The recomposition of urban public spaces. Case study of the historic centre of Noale, Italy

The theme of this paper is the recomposition of public spaces in the ancient town when compromised by old and recent speculative interventions. The working method is based on the belief that, in the study of urban morphology, is basic to analyse the history of the city, clarifying the relationship between permanent structures on the one hand and temporary ones on the other. The history becomes an indispensable tool to know the deep reasons of the urban structure which is the memory and the image of the community. The paper is based on fundamental 1960s studies and following about typological analysis (Aldo Rossi, 1966; Carlos Martì Arìs, 1993) specifically oriented towards the theme of public spaces. The spatial aspects and formal image of the transformations in the city are studied as a premise for the design of the new architecture. Noale, not far from Venice, was one of the subjects the students on the course of Architectural and Urban Composition 2 at the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering of the University of Padua specifically investigated as an opportunity to redesign the unity of the historic centre of this town that had previously been lost.