Urbanism, tourism, and academic-government cooperation in dictatorship:

a urban plan for Punta del Este (1975-1977)

Abstract

The article reviews an experience of assistance and cooperation between the Institute of Theory of Architecture and Urbanism of the Faculty of Architecture, Universidad de la República, and the Municipality of Maldonado (Uruguay) between 1975 and 1977. In the context of a military dictatorship and an intervened public university, this process allows us to appreciate the crisis of Western urbanism in the 1970s, from the Latin American and Rio de la Plata’s specific perspective. The dispute for the leadership of the planning process between a declining planning technocracy and a local government that faces the largest flow of real estate investments in history in the country's main seaside resort is recounted.