Enrico Pietrogrande, enrico.pietrogrande@unipd.it, 049 8275729
Alessandro Dalla Caneva, alessandro.dallacaneva@dicea.unipd.it

Research areas:

Urban morphology as a tool for the design of new buildings in the historical city.
Urban morphological and typological studies are fundamental elements in the current world. These studies have assumed a particularly important position in the Italian architectural culture from the mid-20th century. In opposition to achievements attained by the modern movement, they propose a new approach, according to which history and its formal contents are deeply investigated and become a basic part of the project so that the new can take shape only in connection with the past and as a continuation of it. A way of seeing a project in which the real man rather than an ideal one is considered gradually flanks the view that the modern movement held of the past in the name of a liberty so romantically exalted by Le Corbusier’s vision of a new man projected onto a hypothetical future. Architectural regeneration takes place thus only through the past, without mimicry, in the light of present-day needs. This is a form of traditionalism that, keeping a sense of proportion, makes it possible to take from the past that which moves us today and to take from the present that which is most alive rejecting aberrations outside of life.
From this perspective, the object of the planning experience is the city, and architecture becomes the defining element of the city itself. The project is considered as an “analogous city” made up of fragments, rediscovered architectures, and known forms assembled in an original way that is nonetheless capable of evoking meanings and of constructing infinite urban relations. The analogy means recalling, through the analogic process and thus of invention, a lost world, which is the world of the city and its types.
The design invention then composes already known forms and that is why it is the result of a dialectical relationship with history that must be investigated to uncover new aspects and new things, in the attempt not so much to repropose forms of the past but to rediscover rules and principles. Quality architectural planning means being able to hand down to those who come after us the memory we inherited. In this respect, projects uncovering architectural typologies find newly a civic tradition that permits a community to recognize in buildings and places the civic values of its being part of the world. The project experience enters into the heart of a city and of its forms addressing unresolved fragments and rediscovering continuity without nostalgia with urban forms.

Keywords: Public space, Urban morphology, Memory, Identity