Council Meetings of ISUF, 1998

No. 2 Avenue de Paris in Versailles is one of two nearly identical buildings occupying the apexes of the converging Avenues de Sceaux, de Paris and de Saint Cloud. The two buildings sit across the great place and cour d'honneur from the Palace of Versailles itself. Both were originally part of the palace complex. No. 2 was the stable block. The building is significant and sombre, its double-height riding arena now filled with casts of Classical Antiquities (its somewhat more recent lecture theatre decorated like a nightclub). Some of its many rooms now house the Ecole d'Architecture de Versailles. The building was also the setting for this year's interim meetings of ISUF's Council and Editorial Board.

The meetings were hosted by the members of the Laboratoire de Recherche Historie Architecturale et Urbaine - Société (LADRHAUS), a research group within the Ecole d'Architecture. As decided in Birmingham last year, the main purpose of the interim Council meeting is to plan the principal gathering the following year. The meetings of the Council and the Editorial Board of Urban Morphology took place on 2 and 5 July, with seminars taking place on the intervening days. Covering some common topics, the Editorial Board and Council meetings ran sequentially on each day. The principal topics that emerged over the two days were the finances, form and content of the 1999 conference, scheduled for 23-26 July in Florence (see notice on page 105).

Several matters relating to the running of ISUF were discussed in the course of the meetings. Jeremy Whitehand expressed concern that the ISUF Web site (http://www.let.rug.nl/isuf/) remains little visited. Plans to incorporate a page dedicated to the multi-lingual glossary project (co-ordinated by Joe Nasr) may help to address this problem. The page will include the facility for visitors to contribute directly to the project. Jeremy Whitehand also raised questions about the status of the New Researchers' Forum, hoping to ensure its continued existence. He suggested a member of the Forum be co-opted to the Council, putting forward Elwin Koster, an idea later agreed by the Council.

On the subject of finances, one of the first topics concerned this journal. Members' subscriptions to ISUF are almost exclusively used to cover the printing and postage costs of Urban Morphology. Subscription income in 1998/9 was likely to be barely sufficient to finance the production and distribution of two issues of the journal. In addition to considering ways of increasing the number of subscribers, the question of obtaining income from other sources was raised. Albert Levy had approached CNRS for a contribution to publication costs associated with the Versailles meeting. It was resolved to pursue this source of support further but to ensure that the conditions attached to any funding were not contrary to the aims and editorial policies of the journal. One respect in which this might be a concern is with regard to seeking inclusion of the journal in the citation indexes and other publications of the Institute for Scientific Information. Inclusion improves the visibility of the journal but comparatively few journals are included that do not have English as their principal language. The CNRS may require significant amounts of text in French. Other sources of funding were considered by the Editorial Board (Figure 1) and members of the Board and the Council agreed to publicize the journal within their countries, particularly with a view to increasing the number of library subscriptions. Giancarlo Cataldi mentioned that he would also look for funding for a special issue based on the Florence conference.

the journal's finances.

In other developments regarding the journal, it was agreed not to pursue further a proposal by Routledge (London) to collaborate with ISUF in the publication of Urban Morphology: they wished to increase significantly the subscription rates and broaden the content, principally to make it more attractive in North America, a direction deemed inappropriate by the Editorial Board. There was support for the inclusion in future issues of contributions on space syntax, and relevant aspects of cultural studies, archaeology, conservation, education and practice. It was also agreed to establish the positions of Book Review Editor, which Brenda Scheer (University of Cincinnati) would be invited to take up, and Reports Editor.

Continuing with financial matters, Secretary-Treasurer Michaël Darin explained the problems he is encountering with the banking of cheques. The main problem is the cost of bank charges being incurred when paying cheques into ISUF's sterling account in Paris. If a satisfactory solution to this cannot be found, it may be necessary to revert to paying subscriptions into ISUF's bank account in Birmingham, England. In any case members paying subscriptions in currencies other than sterling would need to pay an additional amount to cover the cost of exchange. It was agreed that the annual subscription for libraries receiving Urban Morphology would be raised to £25 from 1 January 1999, personal subscriptions remaining at £15 until 30 June 1999.

Florence 1999

Jeremy Whitehand raised the question of subsidies for those unable to afford the cost of attending the conference, especially students. He noted that for the Birmingham conference, a significant amount of money was raised to that end through grants and other sources. All agreed it had produced a very positive result and that grants should be sought to do the same for Florence 1999. Attilio Petrucioli mentioned the Kress, Soros, and Rockefeller Foundations as possible sources of funds. It was also suggested by Giancarlo Cataldi that members of the Council help to find organizations in their respective countries who might provide assistance for students. Jean Castex added that he would use his contacts to encourage more people to come from Latin America.

Speaking for the conference organizers, Nicola Marzot set out proposals for the themes and structure of the conference. The proposed general theme is `the transformation of urban form', with two sub-themes - `theory' and `practice'. It emerged that the facilities of the University of Florence's `P. Calamandrei' campus will allow for a maximum of four parallel sessions, giving a total of some 64 possible papers over the four days.

Discussion ensued on the topics to be covered by individual sessions. The question of whether it would be possible to identify topics that would encourage interdisciplinary sessions was considered. It was agreed that it was undesirable to have sessions devoted to individual disciplines, such as archaeology, history or geography.

Sylvain Malfroy proposed a workshop session on the subject of Florence itself. The guiding idea was that participants should be helped to understand aspects of the city through the research of those who have been living in it and studying it. While it was agreed that the idea was a good one, concerns were raised about the practicalities, given the size and length of the conference as well as the need to maximize the number of papers so that participants could obtain financial support.

The Italian team presented their proposal for the overall working of the sessions. They suggested that a co-ordinator be identified for each specific topic who would both seek out contributions and sort through submitted abstracts. In addition, each co-ordinator would produce a synthesis as a basis for discussion in a plenary session of which it was envisaged that there would be at least two.

After extensive discussion, the following themes were agreed: the interpretation of urban organisms; theory and practice - interpretation and design; revisiting the masters - the history of urban morphology; the oriental city; the origin and diffusion of European building types; theory and method - epistemplogical issues; medieval urban design; and a New Researchers' Forum. Further information and the contact addresses of co-ordinators are given on page 105.

K.S. Kropf, Stratford-on-Avon District Council and Urban Morphology Research Group, School of Geography, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK.