Leonardo Ramondetti

Leonardo Ramondetti, Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Development from Politecnico di Torino and Università di Torino, Interuniversity Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning (DIST). His field of research is contemporary urban design theories and planning cultures, with particular focus on the processes of infrastructure-led urbanisation. He is the coordinator of the research activities in the China Room research group. Between 2015 and 2019 he participated in the research ‘CeNTO – Chinese New Towns: Negotiating Citizenship and Physical Form’, carried out by Politecnico di Torino, Tsinghua University of Beijing, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale of Lausanne, which allowed him to spend two visiting period at the Tsinghua University in Beijing while working at the publication of The City after Chinese New Towns: Spaces and Imaginaries from Contemporary Urban China (Birkhäuser, 2019). As a postdoctoral scholar, he is currently working at the research project of national relevance (PRIN) ‘Rescaling the Belt and Road Initiative: urbanization processes, innovation patterns and global investments’ (2020-2023) carried out by Politecnico di Torino and Università di Macerata, and financed by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research. During this period, he earned a 5-month visiting position at Laboratoire Techniques, Territoires et Sociétés (Paris). He is the author of the book The Enriched Field: Urbanising the Central Plains of China (Birkhäuser, 2022).