Urban morphology education in Serbia: Origin, genesis and new tendencies

Abstract

The origin of urban morphology education goes back to the beginning of the 1970s and a period of radical education reforms at the Faculty of Architecture in Belgrade, where urban environment became the main interdisciplinary topic. The importance of urban form has been since emphasized by planners, architects and politicians in various planning documents, symposiums and as such, became an essential segment of the architectural education. The subjects such as Contemporary architecture and form of the city, Urban environment and urbanization, Urban technic and composition and City environment were an important segment of the education for many years. This tradition was strengthened even more in newest accreditation, due to the individual contribution of academics who introduced new courses such as Urban Morphology and Urban Typology and Morphology. Having in mind recent contribution of researchers to emphasize the challenges of teaching urban morphology, this paper aims to enlighten the origin and genesis of the education of urban morphology at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade and to shed the light on new tendencies and means of teaching in present days. The paper will analyze syllabus of the courses, teaching methodology and present examples of student’s projects on three different levels and courses: ex cathedra on the bachelor level, practical implementation of theoretical notions in studio design on master level and research-based work on the PhD level.