In eleven pointed, sometimes provocative conversations, the author, architect, and architectural scholar attempts to derive principles for the reestablishment of contemporary urban development from its critique. In seven programmatic projects, he demonstrates how these principles can be implemented in urban fragments and what such a reestablishment can look like as a demanding craft. Both the conversations and the projects envision a calm modern city that measures itself against the historical, is materially and culturally sustainable, and can provide a home for our multifaceted society.