Urban Morphology As an Emerging Interdisciplinary Field
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Urban Morphology (1997) 1, 3-10 3 Urban morphology as an emerging interdisciplinary field Anne Vernez Moudon College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA. E-mail: [email protected] Revised manuscript received 27 March 1997 Abstract. The forces and events leading to the formation of the International Seminar on Urban Form (ISUF) are identified. ISUF is expanding the field of urban morphology beyond its original confines in geography, particularly into the domains of architecture and planning. Three schools of urban morphology, in England, Italy and France, are coming together, following seminal work by two morphologists, M.R.G. Conzen and Saverio Muratori. The bringing together of these schools provides the basis for an interdisciplinary field and the opportunity to establish common theoretical foundations for the growing number of urban morphologists in many parts of the world. ISUF's ambitious mission is to address real and timely issues concerning city building by providing a forum for thought and action which includes related disciplines and professions in different cultures. The potential of an interdisciplinary urban morphology to contribute to the understanding and management of urban development in a period of unprecedented change is discussed. Key Words: urban morphology, interdisciplinarity, city building, geography, architecture Urban morphology is the study of the city as and mould our cities. Buildings, gardens, human habitat. Ethnographer Lévi-Strauss streets, parks, and monuments, are among the (1954, pp. 137-8) described the city as ‘the main elements of morphological analysis. most complex of human inventions, ... at the These elements, however, are considered as confluence of nature and artifact’. Urban organisms which are constantly used and morphologists concur: they analyse a city’s hence transformed through time. They also evolution from its formative years to its exist in a state of tight and dynamic subsequent transformations, identifying and interrelationship: built structures shaping and dissecting its various components. The city being shaped by the open spaces around is the accumulation and the integration of them, public streets serving and being used many individual and small group actions, by private land owners along them. The themselves governed by cultural traditions dynamic state of the city, and the pervasive and shaped by social and economic forces relationship between its elements, have led over time. Urban morphologists focus on the many urban morphologists to prefer the term tangible results of social and economic ‘urban morphogenesis’ to describe their field forces: they study the outcomes of ideas and of study. intentions as they take shape on the ground In the summer of 1996, a group of urban ISSN 1027-4278 © International Seminar on Urban Form, 1997 4 Urban morphology morphologists from a variety of disciplines However, the strengths of Conzen's and including architecture, geography, history and Muratori's teachings attracted followers who planning, formalized the International saw the importance of capturing what the Seminar on Urban Form (ISUF - or SIFU, masters had called the city's `genius loci', Séminaire International de la Forme and its unique mnemonic powers as cultural Urbaine, Seminario Internazzionale de la palimpsest. J.W.R. Whitehand (1981) Forma Urbana). The group, which included ensured Conzen's legacy by compiling some individuals from England, France, Germany, of his works and investigating the Ireland, Switzerland, Japan, Australia, and the development and significance of his ideas. USA, had also met in the previous two An urban and historical geographer, summers at the same venue, Lausanne, Whitehand pushed the limits of urban Switzerland, to explain and compare their morphology into urban economics, work. These meetings acknowledged the researching the relationship between the city, expansion of urban morphology beyond its its habitats, and the dynamics of the building original confines in geography, and its industry. In 1974, he formed the Urban emergence as an interdisciplinary field. They Morphology Research Group at the highlighted the need to promote international University of Birmingham, which includes exchanges and to investigate the scope of the research on medieval cities, notably that field's theoretical basis. conducted by T.R. Slater, as well studies of twentieth-century suburban expansion and transformations. A sustained programme of Three schools of urban morphology conferences and publications over the past 25 The ISUF meetings confirmed that several years has made the Urban Morphology generations of scholars had been active in Research Group an unusually strong centre of urban morphology, not only in England, but research, complementing mainstream also in Italy and in France, and that many traditions in urban geography. A steady flow individual researchers from a variety of other of distinguished Ph.D. graduates from countries were contributing to the field. Two Birmingham, such as Peter Larkham, Karl individuals figure prominently as seminal Kropf and Keith Lilley, has also helped to instigators of the field: M.R.G. Conzen (b. spread the group's influence. 1907), a German geographer who migrated to In Italy, Gianfranco Caniggia (1933-87) England before the Second World War, first took over the mantle of Muratori who had to study and practice urban planning, and supervised his 1963 study of the city of then to teach geography; and Saverio Como. In his teachings and publications, Muratori (1910-73), an Italian architect who Caniggia continued the Muratorian tradition, taught in Venice and then in Rome. Both which he called `procedural typology' men were unusual and non-conforming in because of the focus on building types as the their respective realms of geography and elemental root of urban form. Like Muratori, architecture. Conzen, who is best known for Caniggia put his theory into practice, his detailed study of Alnwick (1960), had to remaining actively involved in architecture weather the post-war quantitative revolution and building throughout his life. His in geography, which largely passed over his research extended to several cities in Italy inductive and empirical research as lacking in and North Africa, conducted with colleagues rigour and predictive power. Muratori, on and students who continue the Muratorian the other hand, who used his self-termed legacy. Today, Giancarlo Cataldi, Gian Luigi `operational histories' of Venice and Rome Maffei, Maria Grazia Corsini, Paolo Maretto, (Muratori, 1959, 1963) as the theoretical Giuseppe Strappa, and others, continue the basis for his architectural design studios, tradition in Florence, Rome, Genoa, and suffered intellectual isolation (and scorn) Sienna. from his modernist colleagues in architecture. After Conzen and Muratori had seeded the Urban morphology 5 ground for the two early schools of urban international outreach: the systematic morphology, a third school emerged in dissemination of publications on the part of France in the late 1960s, when architects English-speaking geographers, and the Philippe Panerai and Jean Castex, together growing popularity of Italian architecture with sociologist Jean-Charles DePaule, world-wide. founded the School of Architecture in The Conzenian group maintained a Versailles as part of the dissolution of the consistent profile in British and American Beaux-Arts. Like the Italian School, the geographical circles, benefiting internationally French School rose out of a reaction against from the active participation of Conzen’s son, modernist architecture and its rejection of M.P. Conzen, a geographer at the University history. However, it also benefited at the of Chicago, from continued contacts with time from the vibrant intellectual discourse James Vance Jr at the University of on urban life which surpassed architecture California, Berkeley, and with Deryck and engaged such powerful critics as Holdsworth, now at Pennsylvania State sociologist Henri Lefebvre and architectural University. The Birmingham group had also historians Françoise Boudon and André established links with researchers in Ireland, Chastel. While already busy with research Germany, Poland, Spain and Austria. The on the historical evolution of Parisian Stadtlandschaft tradition that had been strong neighbourhoods, Panerai and Castex literally in central European geography in the inter- stumbled into Muratori’s works, then war years, including in the University of unknown in France, which provided the Berlin where Conzen had been a student, impetus for further probing the theoretical continued to have its adherents, but by the and methodological dimensions of their work. 1980s, their numbers had dwindled, leaving Over the years, they established contacts with comparatively few scholars, such as Elisabeth researchers not only in Italy, but also in Lichtenberger and Dietrich Denecke, active in Spain and Latin America. The products of the field.2 these exchanges remain to be documented. The Birmingham group also developed ties On the other hand, Castex and Panerai’s early with the British planning profession, mainly publications exerted considerable influence in the area of urban conservation, an interest throughout the European architectural directly related to Conzen’s ideas on community. Subsequent detailed studies of townscape management. In contrast, contacts the city of Versailles, the French bastides, with architects emerged slowly