Some unexpected trajectories of urban morphology in France

Abstract

This paper is not UN update of Darin's account on the study of urban form in France in 1998. Rather, it's a complement to it, dealing with two overlooked issues that produced unexpected trajectories for urban morphology in France. The first is Merlin's 1988 publication of an important book on urban morphology and plot systems, after the organization of an international conference on the subject. Produced at the request of the French Ministry of Urbanism, this work was extremely critical of the emerging field of urban morphology and exerted a long-lasting negative influence on its development in France, namely in the field of urban planning. The second is the contribution to urban morphology by theoretical and quantitative geographers. Much of this contribution is indeed posterior to Darin's account, but it shows that the study of urban form can now count on two different traditions in France: finer scale and design-oriented urban morphology within the schools of architecture and larger scale, sometimes trans-scale, computer-aided urban morphology from quantitative geography. Huge potential lies in engaging collaborations among these two traditions.