Towards a new ISUF programme? Conference on Nordic and ... · comprising four keynote addresses and...

Reports 59

Urban Morphology (2007) 11(1), 59-61 © International Seminar on Urban Form, 2007 ISSN 1027-4278

Towards a new ISUF programme? Conference on Nordic andinternational urban morphology, Stockholm, Sweden, 3-6 September2006

This conference was hosted by the newborn NordicNetwork of Urban Morphology in collaborationwith ISUF. It attracted about 100 participants fromall over the world to exchange the latest advances inurban morphology. The centrepieces of themeeting, following the welcoming speeches of theorganizers and the city planners from Stockholm onthe first day, were two full days of presentations,comprising four keynote addresses and about 50papers. Three parallel sessions were held in thewonderful library of the Royal Institute ofTechnology, situated in an inner fringe belt of thecity. On the fourth day, some of the participantscompleted their stay under the Nordic light withfield trips to the suburbs of Stockholm. Tostimulate the discussions, there were also threeother high spots: the introduction to the meeting andits ice-breaker cocktails in the lounge of the Schoolof Architecture and two official dinners, the firstorganized by the Nordic Network and ISUF, and thesecond hosted by the City of Stockholm in thesumptuous City Hall (Figure 1).

The papers and associated discussions were inmany ways characteristic of the richness and highlyparticipatory atmosphere of the whole meeting.Despite there being simultaneous sessions it waspossible to distil from the great range of papers, andby dissecting the presentations of the keynotespeakers, a set of primary problems for futuredevelopments in urban morphology and someguidelines for surviving unharmed in a journeythrough the complexities of urban morphology as itmatures as an interdisciplinary field. In fact I wasreminded of the occasion, nearly 100 years earlierat the conference of the International MathematicalSociety in 1900, when German mathematicianDavid Hilbert presented a set of ‘23 problems’which it might be argued decided the evolution ofhis discipline for the next century.

Three main topics were discussed in Stockholmthat could well form a basis for future debates:practical use of urban morphological theories,regionalization of urban morphological research,and communication of urban morphologicalknowledge.

The practical use of theories seemed to worrymany of the users of morphological results, perhapseven more than the producers of this preciseknowledge. Here we are again, as in Robert Frost’spoem, in front of ‘the road not taken’, not knowing

what to answer. Should urban morphology be ledby the needs of urban policies and practitioners?Or should its research continue to be largelyindependent, following its own way? It seemspertinent to ask which is the road ‘less traveled’ andwhether this road is a good one. If we take intoaccount that most of the papers presented were casestudies of singular places and times and someothers were about theoretical issues (working on theprincipia or fundamental morphological conceptsintroduced by either M.R.G. Conzen or G.Caniggia), then it may be appropriate to subscribeto the thesis of a more ‘practical’ urbanmorphology, developing more normative studiesand less positive ones. However, when looking atsome present-day developments in the urbanlandscape, it is easy to see the gap between theincreasing knowledge provided by historico-geographical studies and the heuristic and highlynormative approaches of contemporary urbanplanners. In this case, looking at the historicaldepth of city form may seem like peering into ‘theundergrowth’. In any case, we shall not be able toanswer the complex question as to whether it ismore relevant to create a theory of past and presentpractices or to put present and past theories into‘good practice’. Nevertheless, we should not forgetthat ramblers on the divergent roads may finallyfind a crossroads leading them to a unique or, atleast, more integrated theory. Such is theinterdisciplinary venture of future urbanmorphological studies.

With regard to the regionalization of urbanmorphological research there is a kind of politicalambiguity within ISUF. We can salute thewonderful effort made by the Nordic researchers tocreate a regional network for discussingmorphological issues but, at the same time, it isimpossible not to regret being unable to consolidatethe internationalism of the discipline inside ISUF.We shall soon have an Italian Network, and thencertainly a réseau français, and eventually perhapshave so many small sub-networks as to practicallyrecreate the original patchwork structure.Alternatively, from a more pessimistic point ofview, the idea of an International Network maycollapse and fundamental concepts will cease to bediscussed in a worldwide forum that is the veryessence of ISUF. The multi-linguistic problemcertainly adds to the confusion, English having

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been the closest to a common denominator so far.The problems of introducing nuances into urbanmorphological concepts and giving greaterimportance to the regional schools of thought is stillunresolved.

Finally, with regard to the communication ofurban morphological knowledge, I should like toconsider here a kind of synthesis of the twoprevious topics. In the lack of focus in transmittingour knowledge to a larger audience of know-howactors there is a certain fragility in our discipline.Hitherto, the main streams of communication ofurban morphological knowledge have beenexcellent academic products: scientific papers(inside or outside the journal Urban Morphology),books and teaching. We now need to find anotherkind of language to provide for a wider public themeans of understanding and using the richness of

urban form. This requires other skills: it is to behoped that through exploration of new multi-disciplinary combinations there will emerge a newkind of expertise. Without attempting to provide a conclusiveresponse to these open questions, this remarkableconference highlighted the eagerness to exploreepistemological and practical issues in urbanmorphology. We look forward to continuing thismemorable discussion under another magical light,in Brazil, at the next ISUF conference.

Eduardo Camacho-Hübner, Laboratoire desystèmes d’information géographique, EcolePolytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, 1015Lausanne, Switzerland. E-mail: eduardo.camacho-huebner@epfl.ch

Visual planning and urbanism in the mid-twentieth century

A conference on this theme will be held on 13-15September 2007 at the University of Newcastle,UK. It will consider some of the key ideas ofvisual planning and approaches to urbanism of theperiod, with a particular focus on the contributionof visual and three-dimensional planning as ameans of achieving a reformulation of urbanism.This forms part of an AHRC project focusing onthe planner Thomas Sharp. The three main paper

themes are ‘Visual planning and urbanism in theUK including the Townscape movement’, ‘Visualplanning and urbanism: international perspectives’,and ‘The work and life of Thomas Sharp’.

Those interested in attending should contactLaura Fernandez (Laura.Fernandez@ncl.ac.uk).The registration cost is £50 (before 25 May; £75thereafter) and University accommodation isavailable at £22 per night.

Figure 1. The reception at Stockholm City Hall, preceding the dinnerhosted by the City of Stockholm (photograph by Marina Botta).