Urban Morphology (2011) 15(1), 55-66 © International Seminar on Urban Form, 2011 ISSN 1027-4278

The study of urban form in Portugal

Vítor Oliveira, Magda Barbosa and Paulo PinhoCITTA - Centro de Investigação do Território, Transportes e Ambiente, Faculdade de

Engenharia, Universidade do Porto, Rua Roberto Frias 4200-465 Porto, Portugal. E-mail: vitorm@fe.up.pt; magdab@fe.up.pt; pcpinho@fe.up.pt

Revised version received 11 June 2010

Abstract. The origins, development and main characteristics of thestudy of urban form in Portugal are reviewed. After consideringcontributions during the middle of the twentieth century, attention isfocused on recent developments. Fundamental themes in urbanmorphology as a field of knowledge are identified and characterized.These include the history of urban form, the relationships betweenurban morphology and building typology, morphological techniques,and the links between description, explanation and prescription.

Key Words: urban morphology, urban form, disciplinary history,Portugal

This review of research on urban morphologyin Portugal includes studies of Portuguesecities by both Portuguese and non-Portuguesescholars. It includes research on Portuguesecolonial cities but not on other cities outsidePortugal.

Reviews of the study of urban form inPortugal are rare. However, Manuel Teixeira(1993, 2008a) provides two valuable synthesesfrom the perspective of urban history. Both,particularly the earlier one, present the historyof the Portuguese city and its planning asinteresting objects of study, but they revealthese fields to be relatively undevelopedcompared with their counterparts in NorthAmerica and many other countries in Europe.The study of urban history in Portugal hasbeen developing in a fragmented way, withseveral historical periods not studied and somedisciplinary approaches under-represented.

Early developments

Despite the existence of earlier topographicalwriting (see, for example, Costa, 1788) andhistorical dictionaries on the processes of citybuilding (such as that by Viterbo, 1899), thefirst Portuguese studies with a clear morph-ological dimension were carried out asrecently as the middle of the twentieth century.Owing to the country’s rich history, partic-ularly in the Age of Discovery, Portuguesecartography was a key source of informationfor morphological research. At the beginningof the second half of the twentieth century twoimportant works capitalized on this. Silveira(1951) brought together the fundamental icon-ography of Portuguese colonial towns aroundthe world. His study is profusely illustratedwith more than 1100 figures, and is structuredaccording to seven geographical areas –

56 The study of urban form in Portugal

Morocco, the Azores and Madeira, EastAfrica, West Africa, West Asia, East Asia, andBrazil. Silveira argues that Portugal had apioneering role in the creation andestablishment of modern colonial towns. Hepoints out the unusual number of Portuguesecities established around the world, and thenumber of similarities and differences betweenPortuguese cities and Portuguese colonialcities. Five years later, Chicó (1956)published a paper on the influence of ‘ideal’plans of Renaissance cities on the structure ofPortuguese cities in India. He compares thePortuguese (apparently more organic) andSpanish (supposedly more rational) forms ofcity building. He also compares thePortuguese settlements in Brazil and India, anddiscusses a number of fundamental issues suchas the formulation of a theory based oniconography and historical maps, and thesupposed monotony of particular cities andbuildings. At the end of the 1950s, as part ofthe celebration of the fifth centenary of thedeath of Henrique o Navegador, Mota andCortesão (1960) published PortugaliaeMonumenta Cartographica. This extensivecollection of early manuscript charts is a majorcontribution to the history of Portuguesecartography. It comprises six volumes, withmore than 1000 reproductions of maps,covering the period between the fifteenth andthe seventeenth centuries. In a book review,Crone (1960) considered this research to beone of the cornerstones of the history ofEuropean cartography. Like Silveira’s book,it includes text in English and Portuguese. Inaddition two other works should be mentioned:Amaral (1978) on the urbanization of Angola;and Rodrigues (1979) on the main features ofPortuguese colonial planning, focusing on theBrazilian cities of Olinda and Recife.

A key work, Lisboa Pombalina e oIluminismo, was published in the mid-1960s(Franca, 1966). This is a historical analysis ofan individual city. It analyses the recon-struction of downtown Lisbon after theearthquake of 1755, which was carried outaccording to a plan prepared by Eugénio dosSantos and Carlos Mardel. This is an exampleof early town planning that provided a model

for Portuguese and colonial cities. Three studies with an architectural

perspective on urban morphology are of note.The first is Casas Portuguesas by Raul Lino(1933), an architect whose work has beenundervalued owing to its association with thedictatorial regime of 1926 to 1974. It is theresult of a careful typomorphological analysis,noting the main characteristics of Portugueseresidential buildings. The second waspublished by the National Union of Architectsand synthesizes the results of an extensivesurvey of regional architecture, carried outbetween 1955 and 1960 (Sindicato Nacionaldos Arquitectos, 1961). Confronted, on theone hand, by the oppressive censorship of thePortuguese dictatorship and, on the other, by aradical international style, the Portuguesearchitects felt the need to look for roots invernacular architecture, leading to thiscomprehensive analysis of the nationalterritory. The authors conclude, contrary toLino’s view, that there is neither a specificallyPortuguese architecture nor a typicalPortuguese house. The third study analyses aparticular residential type, the so-calledsolares in the North of Portugal (Azevedo,1969).

In this period the research work of threegeographers is noteworthy. Ribeiro (1962)analyses a number of aspects of Portuguesecolonization, including the characteristics ofsettlements in Portugal and their influence onthe various colonial territories. Oliveira(1973) produced the first thesis in urbangeography, focusing exclusively on aparticular Portuguese city. He synthesizesmany of the relevant data on Oporto andprovides a view of its urban developmentprocess and spatial variety. Gaspar (1969)explores the geometrical patterns used in thedesign of towns in the Middle Ages. Anumber of towns established in the thirteenthcentury in the Alentejo region, in borderingterritories or in recently colonized areas, areanalysed and found to have characteristics thatreflect their planned origin. In addition,Gaspar (1968) analyses the main spatialfeatures of Muslim cities.

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The history of urban form

Throughout the last decade the workdeveloped in the Instituto Superior de Ciênciasdo Trabalho e da Empresa under the co-ordination of Teixeira constitutes a majorcontribution to the study of the evolution ofthe ‘Portuguese city’. It includes work byRosália Guerreiro, Teresa Madeira, TeresaMarat-Mendes and Margarida Valla.

First, there has been the construction of aDigital Archive of Urban Cartography (seeTeixeira, 2000). This comprises a digitaldatabase, including references and imagesrelating to urban cartography and iconography.The main objectives of the archive are theidentification and organization of historicalurban cartography; the selection andreproduction of the most relevant digitalcartography; the structuring of a digitaldatabase articulating cartographic records anddigital images; and the dissemination of thesedata through the Internet.

Secondly, this research group has beenpublishing a journal, Urbanismo de OrigemPortuguesa, the only Portuguese periodicalfocused on urban morphology. Its main goalis the investigation and characterization ofurban forms in cities of Portuguese origin orinfluenced by the Portuguese.

Thirdly, three books by these authors meritattention. The work of Teixeira and Valla(1999), reflecting the influence of British andItalian studies, is based on the detailed analysisof the most remarkable examples of the mainstages of the early formation of the Portuguesecity between the thirteenth and eighteenthcenturies. The research consisted of thecollection and careful analysis of historicalcartographic sources to support the authors’graphic representation of the urbansettlements’ evolutionary stages. Teixeira(2001) brings together a set of paperspresented in the congress on A praça nacidade Portuguesa (The square in thePortuguese city). This congress wasconcerned with identifying the origins,genealogies and morphological characteristicsof the public spaces of cities, articulating themin relation to Portuguese urban history and

planning. Focusing on the form of cities withPortuguese origins, Teixeira (2008b) dividesthe subject matter into three parts. The firstconsists of the morphological characterizationof the Portuguese traçados (street system) –namely Portuguese urban planning, relationsbetween the territory and the traçados, planhierarchy and the main urban elements, thestructure of urban blocks and plots, urbansquares and the planning process. The secondpresents the history of Salvador da Baía, inBrazil, demonstrating how its form synthesizesPortuguese town planning of the sixteenthcentury. Finally, the third part analyses theplan for the reconstruction of downtownLisbon.

Like the congress on ‘A praça na cidadePortuguesa’, the ‘Colóquio InternacionalUniverso Urbanístico Português, 1415-1822’(papers collected by Rossa et al., 2001) was amajor contribution to the study of the historyof the Portuguese city. This conference waspart of a wider initiative intended to developand disseminate knowledge on the history ofPortuguese urban planning.

A number of books published by theFaculty of Architecture of the University ofOporto during the last decade have alsoconstituted a solid input to the study of urbanform in Portugal. The works of Ferreira(1995), Fernandes (1996) and Correia (2008)on the evolution of the Portuguese city shouldalso be highlighted.

Ferreira (1995) considers ten Portuguesecities, and seeks to identify the most importantaspects of urban quality. He analyses theevolution of urban forms and their interactionwith the physical characteristics ofsurrounding areas and concludes that there hasbeen a steady decline in the quality ofPortuguese urban spaces. In the second part ofthe research, Ferreira focuses his attention ontwo medium-sized cities, Évora and Viana doCastelo. He gives special attention tographical material. He re-draws a set of townmaps to assure their graphic comparability,and to highlight the essential characteristics ofurban form.

Fernandes (1996) studies the urbanmorphology and building typology of

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Macaronésia (the set of four archipelagos ofPortuguese colonization in the North Atlantic– Azores, Madeira, Canary Islands, and CapeVerde) over a period of 4 centuries. The studypresents a comparative analysis of the urbanforms and structures of Macaronésia. He thenexamines recurrent patterns developed on thePortuguese mainland so that he can specify amodel of cities of Portuguese origin.

Correia (2008) studies Portuguese cities inNorth Africa since the conquest of Ceuta in thesixteenth century. Initially he reviews thecurrent state of work on this topic and providesa chronological analysis. Then he focuses onthe Portuguese presence in North Africa,highlighting six particular cities: Ceuta,Alcácer Ceguer, Arzila, Tanger, Safim andAzmor. Finally, he provides a comparativesynthesis and explores some areas of futureresearch based on the urban rehabilitation ofMazagão.

Salgueiro (1992) studies the process ofurban development in Portugal, analyses themorphological characteristics of Portuguesecities in the context of their historicalevolution, and examines the role of theplanning system and different actors. Sheexamines the functional organization of cities,explaining the territorial appropriations of thedifferent activities and social groups. Lamas(1992), analyses Avenidas Novas, Bairro deAlvalade and Areeiro: though not primarilyconcerned with Portuguese cities, thisconstitutes a key reference for Portugueseurban morphologists. Lamas argues for acentral role for urban morphology and urbandesign in the city building process.

A number of papers have focused on theevolution of small samples of Portuguesecities. By studying six northern Portuguesecities, Fernandes (2005, 2008) underlines theimportance of cartography and urban planningdocumentation as indispensable sources ofinformation concerning city growth andchange. Fernandes sets out the followingprinciples: i) the town plan constitutes asummary of a town’s history, allowing thevarious developmental stages to be recognized;ii) examination of town plans facilitates spatialcomparisons; and iii) the redrawing of the

town plan allows observation andinterpretation of the existing situation, therepresentation of planning forecasts andplanning results so far achieved, andidentification of the most important decisionmakers. Oliveira (2008) provides a detailedanalysis of this work.

In a similar way, Oliveira and Pinho havebeen developing a morphogenetic analysis ofLisbon and Oporto. They have identified andcharacterized the different periods of urbandevelopment in Lisbon and Oporto (Oliveiraand Pinho, 2006). They have criticallyreviewed the most influential planning policiesin these cities since the second half of thenineteenth century (Oliveira and Pinho, 2008).Finally, they have evaluated the use ofcartographic redrawing, in the analysis of aparticular city over a long period of time(Pinho and Oliveira, 2009a).

A number of articles have sought to explainthe evolution of a particular city. França(1980) and Rodrigues (1973) analyse the urbanhistory of Lisbon since medieval times,distinguishing the most significant periods.Rodrigues (1973) focuses on specific parts ofthe city, providing a morphological matrix fortheir analysis. Included in the Historical Atlasof Cities of the Iberian Peninsula, are Caladoet al. (1994) on Lisbon and Domingues et al.(1994) on Oporto. Williams (1983), Oliveiraand Pinho (2010) and Costa-Lobo (1991)provide city profiles of Lisbon and Oporto.

There are also papers characterizing a singlecity at a particular time in history. The secondhalf of the eighteenth century and the first halfof nineteenth century have been studied indetail in a sizeable number of works. Mullin(1992), Rossa (1998), Heitor et al. (2000) andSantos (2002) analyse the history of Lisbonduring the reconstruction process followingthe earthquake of 1755. In a similar way,Ferrão (1985), Mandroux-França (1986),Alves (1988) and Nonell (2002) studyOporto’s expansion outside its medieval wallsunder the leadership of Almada, the first andmost notorious President of the Junta dasObras Públicas (Public Works Junta). Finally,Correia (1997) analyses a small town inAlgarve, Vila Real de Santo António, as one of

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the achievements of Pombal’s urban vision.He examines for the period 1773-76 thecreation and construction of the town,analysing its structural forms and reflecting onits significance as a planned town.

Urban morphology and building typology

The research works under this heading weremainly developed by architects, with somecontributions from the field of urban history.All the works referred to here were publishedin the last 2 decades. They analyse therelationship of buildings to territory at fourdifferent scales: the region; the city; theneighbourhood, and the street or square.

Four of the six books in the first categoryreflect a major influence from SindicatoNacional dos Arquitectos (1961). Tostões etal. (2000) and Mestre (2002) complete thework of this organization, extending the surveyto the Azores and Madeira. Under theumbrella of the Centro de Estudos deEtnologia, Oliveira and Galhano (1992)analyse the whole country from a typo-morphological point of view. Focusing on therural houses of the Lisbon region in theeighteenth century, Caldas (1999) exploresthree different lines of research represented bySindicato Nacional dos Arquitectos (1961),Lino (1933) and Azevedo (1969). The tworemaining books in this category wereinfluenced by the history of the country in theAge of Discovery. Silveira (1998) studies thecourtyard house in Goa (India), and Fernandes(1996) analyses the housing types ofMacaronésia.

The second category is concerned with therelationship between the building and the city.Pereira and Buarque (1995), Barata (1996),and Trindade (2002) study the evolution ofhousing types in a particular city. The firstauthors analyse the urban expansion of Lisbon.Different types of construction correspondingto different time periods and different socialclasses are studied in a systematic way.Underlying the whole work is the intention tomove from description and explanation toprescription. Barata (1996) attests the

existence of three historical residential types inOporto contributing in a prominent way to thecharacterization of Oporto’s urban form.These he terms mercantilist, enlightened andliberal. He recognizes the existence of aparticular residential type in the historicalkernel, which is different from the one foundin the city expansion outside the walls in theeighteenth century. Both these residentialtypes differ from a third type – the liberal –developed since the second half of thenineteenth century, and present in the earlydecades of the twentieth century. In a line ofresearch close to that of Walter Rossa,Trindade (2002) develops a similar analysisfor the city of Coimbra.

Two books present similar analyses ofparticular periods in Oporto and Lisbon.Berrance (1993) analyses the city of Oporto inthe period between 1774 and 1844, focusingon the almadino phenomenon and its influenceon the city. He develops a typologicalanalysis, focusing on the evolution of the city.Viegas (1999) brings together a set of 70drawings produced between 1758 and 1846 bythe architects and engineers of the Casa doRisco das Reais Obras Públicas, an agencyestablished by Pombal to plan the city after theearthquake of 1755.

Finally in this category, Teixeira (1996)investigates the Oporto ilhas, a nineteenth-century working-class house type, seeking toexplain its location and physical form, as wellas the influence of the local socio-economiccontext on its spatial and formal character-istics. The ilhas is a result of a partial occu-pation of urban plots with approximately 6 mfrontages, and maximum depths of 100 m.Teixeira takes the view that, at the time, theilhas was a residential type well adapted to theresidents’ economic conditions, as well as tothe financial capacity and spatial constraints ofmost building contractors. He acknowledgesthe rationality of this solution, which involvedthe intensive occupation of the plot as well asthe minimization of construction costs. Hepoints out that the ilhas model can also be arational solution to apply in the case of largerplots, by constructing side-by-side rows ofsmall houses occupying the whole plot.

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The third category is concerned withbuildings and their relationship to neigh-bourhood. Three studies focus on threedifferent areas in Lisbon: Bairro Alto, Chelasand Bairro de Alvalade. Carita (1994)highlights the capacity of the Bairro Altoneighbourhood to maintain its identitythroughout time without suffering majorbreaks despite the several changes itexperienced. He seeks to understand theneighbourhood in its different dimensions:historical, social, urban and architectural.

Heitor (2001) explores the spatialcharacteristics that contribute to the vulner-ability of the built environment of Chelas, oneof Lisbon’s largest neighbourhoods. It is aproblematic neighbourhood, particularlyvulnerable to neglect. Heitor begins byidentifying the main characteristics of thespatial configuration of such an ambitious andcomplex housing project. She describes theurban space as it is at present, rather than as itwas intended to be in the initial version of theproject. A significant difference was found.

With reference to the Versailles School ofurban morphology (particularly Castex et al.,1977), Costa (2002) reveals the use of generalurban models in the design of Lisbon’sneighbourhoods. These models are able toincorporate different reinterpretations of thedesigners’ initial intentions. Costa (2002)argues that the Alvalade neighbourhoodconstitutes a paradigm of Portuguese townplanning, reflecting its rather eclectic urbandesign.

In a different approach, using shapegrammars (see, for example, Stiny, 1980),Duarte (2001, 2005) analyses the patio housesin Malagueira, a major 1200-unit developmentin Évora, still under construction today. Thisgrammar is based on 35 houses designedbetween 1977 and 1996.

Finally, the last category is concerned withbuildings and their relationship to streets orsquares. Afonso (2000) examines theevolution of Rua das Flores, the mostimportant street of Oporto in the sixteenthcentury, and Pires (2001) analyses the openingof another street, Rua Álvares Cabral. Rossa(2001) carries out a similar study of Rua de

Sofia in Coimbra. Vasconcelos (2008)investigates an important square in Oporto,Marquês do Pombal, from its origins to thesecond half of the twentieth century. Thesecond part of this study focuses on theevolution of the buildings, identifying themain changes, including the introduction ofcommercial uses on the ground floor.

Syntactical analysis

Kruger played an important role in the earlydevelopment of space syntax theory andmethods and their introduction in Portugal,although with no particular focus onPortuguese urban forms. Focusing on builtform connectivity at an urban scale, heexplored a number of issues (Kruger, 1977,1979a, 1979b, 1980, 1981a, 1981b), includingthe description and representation of built-form systems, the variations of connectivityand adjacency between different zones, and therelationships between built-form connectivityand adjacency as functions of the urban spatialstructure.

Despite limited use of Portuguesesyntactical analysis during the 1980s and thefirst half of the 1990s, there has been a steadyincrease in this type of research during the last15 years stimulated particularly by theestablishment of the International SpaceSyntax Symposia. The most consistent line ofresearch has been developed at the InstitutoSuperior Técnico in Lisbon, mainly promotedby Teresa Heitor, who worked earlier withKruger.

At a theoretical level, Cerdeira, Cordoviland Heitor propose a characterization of axialmaps (Cerdeira et al., 1996). With a closerfocus on a Portuguese city, Lisbon, Heitor etal. (2000) analyse the changes that occurred inthe capital after the earthquake of 1755 andstudy the morphological break that took placewhen the medieval spatial pattern wasmodified by the reconstruction of the citycentre by Pombal. Also with a focus on aparticular city, Pinho and Oliveira (2009b,2009c) study the evolution of the urban formof Oporto throughout the nineteenth and

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twentieth centuries: they analyse a set offifteen maps that correspond to threemorphological periods, using six syntacticmeasures.

While the previous papers focus on anurban scale, other studies are centred on thebuilding scale. Heitor et al. (2007) and Heitorand Tomé (2009) apply syntactical techniquesin the analysis of educational facilities. Andréet al. (2003) and Côrte-Real et al. (2005) usethese techniques in the study of healthfacilities, analysing signal systems andguidance systems in hospitals to improve theoverall quality of orientation and circulation incomplex structures.

In recent years a number of studies haveexplored bridges between space syntax andother approaches. Heitor et al. (2003) haveconsidered how two different computationalapproaches, space syntax and shape grammars,can be combined into a common frameworkfor formulating, evaluating and generatingdesigns. Heitor et al. (2007) have proposed amodel based on the linking of space syntaxand spatial information visualization,exploring the potential of using Wi-Fi net-works as an input for a space-use analysismodel capable of describing and visualizingspatial usage and users’ spatial behaviour inknowledge-sharing scenarios and correlatingthis information with the spatial structure.Pinho and Oliveira (2009b, 2009c) combinespace syntax with a morphological approachclose to that of the Conzenian School,identifying a link between morphologicalperiods and integration, both global and local.Pinho et al. (2009) combine the use of twodistinct structural methodologies in theanalysis of Oporto metropolitan area – spacesyntax, centred on space and urban form, andthe Structural Accessibility Layer, focused onthe land use and transport system.

Urban morphology and urban planning

The first research work on urban morphologyand planning in Portugal was carried out in theLaboratório Nacional de Engenharia Civil(National Laboratory of Civil Engineering) by

researchers such as Luz Valente Pereira andNuno Portas. With a clear prescriptiveintention, Pereira (1982) introduces theconcept of ‘urban space’ as an object ofplanning activity, linking the building and cityscales. In addition, she argues that the designof this ‘urban space’ should be informed bycareful morphological analysis. In his researchwork between 1962 and 1974, Nuno Portas hasmoved from typological research, on collectivehousing, to the analysis of the city (see, forexample, Portas, 1969a, 1969b). Insubsequent years, he published a number ofpapers, the most important being gathered in arecent book (Portas, 2005) that covers suchsubjects as the Portuguese settlements inBrazil; the relationships between planning andabsolutist regimes; and the evolution of theurban form of a particular Portuguese town,Vila Viçosa.

Influenced by her background in theDirecção Geral de Ordenamento do Território(National Agency on Spatial Planning), Lobo(1994) analyses the production of urban plansin Portugal, focusing on two decadesfollowing the 1934 law decree on Planos deUrbanização. The author divides this group ofplans into three types: pragmatic city, gardencity and radiant city.

Most recently the Centro de Investigação doTerritório, Transportes e Ambiente (CITTA)(Research Centre for Territory, Transport andEnvironment) has been developing aconsistent line of research on this issue.Oliveira (2006) assesses the incorporation ofmorphological criteria in the Plano DirectorMunicipal (Municipal Plan) for Oporto, withreference to a set of planning documentsprepared by members of the UrbanMorphology Research Group for British andFrench towns. Oliveira and Pinho (2008)present a critical review of the most influentialplanning policies on the evolution of the urbanforms of the two largest Portuguese citiesbetween the second half of the nineteenthcentury and the present day. With a group ofeight European research centres, CITTA iscurrently developing a project that seeks tolink concepts concerning urban form to urbanmetabolism, advancing operational knowledge

62 The study of urban form in Portugal

for planning practice (see Schremmer et al.,2010).

In Portugal, as in many countries, themorphological dimension of urban planningtended to be less evident towards the end ofthe twentieth century. During the middle ofthe twentieth century, however, a number ofplans, co-ordinated by planners such as Fariada Costa, Etienne de Gröer, Moreira da Silva,Januário Godinho and Raul Lino, were clearlyinfluenced by morphological thought. Theplan of Faria da Costa for the Bairro deAlvalade prepared in the 1940s has recentlyattracted the attention of Costa (2002) andMarat-Mendes (2006, 2007). In his detailedanalysis, Costa identifies morphologicalelements related to the traditional city and thegarden-city movement, as well as to the urbangrowth projects of Amsterdam and Sieldlungin Berlin, and to the concept of theneighbourhood unit, fashionable at the time.Marat-Mendes (2006) analyses this planalongside the plans for the neighbourhoods ofAreeiro and Restelo and against thebackground of the municipal plan co-ordinatedby de Gröer (further developed by Marat-Mendes and Sampayo, 2010), revealing themorphological contributions of these plans tothe built environment of the Portuguesecapital. In addition, Marat-Mendes (2007)analyses the morphological contribution of theurban plans of Etienne de Gröer and Faria daCosta to a sustainable urban environment.

More recently, the 2006 Municipal Plan ofOporto (Câmara Municipal do Porto, 2005)clearly addresses the maintenance of thecharacter of the city, proposing a form-ledzoning. This typological approach to zoningbegan with a comprehensive, rigorousidentification of the types of urban tissuecovering the whole municipal area. The zoneboundaries and regulations correspond for themost part to the tissues identified in theanalysis. The plan considers the existingforms of each type of tissue as potentialsolutions for accommodating human needs ineach part of the city. Accordingly, the basesfor the forms prescribed for each particularapplication for a building permit are thebuildings within the same street or plot series.

Conclusions

There is not a Portuguese school of urbanmorphology. Since the middle of the twentiethcentury, certain relationships between keycontributors and their followers have becomeevident, and some research centres haveformed, but Portuguese urban morphologymainly consists of unco-ordinated effortsundertaken by individual researchers.

It is possible to identify the development ofdifferent morphological approaches – spatialanalytical, configurational, processtypological, and historic-geographical, to usethe terms employed by Kropf (2009). Each ofthese tends to be associated with a mainresearch centre or with certain individualresearchers. One of the most characteristicaspects of Portuguese urban morphology –mainly explored by urban historians and urbangeographers – is the existence of a richcartographical collection produced after theAge of Discovery.

The internationalization of Portugueseurban morphology is constrained by the factthat most Portuguese researchers do notpublish in the English language. In fact only30 per cent of the publications in this revieware in English. Of the others, only a smallpercentage include material in more than onelanguage – surprisingly, some of these are theearliest publications.

Finally, there is an obvious need to establisha Portuguese network linking the differentapproaches, developing projects, providingopportunities for contact between members,and encouraging the dissemination of findings,both nationally and internationally.

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ISUF 2011: Urban morphology and the post-carbon city

The Eighteenth International Seminar on UrbanForm (ISUF 2011), hosted by ConcordiaUniversity, will take place in Montréal, Canadafrom Friday 26 August to Monday 29 August 2011.The theme of the conference is ‘Urban morphologyand the post-carbon city’. The objective is tocritically explore how interdisciplinary research onurban form can contribute to the debates, formationof policies, and progressive professional practicefor addressing the environmental challenges of ourtimes. The organizers and the Council of ISUFinvite participation in the conference by interestedacademics and professionals. Topics to be coveredinclude:

Urban morphological theoryUrban form in North AmericaUrban morphology and climatic changeMega-projects and urban morphologyUrban morphology and transportationUrban morphology and brownfield redevelopmentUrban morphology and healthUrban morphology and the automobile suburbsUrban morphology and urban heritageUrban morphology of pre-industrial citiesGeospatial technology in urban morphologyLegislation and urban formUrban morphology, planning and design

Typological research and design

The official conference languages are Englishand French. There will be a New Researchers’Forum, in which researchers new to the field willtake part.

Founded in 1642 on the banks of the StLawrence River, Montréal is the second largest cityin Canada and the second largest primarily French-speaking city in the world (after Paris), with ametropolitan population of 3.7 million. Acosmopolitan, international city known for thevitality of its urban neighbourhoods and thevibrancy of its cultural scene, Montréal is aUNESCO City of Design.

Enquiries and suggestions concerning theconference should be forwarded to Professor PierreGauthier (e-mail: isuf2011@alcor.concordia.ca) orProfessor Jason Gilliland (e-mail: jgillila@uwo.ca).The Conference Organizing Committee comprisesPierre Gauthier, Concordia University; JasonGilliland, University of Western Ontario; LisaBornstein and Nik Luka, McGill University; CaroleDesprés and Geneviève Vachon, Université Laval;Kai Gu, University of Auckland; Michael Conzen,University of Chicago; and J. W. R. Whitehand,University of Birmingham.

© Tourisme Montréal, Stéphan Paulin.