2. Urban Forms and Mixed-Use Development: A History of the Evolution of Urban Form - Jacques Lucan

Urban Planning Study Context
📌 The speaker conducted a study for the City of Paris Urban Planning Directorate with two main objectives: to understand urban development over the last 30-35 years and to analyze recent trends.
📐 The analysis focused on identifying common elements across various urban operations rather than individual cases.
🏙️ The core recurring element examined throughout the city's history, from Roman times onward, is the "îlot" (city block), whose constitution has evolved over time.

First Inflection Point: Urban Architecture (1970s)
🕰️ The first major inflection point identified is the "urban architecture" trend of the mid-1970s, coinciding with the preparation of the Land Use Plan approved in 1977.
🏘️ This period saw studies on existing fabric ("tissus constitués") in Parisian suburbs and a rehabilitation of Haussmannian Paris (19th century), leading to the policy of ZACs (Urban Development Zones).
🧱 ZACs were characterized by a return to street alignment and regular building heights, revisiting the figure of the semi-open or open block (îlot).

Second Inflection Point: Ordered Architecture (Post-1989)
🇫🇷 The second major manifestation of this trend is exemplified by Paris Rive Gauche starting in 1989 with the decision to host the Bibliothèque de France.
📏 This area established an "ordered architecture" defined by blocks, alignments, and standardized building heights, creating a regular built front to highlight the public building.
🧑‍💻 The rise of the coordinating architect became essential in these projects, citing Roland Schweitzer in ZAC Croïx and Jean-Pierre Buffi in Bèry as key figures.

Key Points & Insights
➡️ The analysis identifies three distinct moments/inflections in urban development following the 1970s.
➡️ The ZAC policy emphasized regular building sizes and alignment, fundamentally promoting a specific configuration of the city block.
➡️ The Paris Rive Gauche project solidified this approach, showcasing an "ordered architecture" as a transferable model for many large French cities.

📸 Video summarized with SummaryTube.com on Feb 03, 2026, 23:14 UTC