Conversations on composition.
Interdisciplinary reflections on
contemporary urban planning projects

Antonella Bruzzese, Antonio Longo

The paper illustrates the contents of a cycle of seminars organized by A. Bruzzese and A. Longo at the Polytechnic of Milan in 2010 in which representatives of different disciplines were invited to talk about composition.
The town planning has an ambivalent relationship with the theme of composition: it could seem obvious or useless if seen from the perspective respectively of architecture and urban design or planning and social science. Nevertheless by comparison with apparently distant disciplines - photography, architecture, choreography, etc. - relevant issues can emerge. Concerning both the technical dimension of composition (the use of tools and materials) both the relationship established with the context, in its broadest sense (relationship with the past, with the unexpected, with the manifold actors involved in the design process), they could give an helpful contribution to feed the reasoning about the form and the meaning of the project for contemporary city.

Antonella Bruzzese
DiAP Department of Architecture and Planning
Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy
Email: antonella.bruzzese@polimi.it
Antonio Longo
DiAP Department of Architecture and Planning
Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy
Email: antonio.longo@polimi.it