Urbanizing Construction History

Although urban planning and urbanization are directly and closely related to the everyday construction practices, little systematic research exists on the interface between construction history and urban planning history. This article explores what the reciprocal epistemological implications of intersecting construction history with urban planning history might entail. Or, in other words, which research paths open up and which questions arise when we begin to ‘urbanise’ construction history – and conversely, when we rigorously interpret urbanism and urbanisation as an assemblage of construction practices? The first part of the paper borrows a number of conceptual outlines from urbanization literature that lead to a concrete set of preliminary research questions that are not usually dealt with in the field of construction history. By means of a number of preliminary ‘snapshots’ from the archives, it then illustrates which ‘sources’, ‘actors’ ‘methods’ and ‘forms of knowledge’ may be mobilized to substantiate and elaborate on these preliminary questions. The article can therefore be understood as an early exploration of the kind of research that could or should find a place in the planning track of this project. The article concludes by mapping the ambition to work in the overlap between construction history and ‘other’ histories within the broader objectives and ambitions of this EOS project Construction History Above and Beyond: What history can do for construction history.