Invited Speakers

Giancarlo Cataldi

Graduated in Architecture in Rome (1978), he was educated at the Muratorian school of urban morphology and building typology, deeply rooted in the Roman interpretation of Italian rationalism. Since 1975, he has been Associate Professor at the University of Florence, Italy. He teaches Architectural Design at the Department of Architecture. He worked with Gianfranco Caniggia on analysis and studies related to the historic city of Florence and founded in 1981 the “Centro Internazionale per lo Studio dei Processi Urbani e Territoriali” (CISPUT), where he is presently serving as Honorary President. He is Editor of the peer-reviewed journal “Urban Morphology”. He is founding member (1997) and President of the International Seminar of Urban Form (2013-2017). He recently curated the book “Saverio Muratori Architetto. Modena 1910-Roma 1973” (Aion, 2013), as a result of a series of conferences aimed to celebrate the centennial of Muratori’s birth.

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Min Jay Kang

Associate Professor at the Graduate Institute of Building and Planning, National Taiwan University. His research and practice focuses on dialectics in cultural landscape, creative sustainability, identity politics and “artivism” representation of landscape in arts and literature, urban design, and landscape narratives. His most recent projects include a comprehensive survey and planning for Taipei’s cultural landscape, interpretation and construction of landscape narratives for a waterfront settlement, and action planning for the Treasure Hill squatters in Taipei’s Gong Guan district.

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Pietro Garau

He holds a degree of Dottore in Architettura from the University of Rome and he is tenured researcher at the first Faculty of Architecture of the University of Rome. From 1980 to 2002 Dr. Garau worked for the United Nations Center for Human Settlements (Habitat) most recently as director of the Habitat Office at the United Nations in New York. Prior to that he worked as Senior Advisor to the Executive Director of Habitat in Nairobi, Director of the Habitat II Conference Secretariat, and Chief of the Research and Development Division. His research contributions focused on settlement management, institutions and policies. They include the first issue of Habitat’s flagship report, the “Global Report on Human Settlements”, and the “Global Strategy for Shelter to the Year 2000”. While in Geneva as head of Habitat’s Europe office, Dr. Garau set up the Maison de l’Habitat as a partnership between the UN, academia, local authorities and civil society organizations. Later, he was instrumental in the establishment of the UN Advisory Committee of Local Authorities, the first advisory body of local authorities to a United Nations agency, and was responsible for the negotiations which transformed Habitat into the United Nations Human Settlements Programme. He is a member of N-AERUS, the network of European-based researchers dealing with urbanization issues in the South.

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Richard Ingersoll

Formerly Associate Professor at Rice University; Visiting Professor at ETH Zurich, Università di Ferrara, UNav Pamplona. Editor of “Design Book Review” and Art Director for the film “Esther”. Recent books include “Sprawltown” and “Global Architecture 1900-2000”, vol. I. His articles appear regularly in Arquitectura Viva, Il Giornale di Architettura, Harvard Design Magazine, Architecture, Bauwelt. Teaches 16th century Italian architecture and survey of Italian urbanism.