ABSTRACT
The layout of many a modern European city has been conditioned by the demol-ishing of its ramparts in the later nineteenth century. The age-old stone girdle, once untied, created virginal soil that was soon to be occupied by broad boulevards or park promenades. Often lofty residences were built to embellish their borders and supply a young bourgeoisie with elegant dwellings befitting its growing need for self-representation. Further outward extension in subsequent decades provided ample space for socio-economic zones to accommodate socially different groups of an ever more rapidly growing urban population. Changes in armament and military tactics were a prerequisite for these developments, but social shifts conditioned the patterns in which municipalities chose to organize the new public space. Thus the city, breaking out from its inveterate boundaries, marked the breakaway from the preindustrial era in a double sense.
