Approvisionner les villes en briques et en tuiles : les carrières urbaines d’argile en France

Abstract

Our work on clay landscapes, on the one hand, and on the traces of former urban quarries on the other hand (Comentale, 2017 and 2019), raised the question of the specificity of the excavation of clay quarries near cities even though initially this was a rural activity, as made apparent by village habitats predominantly built with bricks and tiles where clay lies just under the soil surface. This singularity is not clearly apparent in cities where bricks or tiles are not systematically used. Moreover, the presence of clay quarries very close to cities and their incorporation into a growing urban fabric seems more uncertain than in the case of hard rock quarries about which more is known. After noting the concentration of the brick and tile industry in the vicinity of several cities in France, the study addresses the cases of the cities of Paris, Lille and Beauvais and the areas within these cities where bricks or tiles are more frequently used in buildings. Our research based on a naturalistic approach with field observations and the use of cartographic records, highlights consistent aspects regarding the relationship between cities and nearby quarries, with a specificity linked to the plasticity of the material which is conducive to the disappearance of certain quarries in the landscape. The case of Beauvais shows that the extraction and firing of clay contributed to the construction of a peri-urban area.

Keywords

• clay
• bricks and tiles
• urban quarries
• geomorphology
• urban landscape