Getting to the Root of Urbanity's Crisis: The Debate on Urban Open Spaces in the IFHTP Congresses between the Wars

Since the birth and development of the modern metropolis, the well-established settlement modes of the European historic town have experienced and still experience devastating changes that have ended up by threatening the survival of the urban quality of relations and places. These physical, social and economic processes gave rise, particularly starting from the first half of the nineteenth century, to theories or mere executive proposals that led to town and territory transformation projects and experiences. Studies on the renewal of the town planning culture of the twentieth century only recently take the International Federation for Housing and Town Planning Congresses into account. The IFHTP is the heir of the glorious Garden Cities and Town Planning Association established by Ebenezer Howard and it’s a very important sphere of debate for the formation of modern town planning culture in a period, between the two wars, characterized by big urban and territorial transformation and hard social, economic and political tensions. That debate, if considered critically, can give a contribution to reflections on issues that town planners, administrators and the overall community have now to tackle, while getting to the root of anything but anachronistic issues such as the crisis of landscapes and urban open spaces.