Italian Piazza and Planning Culture. Exporting a Prototype, Identifying a Disciplinary Node

The model of the Italian piazza had a strong influence on the culture of urban planning in the Anglo-American context, and indirectly led the disciplinary debate to question the ultimate nature of planning. Camillo Sitte codified and internationally disseminated the great lesson of Italian-style ‘outdoor rooms’ in the late 1800s. The piazza inspired civic centres, monumental arrangements and urban renewal projects based on community needs. Prominent authors such as Unwin, Hegemann, Giedion, Mumford, Lynch and Venturi fol- lowed and developed this line with fundamental reflections on the use of collective urban spaces. The Italian urban tradition was always taken as a reference and often challenged. The spontaneous alchemy between architecture and society inherent in some places re- vealed the limits of technical design in the contemporary metropolis. The idea of the liter- al exportability of the piazza as a prototype has been definitively questioned, but never the study of its organising principles, nor the appreciation of its typical components of spatial design (which have recently been trivialized by the proliferation of shopping centres).

Keywords: Urban Planning, Italian Piazza, Civic Centres, Public Space, Townscape, Urban Renewal.

Michela Morgante, Italian piazza e planning culture. Esportazione di un prototipo, individuazione di un nodo disciplinare in "STORIA URBANA " 176/2023, pp 117-142, DOI: 10.3280/SU2023-176006