World Exhibitions and Changes in the Urban Morphology of Seville

Abstract

The aim of this article is to identify and interpret with mathematical exactitude the difference between the effects of interventions that were carried out in the urban structure morphology of Seville on the occasion of organising world exhibitions, with an emphasis on the operationalisation of three levels of resolution. The comparative method was used to analyse changes in the generative elements of the basic morphological unit, urban tissue and components of the urban structure composition generated by interventions at the locations of the exhibitions held in 1929 and 1992. The analysis was performed by metric and/or topological quantification, or qualification of the generative elements built diachronically. Third level indicators point to the possibility of quantification and qualification of interaction indicators of urban structures with urban systems at the fourth level of resolution. The application of more than twenty indicators of the urban morphology elements built diachronically on the occasion of the same type of event (a world exhibition), on the same object (Seville), enables the operationalization and scientific evaluation of the spatial changes. Since current studies focus more on analysing of urban morphology at different levels of resolution this article attempts to contribute to urban morphology theory by linking different levels of resolution with a larger number of indicators. The approach to the third level resolution analysis specifically points to the originality of the research, trying to give that level greater significance and to extend the basis for analysing the fourth level of urban morphology resolution.