Fourth ISUFitaly Conference, Bari, Italy, 26-28 September 2018

The 4th ISUfItaly Conference has been held at the Politechnic University of Bari from 26th to 28th of September 2018. It took place within the DICAR (Departement of Civil Engineering and Architecture) and was entitled “READING BUILT SPACES. Cities in the making and future urban form”. The first day, within the Aula Magna Domus Sapientiae, Giuseppe Strappa (ISUFitaly President) opened the conference by describing the spirit and the cultural project pursued by the scientific organization. Matteo Ieva, as conference chair together with Paolo Carlotti and Loredana Ficarelli, has emphasized the importance to face up the theme of the reading in a conference focused on urban morphology. Particularly he pointed out the necessary to look at the built space with the ‘lens of objectivity’ in order to extract from it the ‘essence’ of its ‘becoming reality’ that reaches us through its concrete evidence, expression of a collective doing, rather than prerogative of the individual who tries to interpret it. The speech of the Italian architect Renato Rizzi has preceded the beginning of the afternoon parallel sessions. He, through a philosophical speculation, has provided a critical view point on the relation between the sense of the contemporary culture and the architecture, with the latter conceived as act of civilization and singularity rather than exaltation of the own ego.