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the cases of Saint Petersburg, Washington, Paris and Brasilia. These examples are relevant in this context, not so much (or not only) because of the new and advanced urban planning concepts that guided them, but above all because of the system of technological innovations employed. Often invisible to the visitor’s eye, these allowed them to be built as planned and still allow these great capital cities to function today. The Tsar’s dream: Saint Petersburg Swedish settlers built the Nyenskans Fortress at the mouth of the River Neva71, on the site of present-day Saint Petersburg, in 1611. It was Tsar Peter the Great at the end of the 17th century who recognized that Russia needed an open trading port to Europe72: he decided to found the Peter and Paul Fortress on the site of the fortress captured from the Swedes. For the construction of the new city, tens of thousands of peasants were literally conscripted and deported from all over Russia and put to work as the Crown of Castile, the original Muslim defensive wall was extended to accommodate the new neighbourhoods created after the Reconquista. In the 15th century, the city expanded beyond the walls, reaching around 12 000 inhabitants by the beginning of the 16th century. In order to accommodate the large number of inhabitants, an additional area was formed, called Arrabal (today’s Plaza Mayor), which incorporated all the areas that had been populated since the 12th century on the outskirts of the Christian district. From the moment it became the seat of the Spanish court under Felipe II, the city with its 15 000 inhabitants began to grow exponentially, covering an area of 125 hectares with eight gateways. Magro Á. B., Carvajal O. L. E. 1989, Madrid, de territorio fronterizo a región metropolitana, «España. Autonomías», Espasa Calpe, pp. 517-615. 71 Hosking G. 2001, Russia and the Russians: A History from Rus to the Russian Federation, Belknap Press, London. 72 “It needed a better seaport than the country’s main port at the time, Arkhangelsk, which was on the White Sea in the far north and closed for shipping during the winter”, Hughes.
