The construction of urban-industrial spaces: the case studies of Fiat in Termoli (Italy) and Citroën in Aulnay-sous-Bois (France).

Abstract

This paper intends to demonstrate the relationship between the city and workplaces in the Contemporary Age reflecting on the connection between big industry and the territory, considering the effects they had on the environmental context where new construction technologies could be experimented and “other” forms of workplace organization and cultural aggregation could be conceived. The attention given to the role of big industry in small territorial realities allows to study the outcomes and social and economical incidents which big industry had in the construction of urban and industrial spaces in context where important changes and rapid development took place.

The awareness of the fragility which still characterizes this research, especially with regards to the French case object of a recent ongoing study, in an attempt to underline similarities and differences between the Fiat plant in Termoli (Italy) and the Citroën plant in Aulnay-sous-Bois (France) using a comparative historical prospective.

The comparison of these specific case studies allowed for a research beyond national borders adopting a methodology of a «comparatisme de portées plus réduite, qui entreprendre l’étude parallèle de sociétés proches, ayant connu des évolutions de même sens, influencées les unes par les autres, soumises à l’action des mêmes grandes causes».