Dobrina Zheleva-Martins
First Steps Towards Modernization and Europeanization of Bulgarian Town-Planning
Summary
The study focuses on the modernization of town-planning in the major Bulgarian cities that took place during the 19th century, shortly before and after Bulgaria’s Liberation from the Turkish Rule.
The change in the town-planning paradigm is described on the basis of a synchronic analysis of the street and cadastral maps of Sofia, Plovdiv, Rousse, Varna, Stara Zagora, Bourgas, Kyustendil, Veliko Turnovo and Vidin, as well as diachronic analyses of the same cities, conducted in previous research projects.
The study traces the invariants in the articulation of the urban fabric which emerged as the result of urban continuity and historic tradition and which ensured the cities’ identity, as well as the various new things that revolutionized and modernized the urban structure.
The text is illustrated with plans and schemes.
The study will attract the interest for people involved in the history of urban culture, town-planning and architecture, the problems of modernity, modernization and europeanization and their advance in the life and culture of the Bulgarians.
