GIANFRANCO CANIGGIA’S THOUGHT AND THE CONTRIBUTION TO THE ITALIAN SCHOOL OF URBAN MORPHOLOGY

THE ITALIAN SCHOOL OF PROCESS MORPHOLOGY. ROOTS, METHODS AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS The following three texts intend to summarize the formation, development and future prospects of the Italian school of urban morphology. The problem is not simple, since the related debate never established a common ground. However, one can recognize a shared aim to use the analysis of the built environment for operational purposes. These studies are, therefore, “architecturally oriented”, showing a complementarity of methods, with other schools of thought, among them, the geographers of Conzenian traditions. The following texts inevitably refer to the specific field of study of the authors, which is that of process morphology. Nevertheless, we believe that this presentation, albeit partial, contains matters of interest for our foreign colleagues, especially those who are investigating built form to plan its transformation. The three texts address, in order: the origin of process morphology studies, focusing on the Roman school, where some notions that guided subsequent studies were born; the formation of a new science of building based on an innovative method of reading and design ing the existing reality, mostly thanks to Gianfranco Caniggia’s contribution; future prospects, which open up new fields of investigation, new specificities, (and also differentiations) within ongoing research.