Idea podmiotowego sprawstwa w morfologii miast
The idea of agency in urban morphology

Summary/Abstract: The dynamic development of the urban morphology in the world encourages reflection on the state and condition of the indigenous morphological studies and provokes to broadening the spectrum of research problems undertaken by Polish morphologists. Therefore, the aim of the article is to present new idea in urban morphology, namely the idea of agency and to draw attention to the role of agents of change, as animators/initiators of morphological changes in urban space. The concept of agency, borrowed from sociology to the studies on the structure of cities and its transformations, presents the city as a stage on which subsequent actors/ decision makers (owners, architects, developers, planners and others), by playing their roles, transform the urban fabric. Analysis of their activities enables comprehensive understanding of the processes of transformation of urban structures, both in contemporary and historical context. It goes beyond simple descriptive analysis of their evolution and the growth that often suggest the specific self-regulation of urban structures. It also goes well beyond a simple architectural description, which indicates agency only indirectly, through the presentation of the complex nature of urban structures, but often without a clear analysis of personalized information about agents of change. The researches on agency in the urban morphology, successfully undertaken since the 80s of last century, mainly on the grounds of the British school of morphology, currently experience a strong interest in the global studies on cities. They allow the gradation of agents of change in terms of their impact on the structural transformations of cities (and their fragments), both in relation to the present and past; they indicate changes of agents of change in different historical periods, both in terms of their number and provenance; they present the results of their activities in urban space.

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