Lights in the Territory. Maritime Safety and New Architectures for a Enlightened Montevideo

Abstract

This paper studies projects and works of lighthouses that were designed or built in the territories of the current Uruguay from late eighteenth century to the end of the domination of the Spanish crown. This study is based on historical graphic image and, specially, in the documentation that is kept in the Archive of the Indies, this last related with the headlights of the island of Flores and Cerro de Montevideo. The analysis of the data reveals the importance of enlightened program of the monarchy, in the context of the activity of military engineers and historical competition between the ports of Buenos Aires and Montevideo by maritime and commercial role of the Rio de la Plata. The effort that show these projects and documentation that is related with them is going to place these American lighthouses in the same conceptual and technical level than other peninsular and European examples of this time.