In October 1997, an annual study meeting organised by CISPUT (International Centre for the Study of Regional and Urban Evolution) was held on terrritorial reading. It was split up into two sessions: the former was focussed on leading methodologies, the latter on a comparison between specific cases of territorial analysis.
Particular significance lay in the opening address by A. Giannini, who presented five sheets in Saverio Muratori's own handwritings; dating back to 1964, they were probably the Italian Maestro's thoughts on the dynamics of territorial formation and transformation, based on the ridge theory.
A. Ambrosi then elaborated on his interesting concept of territorial division. E. Genovesi presented a landscape analysis framework oriented towards possible restoration and planning; M. Gallarati likewise showed the methodological framework used for the handbook approach to Ligurian territorial structure recovery. Lastly, a video by G.-C. Cataldi, G.L. Maffei and P. Vaccaro was shown, entitled Architecture, environmental context. It had already been presented at the 97 ISUF Seminar' in Birmingham, summing up the standpoints of the Italian school of Muratorian and Caniggian derivation.
The subsequent debate was animated by N. Egenter, who spoke about his studies on the archetypal signs of territorial demarcation as found in Japanese and Indian villages in particular.
The second day was opened by P. G. Gerosa, who presented a synthesis of his research on Corippo, an Alpine microterritory (published in in 1992). A small mountain settlement of the Ticino Canton was analysed in the countless aspects that characterise its history, both with regard to the community and corresponding changes to territorial and settlement order. He was followed by P. Scarsella and M. Zerbinatt who reported on farming and pastoral colonization of another Alpine area between Piedmont and Savoy. A. Petruccioli showed fossile landscapes of the Arabian Mediterranean, with particular reference to inland Algeria. G. Strappa and M. Ieva discussed the territory of the town of Trani in Apulia, and R. Bollati and S. Bollati outlined their studies of the planned typologies of colonial towns in Sicily.
The discussion raised a panorama of richly varied research giving a glimpse of the possibility of growing methodological convergence and theoretical exchanges and specifications in view of the dislciplinary unity of studies on typology and urban and territorial morphology.
At the end of the meeting, A. Regazzoni Caniggia and G. L. Maffei movingly recalled Gianfranco Caniggia. Ten years after his death, his fame is spreading, also internationally, over the years on account of the theoretical and applicative contribution of his research. On the occasion of this anniversary, they prepared an initial selection of his most significant work as an embryonic exhibition, which they are sure to extend subsequently into an itinerant exhibition.