Cartagena was once the jewel of the Spanish Main, the great galleon port from which the wealth of the Indies was taken to Europe. Miraculously, it was preserved in the nineteenth century and much of its character remains today, so much so that it has become a UNESCO World Heritage site. But it faces threats from ill-considered modern development. Jim Antoniou, who wrote the article and drew the illustrations, argues that the city should be saved, but alive and with the cooperation of local communities, not just as a picturesque tourist attraction.

IF YOU PLACE your palms side by side like an open book, you have a plan of Cartagena de Indias on Colombia's Caribbean Coast, one of the most impressive survivors of the Spanish-colonial period. Your left palm corresponds to the island of Gatsemani, while your right is Calamari, the walled town laced with castellated bastions. In this compact area (about the size of London's Regent's Park), some 10 000 people reside, compared to Cartagena's one million inhabitants.

The narrow triangular area between your palms is La Matuna (or 'the fish pond'), now filled in and spiked with tall office buildings that tower above the historic city. A modern island surrounded by historic buildings, La Matuna is the sore thumb in our analogy, although it helps to relieve commercial pressure within the historic districts on either side. Along the tips of your fingers is the Bocagrande peninsula, where hotels line up on the dramatic skyline, imitating Miami in miniature.

Today, Cartagena is a living museum of 400 years of architecture. Its symbolic significance is recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site and a treasure of mansions built around courtyards, punctuated with majestic churches in intimate squares, all of which have survived for more than 300 years. Walking around the streets, the city's undeniable appeal is its fertile life style. The narrow, irregular paths provide shelter from the tropical sun, while overhanging balconies almost touch across busy streets, inviting breeze inside splendid houses. On the city walls, the bastions have become the popular rendezvous for lovers and local people refer to them as 'stone beds'. The massive San Filipe fort still stands, strategically over San Lazaro Hill.

CARTAGENA HAS A UNIQUE ARCHITECTURAL IDENTITY and contains many charming buildings of significance. A walk through the historic core can be the same exhilarating experience it must have been centuries ago. Crucial to the city is the need to protect not just individual buildings of significance, but the entire urban context and distinctive sense of place of the historic area. This can ensure that the whole city can be kept alive, with its economic base rejuvenated and its links to the surrounding modern city reinforced.
Another important consideration is the development of vacant land around the periphery of the historic core. The blending of the old, with its patina of age and modern new developments conceived on a large and alien scale (eg La Matuna commercial area) is a major challenge to be faced in Cartagena. Careful planning and design are needed along the Bay of Cartagena and the new development of Chambacu, which has just started.

As early as 1502, Rodrigo de Bastidas discovered Colombia's Atlantic coast, sighting a closed bay, similar to the one at Cartagena in Spain. In Latin America, Cartagena's historic development can be traced to 1533, when the city was founded on the shore of the open sea by Don Pedro de Heredia from Madrid, taking advantage of its natural port and strategic location. The small Yurbaco Indian population that lived on the island of Calamari quickly fled when the conquistadores arrived. The Spanish prepared a plan for a settlement based on a simple outline of streets and a plaza. At first, primitive cottages of timber and straw with palm roofs were built on assigned plots, vulnerable to tropical rains from the heavy north winds, as well as frequent fires.

However, it was quickly realized that this strategic location could play a crucial role as a commercial centre and as a port of immense wealth, for loading treasures from other parts of Latin America for the Spanish crown. No other city in Hispanic America kept such close ties with Spain, particularly Seville. Cartagena became the most important port in the New World. Galleons from Spain called at Cartagena on their way to Portohelo on the Isthmus of Panama to sell their goods, picking up riches from Peru before returning to Spain. The galleons would remain in Cartagena at least six months and sometimes a whole year. Local shipyards undertook repairs and merchants provided supplies, making Cartagena a warehouse for Spanish trade. The city also had the dubious distinction of being granted a royal monopoly, becoming Latin America's first port for African slaves.

After Francis Drake (still considered here as a braggart and a pirate) practically destroyed the town over a period of two months in 1586, Philip II sent military engineers, a massive import of slaves from Africa and a great deal of money to prepare plans to practically rebuild the city and protect the port. During the first hundred years, the city's development pattern was established, with religious and civic buildings, houses and convents inside the walls.

This was at a time when Spanish settlers entered the Caribbean Islands, Mexico and central and South America in increasing numbers. The selection of sites for settlements became a major task of exploration. Phillip II in 1573 enacted the 'Laws of the Indies', which established uniform standards and procedures for planning towns and their surroundings. The anonymous author of these regulations detailed the selection of a suitable site, the location of important buildings and spaces and the distribution of living areas. The Laws were certainly among the most important documents in the history of urban development and influenced the layout of many cities in the Americas.

INITIALLY, THE SETTLEMENT IN CARTAGENA developed following a pattern of paths, leading to wells and collection areas for drinking water. This established the irregular street network and varied plot subdivisions, while adapting the regulations provided in the Laws of the Indies. The city prospered and developed. Many houses, often with small frontages and deep plots, were provided. Churches were also sited and by 1690, convents became prominent landmarks. The Spanish avoided the harsh climatic conditions by providing buildings which looked inwards to landscaped courtyards. The focus of the town was the port market, from which narrow streets with overhanging balconies radiated to Plaza Mayor, adjacent to the cathedral.

Even so, Cartagena was repeatedly attacked and battered, first by Baron Pointis of France in 1697, who left the city in a state of ruin. Some 40 years later, Britain decided to strike at the very heart of the Spanish Empire and Edward Vernon arrived with 180 British ships and more than 23 000 men and virtually destroyed the city.
During the late eighteenth century, Charles II ordered a new plan from Spain, using the protection offered by water. Cartagena's hostile environment was used for experiments in defence works, leading to the spectacular fortifications which still stand, by renowned Spanish military engineer Antonio de Arevalo y Pores. Massive forts and batteries were strategically placed around port and city. Ironically, these impregnable bastions were later used by patriots to fight for independence from Spain.

In 1815, Spain recaptured Cartagena, after a long siege. By 1821, Cartagena was the first Colombian city to declare its independence from Spain and later, Simon Bolivar, the liberator of Colombia called the city 'La Heroica', commemorating its struggle. In the process, it lost its commercial importance and depression set in. At the beginning of this century, Cartagena had a population of some 9000 with the buildings inside the walls largely abandoned or destroyed.

A hundred years ago, many well-to-do families decided to leave the walled city and look for a healthier environment. They went to Manga island, south-east of Calamari and built fashionable Neo-Classical and even Oriental houses laid out with tropical gardens along wide streets. Some of these houses still stand today, although gradually they are disappearing to make way for dense new developments. Meanwhile, many of the residences in Calamari, abandoned by their original owners were taken over by poor families and turned into inquilinatos: houses divided into dwellings for many families, creating communities with their own vitality. Parts of the fortifications were demolished for new development in the 1920s and controversy followed until 1959 when the city was declared a national monument. Cartagena continued to develop towards the south and northwest of the historic city.