Construction Market Organization in the 17th Century : Norms, Actors and Practices. Examples of Extension Plans in Aix and Marseille (original) (raw)

2012, Robert Carvais, André Guillerme, Valérie nègre, Joël Sakarovitch (dir.), Nuts & Bolts of Construction History. Culture, Technology and Society, vol. 1, Picard, Paris, 2012, p. 495-502.

The construction market and the juridical conditions ruling its organization and its regulation are still quite difficult to appreciate in the “day-to-day life” in a city. Indeed, at the Kingdom scale, the procedures and the concrete administration methods of this market are extremely diversified. Furthermore, the complete identification of the different administrative steps enabling to build a house, is very complex. As a matter of fact, the usual city building hardly ever enables to understand completely the authorization and execution procedures of allotment works. The occurring of a particular and exceptional event in a city history is the only way to define the planning procedures for the sharing out of new urban spaces. This can be done studying series of public records, specifically produced at this occasion. Thus, the extensions in Aix and Marseille, taking place in the middle of the 17th century, are revealing the institutional and private practices of the construction market. Thanks to these two urban planning operations, it is possible to study the whole procedure, set up to build houses in a precise and clearly identified area, on which a particular legal system is applied. Despite the peculiar specificities to each of these two cities, three major steps regulate the building of a house in both cases: estimate, align and control the construction. Each of these stages, set up with different aims for both cities, implies to appeal to professionals, sometimes specifically recruited for the operation. Our principal corpus in the case of Marseille is composed of a whole lot of Registres d’estimations (estimates registers) in order to evaluate the house prices and the registers of the Bureau de l’Agrandissement (extension committee set up for the occasion). The alignments delivered by the Trésoriers généraux de France in Aix, enable to understand the procedures in the capital of Provence. Eventually, in order measure the extent of the operation and its adequation to construction norms, in both cities, the construction contracts, closed between private individuals and master-masons, are an essential source.