Modelling the Internal Micro Structure of Grid Patterned Cities: Vienna’s Gründerzeit Structure and Barcelona’s Pla Cerdá

Abstract

The Urban Parterre Modelling UPM-method goes far beyond cadastral studies. As conventional cadastral maps merely show building perimeters, they contain no information about the city’s internal structure—about the complex interplay of architecture and its socio-economical use. Thus urban planning seems to spare little thought for what really takes place inside the buildings lining a street, although we perfectly know that the potentials of ground floor use and the structure of the correlating public street space are directly related.