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Publié par | FLUX0 |
Publié le | 01 janvier 1990 |
Nombre de lectures | 95 |
Langue | English |
Poids de l'ouvrage | 1 Mo |
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Robert Fishman
Metropolis unbound: the new city of the twentieth century
In: Flux n°1, 1990. pp. 43-55.
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Fishman Robert. Metropolis unbound: the new city of the twentieth century. In: Flux n°1, 1990. pp. 43-55.
doi : 10.3406/flux.1990.1172
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/flux_1154-2721_1990_num_6_1_1172Résumé
Cet article met en évidence l'émergence d'un nouveau type de "ville-réseau" à la fin du XXième siècle:
ni urbain, ni suburbain, ni rural dans le sens traditionnel des termes, mais combinant les trois éléments.
A l'inverse de la ville ancienne qui occupait un espace définissable et comprenait un centre et une
périphérie, la nouvelle ville se définit par le temps plutôt que par l'espace. Dans la nouvelle ville, chaque
habitant crée sa propre ville en dehors de la multitude de destinations atteintes en voiture, en un temps
donné. Ainsi, la nouvelle ville ne correspond à aucun espace précis mais se construit à travers les
chevauchements des parcours des habitants. En outre, il n'y a aucun centre traditionnel. Par contre, les
fonctions urbaines se répartissent entre trois réseaux enchevêtrés: le réseau familial composé des
destinations propres à la vie privée; le réseau de consommation composé des centres commerciaux et
de loisirs; et le réseau de production, lieu d'exercice des services de fabrication et de bureaux. Ces
réseaux ne s'ordonnent pas selon des zones fonctionnelles mais se juxtaposent, permettant à un
immense centre corporatif d'être bordé de petites maisons et à un important "mega-mall" de longer des
champs de maïs.
Après avoir présenté la structure de la nouvelle ville, l'auteur s'interroge sur cène forme urbaine. Peut-
elle atteindre la complexité, la beauté et la diversité des grandes cités du passé ou est-elle vouée à une
trop grande densité pour être efficace et à une trop importante dispersion pour être vraiment urbaine?
R. FISHMAN se réfère aux grands prophètes américains de la décentralisation des années 1930, Frank
LLOYD WRIGHT et Lewis MUMFORD dont la vision de la ville décentralisée est néanmoins capable
d'embrasser les plus grandes valeurs des civilisations; puis l'auteur tente de montrer que la nouvelle
ville peut se reconstruire peu à peu pour refléter cette vision. le réseau familial composé des
destinations propres à la vie privée; le réseau de consommation composé des centres commerciaux et
de loisirs; et le réseau de production, lieu d'exercice des services de fabrication et de bureaux. Ces
réseaux ne s'ordonnent pas selon des zones fonctionnelles mais se juxtaposent, permettant à un
immense centre corporatif d'être bordé de petites maisons et à un important "mega-mall" de longer des
champs de maïs.
Après avoir présenté la structure de la nouvelle ville, l'auteur s'interroge sur cène forme urbaine. Peut-
elle atteindre la complexité, la beauté et la diversité des grandes cités du passé ou est-elle vouée à une
trop grande densité pour être efficace et à une trop importante dispersion pour être vraiment urbaine?
R. FISHMAN se réfère aux grands prophètes américains de la décentralisation des années 1930, Frank
LLOYD WRIGHT et Lewis MUMFORD dont la vision de la ville décentralisée est néanmoins capable
d'embrasser les plus grandes valeurs des civilisations; puis l'auteur tente de montrer que la nouvelle
ville peut se reconstruire peu à peu pour refléter cette vision.
Abstract
This paper argues that the late twentieth century has seen the emergence of a new kind of "network
city:" neither urban, nor suburban, nor rural in the traditional senses, but combining elements of all
three. Unlike an older city that occupied a definable space and had a clear center and periphery, the
new city is defined by time rather than space. In the new city each citizen creates his or her own city out
of the multitude of destinations that can be reached in a reasonable time by automobile. The new city
thus corresponds to no particular space, but is formed by the overlapping journeys of the citizens.
Moreover, there is no traditional center; instead, the urban functions are distributed among three
overlapping networks: the household network composed of those destinations that support personal life;
the "network of consumption" composed of shopping and leisure centers; and "network of production"
where manufacturing and office services are performed. These networks do not sort themselves out into
functional zones but juxtapose so that a huge corporate center might be bordered by small houses, and
a massive "mega-mall set down next to corn fields.
Having put forward a structure for the new city, I then consider whether this new urban form can attain
the complexity, beauty and diversity of the great cities of the past, or whether it is doomed to be too
dense to be efficient and too dispersed to be genuinely urban. I return to the great American prophets of
decentralization from the 1930s, Frank Lloyd Wright and Lewis Mumford, for a vision of a decentralized
city that is nevertheless capable of embodying the highest values of civilizations; and I attempt to show
how the new city can be gradually re-built to reflect this vision.METROPOLIS UNBOUND:
THE NEW CITY OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
The big dty," Frank Lloyd Wright announced prophetically
in 1923, "is no longer modern." Although his forecast of a
coping age of urban decentralization was ignored by his
contemporaries, we can now see that Wright and few
Robert FISHMAN, is professor of his fellow-prophets understood the fragility of the great be
hemoth - the centralized industrial metropolis - that tory at Rutgers University, Camden,
New Jersey, where be is researching a seemed to embody and define the modernity of the twent
book on urban decentralization ten ieth century. These capital cities of the industrial revolut
tatively titled Metropolis Unbound: ion, with New York and Chicago at their head, were built
The New City of the Twentieth Cent to last. Their very form, as captured in the 1920s in the
ury. famous diagrams of the Chicago School of Sociology,
seemed to possess a logic that was permanent. At the core
was the "central business district," the skyscraper locale of
wealth, power and sophistication; surrounding the core was
the factory zone, the dense region of reinforced concrete
factories and crowded workers* housing; and finally, a small
ring of affluent middle class suburbs occupied the outskirts.
These were the triumphant cities whose allure was still
draining the countryside and small towns of the world of
their populations, catapulting millions into those urban-
industrial centers that were the heartland of modem life.
But modernism is a process of constant upheaval and self-
destruction. Just when the centralized metropolis was at its
zenith, a set of powerful social and economic forces was
combining to create an irresistible tide of decentralization
that would tear asunder the logic of its tight-knit circles and
distribute its prized functions over whole regions. The
urban history of the last half-century is a record of this
superficially, the process might be called "the rise of the
suburb." The term "suburb," however, inevitably suggests
the affluent and restricted "bedroom communities" such as
New York's Scandale or Chicago's North Shore that first
took shape on the edge of the nineteenth century metropoli
s. These nineteenth century suburbs established the model
of the single-family house on its own landscaped grounds as
the ideal middle-class residence, just as they establish-
FLUX 1 Spring 1990 44
ed the roles of commuter and housewife as social ways and tract houses, shopping malls and office
models for upper middle class men and women. parks, that Americans have built for themselves
But these archetypical suburbs were limited zones since 1945. As exemplified by such areas as
of privilege that strictly banned almost all industry Silicon Valley in northern California, Route 128
and commerce and excluded not only the working outside Boston, the Route One corridor between
class but even the bulk of the middle class. The Princeton and New Brunswick, New Jersey, Du
traditional suburb therefore remained an elite Page County west of Chicago, Route 285 north of
Atlanta, the northern Virginia district that surenclave completely dependent on the central dry
for its economic base and essential services. rounds Tysons Comer, or the immense region
that stretches along the southern California coast
Since 1945, however, the relationship between the from Los Angeles to San Diego, the new city
urban core and the suburban periphery has includes the most dynamic elements in our na
undergone a startling t