Falu a városban: a külvárosok helye a soproni történelmi városrész településmorfológiai képében
Villages in Town: The Place of Outskirts in the Urban Morphology of Sopron’s Historic Quarter

Summary/Abstract: The paper surveys the development of historic outskirts of Sopron from the mid-nineteenth century to 2000 using land-registry maps, land registers, and research data. The main focus of the study is the ways urbanisation overcame the rural morphological character in the region. The first part of the essay defines the place of outskirts in the urbanisation process of historic towns in Transdanubia (West Hungary). The diffusion of urban lifestyle, the occupational re-stratification of agricultural population, and the urban planning of the communist era discouraged their elimination altogether. Examining the development of urban fabric through the example of Sopron, it has become conspicuous that the outskirts developed into districts as characteristic as the downtown areas. Furthermore, as a Hungarian peculiarity, the outskirts, too, were defended by city walls from the beginning of the seventeenth century. The first land-registry survey was a snapshot of the condition of the town at the very beginning of urban development. Although in the second half of the nineteenth century intensive transformation and concentration processes commenced, some parts of the outskirts, unaffected by traffic, remained largely untouched. The rural elements of morphology underwent only small-scale transformation, not primarily by vertical rebuilding, but by becoming self-contained. In addition to the rural character, a distinctive element of morphology of historic outskirts, the phenomenon of the so-called ‘part-houses’, emerged as a result of densification within the boundary of plots. Eventually these became legal institution. The means to preserve the character of historic outskirts is not restricted to judicious architectural regulation only: social and economic rehabilitation integrated into urban politics is also indispensable.

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