Hillier, B; (1987) La morphologie de l'espace urbain: l'evolution de l'approche syntaxique. Architecture et Comportement/Architecture and Behaviour , 3 (3) pp. 205-216.

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Abstract

A "morphological" approach to a field of study is one which addresses itself in the first instance to the objects - buildings, towns, or whatever - that make up the field of study, and enquires into the forms taken by those objects. What is the nature and the origins of those forms? In what ways are they similar or different? In what senses are they the products of laws internal to such objects, and in what senses the products of external determination? In order to answer such questions, the morphologist stresses two guiding principles: the need to develop methods of description precise enough to capture similarities and differences consistently, and the need to treat the degree of autonomy of his objects of study as an unknown. The morphologist cannot be committed in advance to a view which assumes either that his objects are wholly determined by external forces, or that external determination is completely absent. This article is concerned with the gradual emergence over the past two decades of a morphological approach to urban research, and, within this, the development of the "syntactic" approach to the morphology of urban space, as developed at the Unit for Architectural Studies. As such, it is primarily concerned with the academic developments in the United Kingdom, and the influence that practice and education have had on this development.

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