Barcelona, GIS, Historical Cartography.