Fabrique urbaine: a new concept in urban history and morphology

Abstract

The concept of fabrique urbaine can be described as a socio-spatial process of development of ordinary towns and cities. Practices and representations of the residents and other users of urban areas must be first analysed as a series of historical moments, which may be termed ‘social temporalities’. Then the spatial structure of the town, especially its plots, the aggregation of plots into street blocks, and the street system, can be precisely described, but with its own temporalities, and only as the final result of the history of the inhabitants. The link between social history and urban morphology is in important respects indirect: social temporalities are not conscious steps in the process of the development of the urban fabric. Nevertheless, there is a dialectical interaction between these two orders of facts. This method of articulating the historical development of urban areas is illustrated by studies of French cities.