The Urban Form as Palimpsesto Sociocultural in Hispano Andinas Cities of Peru

Abstract

The conformation of cities is not isolated events, neither in space nor in time; one of the paths that enable their understanding is the study of their geometric patterns and archetypes behind which we can interpret the underlying social and cultural implications of ideologies and ways of life; each stroke refers to a conception of the world in time. The Andean cities of Peru owe much of their genesis and consolidation to European thought of the sixteenth century characterized by its pendular trajectory between the statements of Christianity and Renaissance ideals confronted and carried to the stroke by means of string and rule in territories that by their characteristics demanded a memory of their complex settlements; in spite of this, contained in their configuration, visible elements of cohesion and socio-cultural syncretism of rooting and influence for the others that later settled. The research is carried out in three main cities (Cajamarca, Jauja and Cusco), through an analytical historical methodology that analyzes traces of multiple scriptures, legible in their urban architectural warp amalgamated for centuries and that have been conforming various palimpsests. These urban hypertexts have been undermined by incessant anthropic erosion and banalization of their spaces; however, they show unique characteristics that turned into strengths can mitigate tendencies towards urban aporías due to the inertia in front of the desire to follow the questionable way of the big cities.