The UNESCO Chair in Architectural Preservation and Planning in World Heritage Cities was established in 2012 at the Mantova Campus of Politecnico di Milano. The program of the UNESCO Chair aims to highlight the strategic and multifaceted value of architectural heritage and encourages its enhancement as a strategy to promote a sustainable evolution of urban contexts. Drawing on a complexity of multi-scale problems related to architectural and environmental conservation in contemporary cities, and to the interaction between conservation and transformation instances, the specific approach of the UNESCO Chair of Mantova is based on the interconnecting of theories and practices and on the cooperation between different disciplines