The territory of the grand tetouan as linear city: Between description and project

Abstract

This article, based upon pedagogical experimentation in development in a master-level architecture studio at the ULB School of Architecture (Brussels), focuses on the concept of a linear city in a metropolitan context. This concept is pro-posed by the Grand Tetouan (North Morocco) spatial development scheme as a framework to think about the future of this territory. The interest of the concept lies in its being both a descriptive and project-oriented tool, which allows working with students on the intricate relationship between these two moments of urban design. The coastal region has been the subject of a proposal for a “linear garden city” by a follower of Soria y Mata, Hilarión González del Castillo (1929), a project that left traces on the “palimpsest” (Corboz, 1983/2001) of the actual territory. The idea of the linear city, which has been, throughout the 20th century, a recurrent thematic in urban planning theory and practice dealing with the is-sue of industrial development of the modern city can be, in the specific case of the Grand Tetouan region, re-examined through the lens of tourism as an industry. The exploration is based on an analytical approach by the use of the notion of urban material (Boeri, Lanzani, & Marini, 1993; Viganò, 1999), an approach that creates the conditions of understanding (describing/designing) the existing territory through the mapping of its physical elements, a description that can then be used to develop an analysis of the forms of production of these elements and the complexity of their uses: how the city is, formally and socially, built (Secchi, 1989).