ABSTRACT
Contemporary processes of modernization and the current global crisis have in urban space their crucial shared phenomenon. The disciplines which take as their objective comprehending and intervening in this space have followed both its moments of ascent and ideological decline. The need to rethink these disciplines’ strategies regarding the critical relation to their determining context is an initiative requiring a broadening of approaches. What are the critical categories that allow for the reformulation of the necessary social principles of architecture and urbanism, while keeping in mind their specific history and the structures in which they are situated? The introduction of The New Urban Condition seeks to present and bring together texts with a double character and validity: the specificity of its themes and conjunctures—both geographical and historical—and the generality of its methodologies and theories. The latter is what allows for their reunion in this publication, dedicated to understanding urban space in the beginning of this global century.
