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 , particularly into the domains of architecture and planning. Three schools of urban morphology, in England, and , 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 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 . 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, , 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 . 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 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 and solidified, and the city of Cairo, Egypt, helped to ironically, as British architects became prepare a second generation of morphologists familiar with the Muratorian School in the in France. Over this past decade, research mid 1980s. groups have been founded in Nantes, by The diffusion of Muratorian ideas followed Michaël Darin, and in Marseilles, by Jean- the general rise in the popularity of Italian Lucien Bonillo. architecture throughout the world, particularly with the translation into English of Aldo Rossi’s works in the 1980s.3 Although Rossi ISUF: a genealogy chose to remain silent about Muratori’s Until the first ISUF meeting in 1994, there considerable influence on his early had been some proselytizing, but few formal professional development, he successfully linkages and exchanges between the three promoted a return to ‘traditional’ building main schools of urban morphology - types, thus kindling a renewed interest in the Conzenian, Muratorian, and Versailles.1 The historic city and promoting its significance in creation of ISUF was brought about by many architecture. British, American, and French personal contacts and individual architects all listened to Rossi’s message. circumstances, as well as by the fortuitous They also read another Italian architect, Carlo merging of two separate quests for Aymonino, whose study of Padua and other 6 Urban morphology writings on what he termed `typo- University of Paris. The Institut organized a morphology' stimulated further interest in the symposium on urban morphology to address design of the city. Incidentally, but the issue of the failures of modernism in new significantly for the structure of ISUF, both town design. The list of invitees included Rossi and Aymonino subsequently rejected many well-known scholars, urban designers, urban morphology, which they saw as and architects from Europe and North promoting outdated solutions to today's urban America. Yet neither the members of the problems and impotent in resolving issues of Versailles School, nor any of the close modern architecture. collaborators of the Birmingham and the In retrospect, however, the Italian Muratorian schools participated in the contribution that was most instrumental in symposium, with the exception of Ivor linking the three main schools of urban Samuels, from Oxford Polytechnic, and morphology, and hence in shaping ISUF, was Albert Levy, then teaching in , the rehabilitation programme of Bologna's Switzerland. Shortly after the symposium, historic centre - for which Caniggia was a however, links were forged across the consultant. The rapid diffusion of this Parisian region between the Versailles School project, its rich scope and successful and the Institut d'Urbanisme, and both implementation, helped to forge contacts Castex and Panerai now teach regularly at the between morphologists in several parts of the Institut. Closer working relationships have world. now developed with the new generation of This was the context in which Caniggia French urban geographers. was invited to visit Oxford Polytechnic by Castex, who had spent time in New York architect and Italiophile Ivor Samuels in the in the late 1960s, further helped to develop early 1980s. Though Caniggia did not meet ties with North America by returning in 1988 the Birmingham geographers at the time, as a Visiting Professor at the University of Samuels had by then begun to collaborate Oregon. He also lectured on that occasion at with his compatriots. In the last years of his the University of Washington in Seattle. I life, Caniggia undertook an extensive had met Castex and visited Versailles a year outreach programme of his own. He spent earlier, although I had known of his and three months at the University of Panerai's work for a decade, and had shared Washington, Seattle, in 1986, after meeting thoughts about morphology with such me and one of my colleagues a year earlier in Francophiles as M. Christine Boyer and the Naples, Italy, at a seminar honouring Kevin urban landscape scholar Paul Groth, a student Lynch's work. He also visited the Federal of James Vance. Also in 1987, I was Polytechnic Institute of Zurich, Switzerland, scheduled to lecture in Rome as part of an to present his and Maffei's work on Florence attempt to `close the loop' between the Italian which was edited and translated by Sylvain and French schools of urban morphology. Malfroy. Caniggia's sudden death was impetus for As mentioned earlier, the Versailles School establishing relationships with his colleagues maintained contacts throughout the Latin and in Florence, Rome, and Genoa. Arab worlds. By the end of the 1970s, their Further outreach in the English-speaking work had been translated into several world was facilitated by the Birmingham European languages and was being circulated group's publication of the Urban Morphology in the United States for possible publication Newsletter from 1987 onward. In 1990, the in English - this attempt failed and, to this group hosted an international conference and date, the French work is not accessible to an edited a book whose contributors included English-speaking audience. International several North Americans and `continental' outreach by the French on urban morphology Europeans. Finally, individual contacts have was first formalized in 1986 by the developed since the late 1980s between North prestigious Institut d'Urbanisme of the American, Asian, and Australian researchers. Urban morphology 7

The genealogy of ISUF is expectedly and their related open spaces, plots or lots, complex. However, given the natural rift and streets. between geography and architecture, their 2. Urban form can be understood at different different intentions and missions, the usual levels of resolution. Commonly, four are local turf battles and, importantly, the cultural recognized, corresponding to the and linguistic divide between Anglo-Saxons building/lot, the street/block, the city, and and , it is a happy surprise to see ISUF the region. in existence only four decades after 3. Urban form can only be understood Muratori’s Storia Operante di Venezia and historically since the elements of which it Conzen’s Alnwick. Interestingly, is comprised undergo continuous geographical centrality and neutrality, not transformation and replacement. chance, called for the first three meetings of Thus form, resolution, and time constitute ISUF to take place in Switzerland. Swiss the three fundamental components of urban academics and researchers had naturally morphological research. These are present in developed ties with both the Italian and the all studies, whether by geographers or French schools of morphology. Léopolde architects, and whether they focus on a Veuve, Bruno Marchand and Sylvain Malfroy medieval, baroque, or contemporary city. offered to host meetings on three consecutive The smallest cell of the city is recognized as years at the Federal Polytechnic School of the combination of two elements: the Lausanne, which culminated in the individual parcel of land, together with its confirmation of ISUF as an organization, the building or buildings and open spaces. The announcement of a first open conference in characteristics of the cell define the urban Birmingham in 1997, and the creation of this form’s shape and density, as well as its actual journal. and potential use over time. Studies show The first ISUF encounters in Lausanne that the attributes of the cell and its elements increased the intensity of exchanges between reflect not only a time period of history, but the schools. Specifically, Attilio Petruccioli, the socio-economic conditions present at the who studied under the Muratorian School in time of land development and building. Over Italy, has organized annual conferences in time, these elements are either used Cambridge, Massachusetts, since 1995 under differently - for example, by different social the auspices of the MIT Aga Khan Program, classes - transformed physically, eliminated which have included many of the members of or replaced by new forms. The rate of the ISUF community. As a result, a new change in either the function or the form of generation of urban morphologists is quickly the cells varies from city to city, but also emerging and producing needed comparative generally fits into cycles related to the work on the three schools. economy and culture. Building and transformation cycles are important processes to explore for city planning and real estate The theoretical basis development purposes, yet are rarely studied This coming together of researchers from in contemporary cities. different language areas and disciplines is Studies also focus on what Conzen calls founded on common ground. First, there is the ‘plan unit’ and what Italians term tessuto. agreement that the city or town can be ‘read’ Plan units or ‘tissues’ are groups of and analysed via the medium of its physical buildings, open spaces, lots, and streets, form. Further, there is widespread which form a cohesive whole either because acknowledgment that, at its most elemental they were all built at the same time or within level, morphological analysis is based on the same constraints, or because they three principles. underwent a common process of 1. Urban form is defined by three transformation. fundamental physical elements: buildings Furthermore, while all morphological 8 Urban morphology analysis is carried out for the purposes of spend time assessing the impact of their theory building, several distinct purposes actions on the long-range life of cities. exist among urban morphological traditions which yield different kinds of theories. The Issues and potential three schools each have had different As is frequently the case when something intentions in their theory building efforts. new is being proposed, the strengths of the They are: as follows. innovation are also its weaknesses. The 1. The study of urban form for descriptive founding of an interdisciplinary field of urban and explanatory purposes, with the aim of morphology creates both tensions and developing a theory of city building opportunities which ISUF will have to face. (théorie de l’édification de la ville). Such Let us discuss first some of the general issues studies are concerned with how cities are related to the field, and then some of the built and why. This is the primary specific questions about the state of the field purpose of geographers, and the today. Birmingham School in particular. Social ISUF's mission is ambitious, and hence scientists in the French School also have laden with potential conflicts with existing this purpose in mind when they carry out structures in the worlds of research and morphological studies. practice. ISUF has established a domain 2. The study of urban form for prescriptive which spans geography, history, archaeology, purposes, with the aim of developing a architecture and planning, hence the theory of city design. Such studies humanities, social sciences and professions, concentrate on how cities should be built. study and action, knowledge and decision, This is the primary focus of the Italian description and prescription. This domain is School which has given this purpose a currently a large mosaic of intellectual turfs, special direction, namely to develop a all slowly adjusting their boundaries in the theory of building design resting on usual tug-of-war about power and ideas, and historical city-building traditions. A few all represented by numerous magazines, French researchers have had the same journals, books, organizations with their intentions in their morphological analyses, associated conferences, web pages, etc. On seeing the purposes of their work as being the positive side, ISUF creates a domain to develop a théorie du projet basée sur which pulls together pieces of all these turfs les traditions d’édification de la ville. to focus on a real phenomenon: James Vance 3. The study of urban form to assess the calls this real phenomenon city building, to impact of past design theories on city include the physical forms and all of the building. This is in the realm of design processes related to the act of making cities. criticism, which makes the sophisticated This means that urban morphology can turn distinction between the theory of design its back to whatever internal power struggles ‘as idea’, and the theory of design ‘as are taking place within geography and practised’. Such studies assess the transcend the adolescent strifes plaguing city differences or similarities between stated planning, architecture, real estate, and directives about what should be built construction. It also means that urban (normative theories) and what has actually morphology promises to bridge a gap which been built. The French School has is currently debilitating both the research and championed this use of morphological the practice of city building. Hence ISUF is analysis, tracing successfully the roots of an opportunity to provide a forum for thought modernism in back to the and action about how we shape and manage eighteenth century. However, it remains a our habitats - a timely subject indeed at this difficult mental exercise for many point in the history of civilization. Yet, designers and planners, who tend not to however exciting the opportunity and Urban morphology 9 however noble the goal, ISUF's future path is principles of change in many different likely to be arduous for a number of reasons. contexts - for example, how street blocks are First, unlike engineering and medicine, for modified, depending on how they were laid example, architecture and planning have, out in the first place, and depending on the singly or together, yet to develop a shared type and intensity of development around knowledge base. These are professions that them; or, how different conditions will define thrive on action and projecting possible whether a given area is subjected to infill futures, but which leave little room for development or to complete redevelopment. research and evaluation. They have not Secondly, the research material that ISUF followed other professions in developing a brings to this now larger world has its own systematic, empirical approach to learning frailties. Most urban morphological research and building a knowledge base. They have has focused on historic European cities, a few, if any, mechanisms to relate study and double limitation which may seem to hinder action. Whatever the reasons are for what practical applications in today's world. There amounts to an artistic approach to decision is a need for research to address the making in architecture and planning, this unprecedented expansion of cities over the state of affairs means that urban course of this century, and a need to direct morphologists will be tracking uncharted this research at cities that have grown in non- territories with these professions. They will European cultures. Significantly, however, a have to catch their attention, to demonstrate number of recent studies of twentieth-century the validity and effectiveness of the cities in Europe, North America, and morphological approach in identifying cause Australia, as well as a growing number on and effect relationships. Asian cities, confirm the validity of the city- From the perspective of the social building principles identified earlier by the sciences, doubts about the theory building three schools: the basic elements of urban powers of urban morphology come from two form are the same, and formative and opposite sides. On the one hand, positivists transformative processes share the same question the empirical and inductive way of basis. This is the exciting, and wide-open, researching the city and point to the weak part of urban morphology: its potential to predictive powers of a theory of city help face the city-building boom of the next building. However, the predictive powers of few decades in areas other than North positivist research have been under criticism America and Europe. themselves because the reductionistic nature Important in relation to this and other of this approach has not been effective in tasks is the fact that the revolution currently addressing human behaviour issues. On the taking place in the way city-building other hand, artistic and literary groups activities can be recorded holds great promise distrust the single focus of urban morphology for morphological analysis. Geographical on the physical reality of the city. Yet Information Systems (GIS) can now not only criticism related to what can be interpreted as record the spatial characteristics of habitats, the physical determinism of urban but also link spatial attributes to quantitative morphology can also be silenced: urban data so that, for the first time, physical space morphology approaches the city not as can be measured and analysed in relation to artifact, but as organism, where the physical the socio-economic forces that shape it - for world is inseparable from the processes of example, census data can now be linked change to which it is subjected. The focus is fairly easily to actual building forms and land on the physical world as the result of uses. Also, many jurisdictions store their dynamic social and economic forces. ISUF's records at the level of the individual parcel of challenge is to demonstrate the common land, thus allowing urban analysis at the very ways in which cities are built and scale at which urban morphologists excel. transformed, to define and illustrate the As a result, these new, `intelligent' maps 10 Urban morphology enable regional analyses to be carried out Schneekloth, L. (eds) Ordering space: types with detailed data available at the parcel in architecture and design (Van Nostrand level, or, conversely, parcel-level analyses Reinhold, New York) 289-311. can be applied to an entire region. This has 2. For discussions of, and references to, the role tremendous implications for both the research of urban morphology in geography, see and the management of urbanized areas. Conzen, M.P. (1978) ‘Analytical approaches to the urban landscape’, in Butzer, K.W. (ed.) Significantly, parcel-based GIS offer the Dimensions of human geography University of empirical data that urban morphologists need Chicago Department of Geography Research (and have so far painstakingly acquired by Paper 186, 128-65; Whitehand, J.W.R. (ed.) hand). Collected longitudinally, such (1981) The urban landscape: historical empirical data open up immense research development and management Institute of opportunities to both monitor and explain the British Geographers Special Publication 13 transformation of urban forms. Further, (Academic Press, New York); Whitehand, parcel-based GIS combine data that serve the J.W.R. (1988) ‘Recent developments in urban real estate and construction industries as well morphology’, in Denecke, D. and Shaw, G. urban planners and policy makers. They (eds) Urban historical geography: recent offer the ability to co-ordinate the activities progress in Britain and Germany (Cambridge of these traditionally separate fields. Finally, University Press, Cambridge) 285-96; Slater, and perhaps most importantly, these spatially T.R. (ed.) (1990) The built form of Western cities (Leicester University Press, Leicester). coded data bases allow morphologists to 3. For discussions of, and references to, the role study for the first time very large areas of of urban morphology in urban design and urban or suburban development. For the first architecture, see Panerai, Ph., Depaule, J.Ch., time, then, urban morphological analysis has Demorgon, M. and Veyrenche, M. (1980) the tools to address the characteristics of Eléments d’analyse urbaine (Editions contemporary metropolitan areas. Archives d’Architecture Moderne, Brussels); Expectations must necessarily be guarded - Moudon, A.V. (1992) ‘A catholic approach to technology having proved to be an excellent organizing what urban designers should know’, servant, but a poor master. However, current Journal of Planning Literature 6, 331-49. advances in parcel-based GIS can help to move the centre of urban morphological References research from its foundation in the study of small historic towns to today's large C o n z e n , M . R . G . ( 1 9 6 0 ) A l n w i c k , urbanized regions, and from applications in Northumberland: a study in town-plan analysis urban conservation to the management of Institute of British Geographers Publication 27 future urban development. Certainly, the (George Philip, London). opportunities for theory construction that Lévi-Strauss, C. (1955) Tristes Tropiques (Terre ISUF offers can make such a future tangible. Humaine, Paris). Muratori, S. (1959) Studi per una operante storia urbana di Venezia (Istituto Poligraphico dello Notes Stato, Roma). 1. For a list of references on the work of the Muratori, S., Bollati, R., Bollati, S. and Studi per una operante three schools, see Moudon, A.V. (1994) Marinucci, G. (1963) storia urbana di Roma ‘Getting to know the built landscape: (Consiglio nazionale typomorphology’, in Franck, K. A. and delle riceche, Roma).