ABSTRACT
Constructing the memory of the city consists of recalling in the present the state of the urban past. To conserve and to trace these memories and to insert them into the contexts of the city's evolution allows us to reach the level of the individual and the ordinariness of life. As a consequence, it is possible to shed light on that which is so often eclipsed by exceptional events: to hear the testimonies of those who are rarely given a voice. These testimonies make possible the construction of the memory of ordinary places, of practices in these ordinary places, the memory of the daily rhythms, patterns and geographies that themselves were part of city living, differentiated according to occupations, familial and social status. City life imposes particular forms of organization on ways of living, and this is heavily influenced by the distance between work and home, and living at high residential densities in communal buildings.
