In particular, the students will develop an understanding of the contemporary city of Paris and its structure-generating processes, reading change in the space in real time, from three distinct points of view, that also imply different conception of the city as a collective construction. The first observations will consider the city by an aggregate standard, analyzing the major shifts, persistences and energies that direct the growth of the metropolis. A second series of readings assumes a radically different point of view on the contemporary city: by looking at the urban landscape through the eyes of its inhabitants the research will try to give account for the uncoordinated small changes in the physical structure of the city that forms the background rumor of the urban activity. Another analytical tool will investigate the transformational devices that characterize the specific ways by which urban activities are related to the physical structure of the cities.