Assemblage and aggregation: reading the ancient city and urban composition methods

Abstract

Some of the classical methods of analysis in urban morphology have been based on the reading of the historical city. Taking ancient Rome as an example, this paper examines how the reading of the ancient city also gave rise, from the Renaissance to the present, to different ways of designing modern urban form. In particular, the notion of aggregation, understood as a system of formative laws, gave rise to synthetic design methods tending to follow a continuing process. Today this statement seems far from obvious: indeed, one of the characteristics of contemporary culture seems to be the impossibility of a synthesis. The idea of assemblage, historically opposite and complementary to that of aggregation, is then examined. Intended as a gathering of autonomous and self-sufficient parts, this notion has had, and continues to have, great success among architects. It is suggested that the distinction between the two different methods of reading the ancient city, one based on morphological analysis and the other on perception, can contribute to understanding the current condition of urban design.