This collection of essays focuses on the roots behind the elaboration of the Italian ‘planning standards’ decree (April 1968) that set a minimum provision of public facilities (18 sqm per inhabitant) that city plans had to ensure: in the last fifty years this law strongly oriented Italian urban transformations. Nowadays it is necessary to observe again this planning tool, also from the perspective of the cultural context where it was produced. The essays higlight the complexity and fertility of the experiences that contributed in the elaboration of the decree on ‘planning standards’, arguing that its background was based not exclusively to a quantitative dimension.
Keywords: Planning standards; planning culture; models