The History of ISUF

ISUF was created to rectify the lack of a common forum for researchers and practitioners concerned with urban form. In the early decades after the Second World War urban research expanded greatly. It did so within a wide range of disciplines and specialisms – architecture, archaeology, geography, history, planning, urban design, spatial analysis, space syntax and heritage studies – to name a few. But research and interest groups tended to function in isolation from one another. The problem was made worse by language barriers.

ISUF’s aim is the international and interdisciplinary sharing of ideas, methods and findings concerned with urban form. Beginning in 1994 with the coming together of some 20 architects, geographers, planners and historians, representing four different language areas, it now has some 600 individual and institutional members from about 50 countries.

ISUF sponsors an annual conference held on different continents world wide. Click here for a list of past conferences

HISTORY OF URBAN MORPHOLOGICAL STUDY

Here are a selection of articles on the history of ISUF and the study of urban form from different countries and schools. These articles were all published in Urban Morphology, the journal of the International Seminar on Urban Form.

History of the study of urban form in different countries
A. SiksnaThe study of urban form in Australia(2006)
S. de A. Pereira Costa and M. C. V. TeixeiraThe study of urban form in Brazil(2014)
J. Gilliland and P. GauthierThe study of urban form in Canada(2006)
M. DarinThe study of urban form in France(1998)
B. HofmeisterThe study of urban form in Germany(2004)
P.J. LarkhamThe study of urban form in Great Britain(2006)
L. Kealy and A. SimmsThe study of urban form in Ireland(2008)
N. MarzotThe study of urban form in Italy(2002)
S. Satoh, K. Matsuura and S. AsanoThe study of urban form in Japan(2015)
N. Marzot, R. Cavallo and S. KomossaThe study of urban form in the Netherlands(2016)
M. Koter and M. KuleszaThe study of urban form in Poland(2010)
V. Oliveira, M. Barbosa and P. PinhoThe study of urban form in Portugal(2011)
K.-J. KimThe study of urban form in South Korea(2012)
J. Vilagrasa IbarzThe study of urban form in Spain(1998)
A. AbarkanThe study of urban form in Sweden(2009)
A.S. KubatThe study of urban form in Turkey(2010)
M.P. ConzenThe study of urban form in the United States(2001)