Proceedings

of the

International Conference on
“Changing Cities”
Spatial, morphological, formal & socio-economic dimensions

Organized by
Department of Planning and Regional Development, University of Thessaly

Under the aegis of

THE GREEK MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT, ENERGY & CLIMATE CHANGE
&
THE FINANCING OF THE GREEN FUND

EDITOR: Aspa Gospodini

Skiathos, June 18-21, 2013

TITLE Proceedings of the International Conference on “Changing Cities”:
Spatial, morphological, formal & socio-economic dimensions
ISBN 978-960-6865-65-7

Copyright 2013 Grafima Publ.

Grafima Publ.
D. Gounari 62-68
54635 Thessaloniki, Greece
Tel/Fax: 2310-248272
www.grafima.com.gr,
E-mail: grafima@grafima.com.gr
 The city structure in time and the “DSULRUL” form of new urban
configurations
M. Ieva*
1
Department dICAR - Civil Engineering and Architecture; Polytechnic in Bari, via Orabona 4, 70124, Bari,
Italy

*Corresponding author: E-mail: matteoieva@yahoo.it, matteoieva@libero.it, m.ieva@poliba.it,

Tel +39 080 5963686, Fax: +39 080 5963823

Abstract
The contradiction that is found in her current urban configurations, overwhelmed by the
catastrophic situation of having to respond to the incentives is undisputable and it is caused from
now the element of "temporal relations", and it seems to be explained as a response to an
adversarial paradigm that the space can be thought of as something that has no shape.
It must be indistinguishable and homogeneous in all its parts assuming a senseless form "a priori"
in which is practically absent the specific size of the place. It is, basically, of a category of abstract
model expressed with the parameters generally used. It is, basically, a category of inexpressible
abstract model with the parameters generally used without entail which instead makes any
civilization distinguished from others, in space and time.
Keywords: Urban complexity; urban typology and morphology; urban and architectural design.

1. INTRODUCTION

The main trouble for a big city - as a megalopolis - is the disintegration of the traditional Forma
Urbis idea and of the urban identity. Even if in the US metropolis is characterized by exasperated
serial iteration, made in this way in just 3 centuries, is still possible to recognize the necessary
relationship between different territory parts and it’s still clear the dialectic between buildings and
countryside, between downtown and periphery, between housing and production area. While in new
realities everything is uncontrolled and often reduced to shapeless heap of built up.
The concentration of millions of inhabitants, as a result of an extreme process of urbanization
producing an amplified confusion of urban spaces, is causing a new and unexpected level of use the
area and the downfall of every social equilibrium. This kind of places are ruled by the indifference
of the whole hierarchy built and lack an order well-balanced between housing, Tertiary’s sector
areas, commercial areas, production areas in all urban space scales possible, as is made in the best
tradition of the city (in metropolis too). This space is assuming the paradoxical “a priori shape”
aspect and seems in lot of its parts equivalent and homogeneous. New icons of representation, the
so-called “containers”, are accidentally put into the city, as effort to ri-polarize it. These are
complex urban situations and architectures that seem to evocate today the fast dynamism condition,
typical in the new millennium, showing ephemeral dimension and communicate the idea of
transparency, lightly and movement.
In order to inspect on the contents and the outcomes of the current metropolitan reality, it's suitable
to propose in short the dissimilarities that characterized the city during the ages.

2. A BRIEF ANALYTICAL-CRITICAL OF THE URBAN SYSTEM IN TIME

The position to the synthetic structure of the plant city over time, marked in different geographical
and cultural areas, will reconstruct the system of internal hierarchy’s dependent civilization that has
also been expressed in relation to the established social distinctions. We will now review the

Proceedings of the International Conference on “Changing Cities“: 912

Spatial, morphological, formal & socio-economic dimensions
ISBN: 978-960-6865-65-7, Skiathos island, Greece , June 18-21, 2013
different meanings attributed to the "type" urban organism, highlighting the main diachronic
changes that have characterized the distinctions over time. This will rebuild the different character
that the city has manifested under different culture, with all its specific characteristics (political,
administrative, social, etc.), in relation to territorial extension which caused great implications
especially in reference to specialization hierarchy of places and buildings.

2.1 The Greek - Roman City

Firstly to identify the diversity of structure in the two "types of cities" we need to pause briefly on
the conceptual space that the two cultures expressed in the idea of participation in urban life.
For the Greek civilization, the city is the common place to live; it represents the union of people of
the same gender. In the “poleis” the predominant principle of belonging to the pòlis can be found in
the identification of its genos. Rome identifies, on the other hand, the assembly of the troop of
individuals but with a different religion, ethnicity, etc., coming together only in accordance with the
law.
Athenian democracy worked on the concept of common ethnic and religious idea unlike the Roman
vision which he interpreted as an instance of “harmony” (concordia) artificially constructed, such as
the convention subject to the common laws and obey the political system.
The urban structure has, in both cases the city, important distinctions depending on the way of
organizing your living spaces and specialized, variables also based on the location in the area and
the state of the place.
An extension of the residential fabric consists of a dense network of roads, sometimes very
extensive, which includes the islets of courtyard houses (like Prostas defined by megaron and
court), it is associated to the poleis in the system of available space for collective made from the
agora and the acropolis. From primordial experiments it consists of the progressive specialization of
religious and commercial places, we move on to the process of consolidation of the hierarchical
structure that is in the city of Trustees as Priene (half of the fourth - 150 BC) or Miletus (rebuilt in
V BC), the significant classification and monuments in the community places. It is important to
notice that it is the actual planning that makes obvious the "concept" of urban space differentiated
into its parts as developed and evolved up to that moment. Housing needs and specialized (worship,
administrative, commercial, productive, cultural, etc..) concreteness of the order found in the
critically designed with the idea of a city bond issue of collective action produced continuously.
Rome was experiencing back then the stage of proto-urban settlement called Latin, Sabine and
Etruscan and welcomed the Greek cultural heritage developed area, located in the "inventio"
assessment of the urban type of the castrum and the (colonia) colony a new way of conceiving the
relationship between residential fabric and forum (a trim that is not reflected in the Urbs (Rome)
because the urban structure is constituted by a growing union of parts, from phase to phase, subject
to reordering and re-hierarchy), according to an idea of civitas augescens, where the city continues
to grow converging and uniting in diverse populations and ideological foundations.
Numerous cases of military camps in the version made settlement with cortes stable, defined by an
organizational structure corresponding to the Polybius’ idea, are known throughout the Romanized
Settlements arose for defensive purposes in civil and progressively evolved with the gradual shift of
limes.
The typology of the castrum is configured, in general, with a pair of hierarchized routes: via
Principalis and via Praetoria, of which the first through the entire allocation connects the two
doors, the other originated instead from Porta Praetoria and interrupted in correspondence of the
space defined by the residence of the Consul (the Praetorium), behind the forum, the questorium,
and the via Quintana parallel to the road Principalis.
The colony, however, is organized by a system of roads through the middle of them with the forum.
In this regard, it is interesting to see the difficulties that many cities have met at the time of
conversion to civilian facility that requires two roads continue without extensive demolition work
(note the cases of Florence, Como, Bologna, etc..).
The types of urban plan proposed, despite the differences highlighted, proclaim the existence of an

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organization ordered by the association of routes and consists of houses built, sometimes because of
the hierarchical social classes and spaces with public office. These gradually increased and
diversified (including function) over time to the point of being frequently placed at the edge of the
built urban environment.
Remains in both cases of the city (Greek and Roman) the programmatic desire to establish a precise
urban order which has found a necessary principle of flexibility especially in those cases in which
there are obvious phenomena of growth or decline with the opposite of contraction of built, with the
ability to re-polarize the parts of tissue subjected to mutation diachronic.

2.2 Medieval Growing and Renaissance

The rapid decline that had destroyed the political and organizational structure of the Empire, will
result in substantial fragmentation of the Late Antiquity of the social structure. The reduction or
abandonment of the ancient settlements, a phenomenon that had heavily invested the same
metropolis, will bring to Europe in the early Middle Ages to the gradual revival with the
reorganization begun by the Bishops.
Common feature of early medieval and medieval city, as it emerges from the literary records, was
the fortification (against the barbarians in Gaul, against the Goths, Byzantines and Saracens in
southern Italy) and the occupation of an area much smaller than in the previous.
In general, fortified villages are organized, castra, military centers but also an administrative
activity exercised by the lord of a castle, which is delegated financial authority and judicial by the
lords.
Interesting case of Nimes where the Visigoths transformed the ancient amphitheater in a fortified
town of 2000 inhabitants with the inclusion of two churches. Rome, however, a gradual revival
starts with the reconstruction of the city in the ruins of the Campus Martius by the surviving walls
of the previous era. The fortified city of the Middle Ages, as it appears from the twelfth century,
except in southern Italy where reigning Swabians and Angevins, is a town that is organized and
focused business with a law, an administration and a law self-sufficient. Another important matter is
the role of the Church. From a small village with a parish church in the big city with the cathedral,
with the monasteries and shrines, it was present in every community. Very complex institution that
held many functions, later distributed among secular institutions specialized. Florence, for example,
represents the organization of the previous convents of S. Maria Novella, S. Cross, S. Spirit of the
Annunciation and a new arrangement of the Renaissance city that is organized into districts,
polarized precisely these churches, the result of the expansion implemented around the central core
of the city and rebuilt S. Maria del Fiore. The result is a joint citizen body defined by a system of
sub centers, which coincide with the districts-parishes, participating in urban life through the
organization of parts interrelated and complementary. The structure of relationships and building
organisms developed with the rebirth of medieval and Renaissance survived, virtually unchanged,
until the eighteenth century, when the Enlightenment began a gradual process of change and ethical
civilians.
Albeit very approximate, it can be supposed that the history of European settlement, especially as
regards the social, shows a city similar to that of the Good Government (Buon Governo)
represented in the palace of Siena Lorenzetti's fresco, which is clearly this element of communion
and dialogue.

2.3 The birth of the great city and the metropolis

The emergence of new settlements across the ocean and the transformation of those in Europe, the
transition later during the sixteenth century, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries bear witness to
the fulfillment of a radical change in the concept of the city. The impetus of the onset of the
imperative, in conjunction with the rapidly changing market system, determine the development of
a new type of settlement, the so-called Großstadt, governed by the combination of its industry -
market.
In the medieval city dominated by the cathedral and the government or the one of the people, or

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even (as in the south of Italy), the castle, "emergencies" in its material sense, it is ideal, in the
modern presences become the key areas of production and exchange. Urban centers around which is
a new concept in urban planning. Extensive subdivisions to overcome the initial boundaries walled
invest a large share of European settlement with a growth that greatly expands the urban space (see
eg. Barcelona with the Cerdà Plan, 1859). In addition, futuristic visions of urban scenes often find
application in the design experiments at the beginning of the twentieth (see T. Garnier with Une
Cité Industrielle, 1901-1904). If the sample is presented in summary, in order to capture the
different mechanical training of the U.S. metropolis, is Philadelphia. The study, performed with a
final workshop, has allowed us to understand with regard to the specific issues of the metropolis,
the processes that usually are found in large cities. Of particular interest was the investigation of the
conceptual process that generates, during the initial phase of plant of the city, a forecast of planning
on a large scale. As known, any urban planning generally results in a coded / written / graphic shape
what was developed through spontaneous processes. In the case of Philadelphia, Penn and Holme
materialize European experience of which was carriers through an act strongly critical of planning.
But this reflection interpretation, although necessary, had to deal with complex issues arising from
the assumption of its large scale and, therefore, subject to conditions not easily assessed.
Consequently, the building fabric and the same city were found, from time to time, to gain a new
form of spontaneity especially in the case of non-evaluable weather critically.
The other particular phenomenon of the new U.S. cities, partially unknown to the style of
development of the European city, is the speed with which they occur: urban transformations,
substitutions of the urban fabric, and the sudden realization of the infrastructure system that has
produced significant changes to the use and function of urban spaces. A highway, inserted into a
complex of existing housing units, usually as single-family row houses in Philadelphia, quickly
transformed the role of the built environment, isolating the part of the city crossed and interrupting
normal relations. This is particularly evident, for example, in the Bronx in Manhattan whose
progressive deterioration, caused their devastating effect of a highway, has created a neighborhood
with community excluded from society. Along with these urban phenomena there are also the
developments that have been implemented in a way purely processual: slow and gradual mutations
belonging to residential fabric, which offset the natural replacement of the most central areas, which
have gained increasing importance over time, so as to generate the systematic replacement built for
low-income with skyscrapers. And this central part of the "polar" core originally planned to
Philadelphia, the true "center of centers", it is still regarded as a place where the city exhibits the
maximum economic value and which is concentrated in the service sector, etc. It is, after all, a
logical mutation of the built-dependent changes in social / economic / cultural, ie civilians. You
could call it "genetic variation" that the U.S. and European cities, in most cases has been able to
generate without giving up, even the extreme condition of indeterminacy, and repetition of the
urban fabric, those necessary to preserve hierarchical relationships that each urban organism, as
extended, it must be insured. The condition of the structure of the constituent parts together with the
metropolitan appearing openly in the case of the rebuilt of Berlin, where an astute planning of
newly built allowed to re-conquer those natural hierarchical relationships, which (historically) only
the contribution of collective several generations has generally assured. Thus, a behavior similar to
the megalopolis at all, especially the rich Middle East or the Eastern or Latin America, where there
is a total dissolution of the significance of the city, with loss of any kind of urban identity. Along
roads, largely disordered, mixed with areas of advanced services (mostly concentrated in the central
node), open spaces, invasions residential buildings with low-income, production facilities and, of
course, traffic fast invading the built, curtailing relations with the impetus of a "flood".

2.4 The "DSULRUL" form

The contemporary city-megalopolis, symbolically symbolizes the concept of the urban identity
devoid of individuality, loss of agglomeration in variety of shapes, all discordant and at the same
time indistinguishable. The outcome is, as noted, a form of incomplete Forma Urbis and it is
lacking in originality, which has squandered the traditional formal values and structural who have

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qualified in time and space diversity. In comparison with a city of the past, the "shape-structure" is
clearly identifiable and diverse (Rome, Venice, Paris, London, Moscow, Istanbul, etc.), the
metropolises current presence is “formless” in most of the behaviors and identify their component
parts, not showing a diversified nature to urban areas. The complex relationship that develops
between the places of production, those of exchange, markets, tertiary and quaternary (the latter
defined as a productive sector based on a system of relations Express Service with the use of the
network), not generated as in the traditional city a clear and distinct urban areas. Everything is
focused on an alleged value of dynamic acceleration of human activities that must be expressed
through the idea of rapid industriousness, adaptability, continuous renewal. Provided that generates
an assumption of "sclerosis" of the city and tissues, ie "pathological changes" urban organism that
lost all of those basic conditions that sustain the relationship flexible and changeable systems
connective tissues urban, lose the character of the typical diversity of the structures in constant
transformation.
The megalopolis, in fact, says G. Simmel, is the place where it expresses the relationship of the
individual with the extra or over-personal. The man is understood as "being differential" that
evaluates the differences and puts them in relation to one another, who lives without the complexity
and multiplicity of suffering reacts to various impulses that come from all directions (as noted by G.
Simmel using the word Nervenleben) which highlights the condition that characterizes the
metropolitan man. Be living the urban life perceived as a metaphor and, at the same time, analogy
in a state of existence which makes virtual interactive subject and object, space and time.
Phenomenon is further the progressive intensification of the stimuli that causes the effect of the
space and the singular reduction of time to mere seconds. Hence, with the acceleration of reality, as
a result of the prodigious technique gives rise to the sense of destruction of the bond with the place.
Although at first glance it might seem like a paradox, it should be noted that among the great
powers of the metropolis, space deadly conflict, there is the need of the time calling cadence on
time and to define everything in a rational and logical. Time involved from the output and the
money you lose the concept of dimension and becomes a "no time" that regulates the metropolitan
life. Place of conflicting tendencies manifested by the conflict between objectivity and
Personalization, and it combines: duality and differentiation; repetition and specialization; value of
money and organization. All this is now it’s the metropolis with its incongruities: the territory of
continuous motion de-territorialized place and home to millions of people (many in poor countries),
with a highly fragmented structure, consisting of large areas defined by architectures
undifferentiated overflowing with functions, at the same time or financial executive, surrounded by
residential areas alternating with areas marginal for commercial or productive or, especially in big
cities, low-income residences that degrade quickly or, finally, shanty towns. The contradiction that
is found in her current urban configurations, overwhelmed by the catastrophic situation of having to
respond to the incentives is undisputable and it is caused from now the element of "temporal
relations", and it seems to be explained as a response to an adversarial paradigm that the space can
be thought of as something that has no shape.
It must be indistinguishable and homogeneous in all its parts assuming a senseless form "a priori"
in which expressed is practically absent the specific size of the place. It is, basically, of a category
of abstract model expressed with the parameters generally used. It is, basically, a category of
inexpressible abstract model with the parameters generally used without entail which instead makes
any civilization distinguished from others, in space and time.
This raises the question: what should we expect the future shape of the trend is that of the projected
growth in the size of uncontrollable condition of oblivion individuality, growth amorphous and
lacking in "character" that has as a logical consequence, precisely adoption of the paradigmatic
models "a priori"?
The intrinsic difficulty of the question does not, of course, speculate hasty and futuristic. But a
consideration instinctive, so lacking in critical judgment, it is believed, however, to be expressed
with respect to the large gap of the "signifier-signified" which comes from the comparison between
ancient metropolitan reality and actual reality. While recognizing the fundamental conceptual

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distance that distinguishes them, it should be noted that, for example, both the Urbs Roman, image
of the civitas augescens described in the sources vintage as a place sometimes unlivable, both that
of the Greek polis as a place of belonging, still show substantial evidence (philosophical, ethical,
legal, architectural) expressing, legendary and indestructible, the high value of cultures that have
expressed their content by listing the civilians of modernity, progress and development.
That noted, you could then try to consider whether to investigate the dynamics of the very urban
city, or portions thereof, which ideally represent the places where the living conditions and
sustainability are the best balance. Read the character and structure of the hierarchical relationship
that has been established between the different parts (using analysis tools based on reality), trying
them in this interpretative key and critical in order to meet the current changing needs.
With a warning: in such a complex situation it is essential to create an active comparator and
interdisciplinary alongside those sciences such as philosophy, sociology, anthropology, economics,
etc.,who started the debate for some time and research on the issues of complex metropolis.

3. THE TEACHING EXPERIENCE

The teachings of Typological and morphological characters of architecture and Architectural

design, set up at the degree in Architecture at the Polytechnic of Bari - Dicar Department and
assigned to the writer, are involved in the study of evolutionary processes of mutation that link
(generally) urban complexity, in order to spread that knowledge requires the knowledge of the
dynamics that define the body city.
Both courses are based on certain fundamental concepts, such as that of "type of architecture",
meaning, despite the great variety and complexity of possible outcomes building, refers to
principles and continuous training unit in areas temporal and areal homogeneous. This notion is
especially analyzed which led to processes of formation and transformation historically identified,
especially in light of the contemporary crisis, that unity of the tools of the project that the very
notion of "body" was a prerequisite. Another term is constantly reminded, in fact, that of organism,
summarized briefly’s "set of elements linked by relation of necessity and competitors as a unit to
the same end" (Strappa, 1995), used to interpret the character of the building pre-modern and
contemporary (concept obviously useful reflections projects). The recognition of the relationship of
unity and cooperation of the elements in the organism (including the urban scale), as everybody
knows, is able to grasp the distinctions layered, and is still evident in the different architectural
cultures. Methodological assumption upon which the principle of identifying the spatio-temporal
and cultural diversity, which makes it possible to recognize those differences and linguistic
construction, openly read in the light of the concept of a organism, generally evident in the
architecture pre-modern but dissolved in distinctions quite marginal in parallel with the modern idea
of architecture.
These notions, from which descend further meanings of method, are the basic principle in which
you try to interpret phenomenologically different from human expressions present in geographical
and cultural areas between them conceptually very distant. Regarding the questions properly
applied to the metropolitan urban-architectural project, it should be noted that the main ways of
showing body city, with its numerous and complex contradictions which were regarded as "form"
concept, become a source of initial design reflection. This, especially for complex urban issues,
must be understood with a meaning that makes clear the dominant character of our age, that is, the
ability to be active and proactive in changing the past. This approach expresses our ability to be
effective input by means of a critical exercise not parasitic and a break with the past, but in full
continuity with the historically transmitted and inherited. Vision adequately explicated from the
German Machenschaft.



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References

1. Aymonino C., 1971. Origini e sviluppo della città moderna, Padova
2. Cacciari M., 2009. La città, Rimini
3. Caniggia, G.; Maffei, G.L., 2001. Archiectural composition and building typology. Interpreting
basic building, Firenze
4. Gregotti, V., 2006. L’architettura nell’epoca dell’incessante, Bari
5. Ieva M., 2011. Bisceglie. Studi per un’operante storia urbana della città pugliese/Studies for a
working urban history of the Apulian city, Bari
6. Ieva M., 2012. Il progetto dello spazio sacro nella didattica dell’architettura/The sacred space
project in the teaching of the architecture, Bari
7. Ieva M., 2011. Caratteri dell’architettura nell’età della globalizzazione. In: La ricerca. Bari, 2-
6 maggio 2011, BARI: POLIBAPRESS, vol. 2, p. 745-754
8. Muratori S., 1959. Studi per un’operante storia urbana di Venezia, Roma
9. Purini, F.,: 2008. La misura italiana dell’architettura, Bari
10.Rossi A., 1978. L’architettura della città, Milano
11.Severino E., 2006. La filosofia futura. Oltre il dominio del divenire, Milano
12.Simmel G., 1903. Die Großstädte und das Geistesleben, Dresden
13.Strappa G., 1995. Unità dell’organismo architettonico. Note sulla formazione e trasformazione
degli edifici, Bari.
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diverse scale, Dip. ICAR, Bari

Table 1. The greek city and the roman city. Course of Typological and morphological
carachters of architecture A.A. 2007-08. Prof. Ieva M. Politecnico di Bari. Students Di Dio L,
Discipio I.

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Table 2. The late baroque and nineteenth century city. Turin. Course of Typological and
morphological carachters of architecture A.A. 2009-10. Prof. Ieva M. Politecnico di Bari.
Students La Notte G., Melchiorre E., Paolillo A.

Table 3. The american U.S. metropolis: Philadelphia, formation phases of the urban fabric.
Final workshop A.A. 2010-11. Advisor Prof. Petruccioli A., Tutor Prof. Ieva M. Politecnico di
Bari. Students Altamura D., Di Biase A., Mundo M. Passiatore A., Pellicani S., Somma S.

919
Table 4. The contemporary city: Berlin. Course of Typological and morphological carachters of
architecture A.A. 2009-10. Prof. Ieva M. Politecnico di Bari. Students Simone A.M.,
Spagnoletti G., Zaza V.

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Tables 5. The Malta’s Harbour around La Valletta. Complexity and incoherency. Final
workshop A.A. 2011-12. Advisor: Prof. M. Ieva. Politecnico di Bari. Students Camporeale A.,
Candeloro E., Chimienti C., Fedele D., Gorgoglione P., Sancineti A.

Tables 6. Settlement design of Ta-xbiex peninsula (Malta). Final workshop A.A. 2011-12.
Advisor: Prof. M. Ieva. Politecnico di Bari. Students Camporeale A., Candeloro E., Chimienti
C., Fedele D., Gorgoglione P., Sancineti A.

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