Transformation and typological innovation. The case of ‘political assembly building’ in modern European democracies

The transformation process, either urban or architectural, has always represented a substantial part of the instruments for the construction and the built environment. The transformation of the built is a practice used more frequently in times of crisis, where the need for innovation get stronger. It occurs in cyclical returns and structural crisis in the XIX and XX centuries and in economic and social depres- sion begun in the early XXI century. Here is proposed the analysis of what happens to the historic city in a given historical period and a speci c typological process. Economic and political changes affected signi cantly the whole Europe in XIX century; they pointed out the need to adapt existing places for political assembly. The functional and technical restructu- ring arisen from the demand of the new political class ensure the equality, the equal rights and du- ties to each member. Therefore the traditional urban and suburban palaces and the monastery are converted to accomodate new spaces for political assembly. The need of a new place dealt with the instruments of existing buildings transformation leads to a new typological process; it comes into being from the type of urban, sub-urban palaces and the monastery and bring on the new type of the building for the Parliamentary Assembly. The paper investigates the morphological process to show how morphological processual can be useful in the contemporary design, suggesting that a reactivation of the morphological process can generate new interesting modes for the contemporary space.