The study of urban form in Canada

Abstract

This paper examines contributions to the study of urban form in Canada by French and English researchers working in a variety of disciplines, especially architecture, planning, geography, and history. Instead of discussing contributions purely along traditional linguistic or disciplinary lines, the authors use a novel classification scheme to identify and categorize significant works according to their particular epistemological perspective, before describing noteworthy contributions of various academic disciplines by key authors and research themes. The most significant contributions to the study of urban form in Canada have come from two largely isolated camps: first, architects/planners, mostly from Québec, who examine form as a relatively independent system and work in the tradition of the so-called ‘Italian school’ of process typology; and secondly, predominantly anglophone urban and historical geographers who deal with built forms and urban morphogenesis as a product of external forces. Recent work suggests that the ‘two solitudes’ may be coming together.