Épistémologie des théories de l’urbanisme : proposition d’un cadre de réflexivité

Faisant confiance à leur intuition les urbanistes s’inscrivent souvent dans un flou théorique qui les rend susceptibles de succomber à l’idéologie dominante et aux modes du moment. La première partie de ce mémoire vise à démontrer que cette posture par rapport à la théorie entraine un manque de réflexivité qui constitue un obstacle majeur à l’exercice d’une pratique urbanistique véritablement professionnelle, éthique et respectueuse du territoire. En effet, selon Bourdieu, un corpus théorique autonome permettrait d’offrir à l’urbaniste un cadre de réflexivité lui permettant de prendre du recul sur le quotidien et d’échapper à l’influence indue de l’idéologie sur sa pratique. Ce mémoire vise à comprendre la configuration actuelle du champ des théories de l’urbanisme en Occident (compris selon la théorie des champs de Bourdieu) et à proposer un modèle synthèse spécifiquement destiné à servir d’outil de réflexivité à l’urbaniste. Pour y parvenir, il a été privilégié de faire une relecture herméneutique de modèles théoriques existants, mais considérés comme incomplets, des théories de l’urbanisme. Dans ce domaine, deux Écoles de pensée ont été définies (École française et École anglo-saxonne). Ensuite, une typologie emblématique de chaque École a été choisie pour être revue à la lumière de l’objectif fixé. Ainsi, les typologies de Françoise Choay (École française) et de Philip Allmendinger (École anglo-saxonne) ont été analysées et mises en commun au moyen de la construction d’une historiographie commune des théories de l’urbanisme. Finalement, un modèle théorique original (la typologie intégrée) a été formulé. Celui-ci définit quatre grands courants théoriques : le rationalisme instrumental, le rationalisme intersubjectif, le mouvement pragmatico-postmoderne et le mouvement patrimonial. Il apparaît alors que le rationalisme occupe une position hégémonique dans le champ des théories de l’urbanisme depuis sa fondation et qu’elle est assumée par le rationalisme intersubjectif depuis le milieu des années 1990. Relying on their intuition, urbanists are often in a blurred theoric frame which make them more likely to go into the dominant ideology and the current main trends. The first part of this master thesis intend to illustrate that this attitude toward theory is leading to a lack of reflexivity which is an major obstacle to the exercice of a trully professional, ethical and respectful toward territory urbanistic practice. According to Pierre Bourdieu, an autonomous theoric corpus would give the urbanist a frame for reflexivity in order to take step back from his daily exercice of urban planning and to escape the concealed influence of ideology. This thesis intend to understand the actual outline of the field of urbanism theories (understood following the theory of fields of Bourdieu) in the western countries and to propose a synthetic theoric frame specifically dedicated to be use as a reflexivity tool by the urbanist. In order to achieve this goal, an hermeutical reading of the existing, but incomplete, urbanism theories models has been selected. Regarding this matter, two School of toughts has been outlined : the French and the Anglo-saxon Schools. After, a typology of urbanism theories representing each school has been selected to be re-examine. Thus, Françoise Choay’s (for the French School) and Philip Allemndinger’s (for the Anglo-saxon School) typologies has been analysed and put togheter by the construction of a common historiography of the urbanism theories. Finally, a brand new theoritical model (the integrated typology) has been proposed. It propounds that the field of urbanism theories has four great theoritical movements : the instrumental rationalism, the intersubjective rationalism, the pragmatic-postmodern movement and the heritage based movement. In conclusion, rationalism appears as the hegemonic trend in the field of urbanism theories since its foundation and that this dominant position is now overtake by the intersubjective rationalism movement since the mid-1990s.

Keyphrases: Théories de l’urbanisme, Épistémologie de l’urbanisme, Réflexivité, Territoire, Herméneutique, Théorie des champs, Rationalisme, Postmodernisme, Rationalism, Theories of urbanism, Epistomolgy of urbanism, Reflectivity, Territory, Hermeneutic, Theory of fields, Rationalism, Postmodernism