Dissolving Urban Boundaries: Spaces of opportunity in European cities in the era of defortification, c. 1750 to 1920

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The main question concerns the potential for change emerging in cities forsaking the military fortifications they had relied on for centuries. In order to grasp the historical dimension and complexity of the concomitant dissolution of urban boundaries (a topic which has received too little scholarly attention hitherto), the study compares various European cities. The spatial recoding caused by this fundamental transformation of urban boundaries is analysed on the basis of three paradigmatic, interrelated subprojects: entrance plazas, green spaces, and hygiene zones. The abundance of literature devoted to them in various disciplines is systematically evaluated for the first time. Spaces of opportunity arose for new activities for urban society, strengthening the bonds between the city and the surrounding countryside, and simultaneously reshaping the city’s traditional internal existence. Bringing together the disciplines of architectural history, the history of urban planning, and the history of gardening, this collective monograph examines the three subprojects from a common standpoint. The goal is to produce a focused, problem-based account of defortification as a process of the dissolution of urban boundaries throughout Europe.