International Seminar on Urban Form - Glossary

Background

This Glossary was compiled by Peter Larkham and Andrew Jones in the late 1980s, first as an internal discussion paper at the University of Birmingham, and subsequently published as a Research Monograph by the Historical Geography Research Group of the Institute of British Geographers (ISBN 1 870074 08 4).

At that time, we felt that the nature of research in urban morphology was developing rapidly, as were contacts with like-minded scholars in several countries. The volume of published research was increasing. It was becoming evident that a lack of knowledge of the terminology used in different countries was an increasing obstacle to understanding what was being published. As Ivor Samuels wrote in 1990,

'It is one of the attractions of the nexus of concepts, ideas and approaches that occupy the field of urban morphology that they are capable of being appropriated for use by different professions in different contexts who seek to use them for their own purposes. Choay and Merlin (1986) ... complain about this. Everyone seemed to be discussing something different and there was very little common ground or methodological base, quite apart from language problems. This, however, is one of the strengths of morphology. It is open to approach by various disciplines with their own methods and any attempts to restrict or strait-jacket the discourse could stifle it' (pp. 433-434).

Hence we compiled a basic glossary of technical terms common principally in English-language studies. We took as a basis M.R.G. Conzen's own glossary in the revised second edition of his Alnwick study (1969), extending it with terms found in other publications and theses. We felt it necessary, rather as the Oxford English Dictionary does, to give precise citations and indeed quotations from works which have used particular terms in particular ways, to establish context and provenance for usage.

With the growth of ISUF as an international organisation from 1994, and the identification of a series of national 'schools' (Moudon, 1997), comes the opportunity to develop and broaden this Glossary. However, that is still very much work-in-progress, and meantime the 1990 Glossary has been placed on this website (with the permission of the Royal Geographical Society/Institute of British Geographers). It has been found particularly useful for students and those new to the subject - but they (and all other users) should be aware of its limitations!

Any comments, suggestions, new terms and definitions are very welcome please e-mail peter.larkham at uce.ac.uk