Architecture has always been engaged in a dialogue with its context, i.e. the city ' a relationship often dominated by tension. The architectural avant-garde in particular is commonly understood in its opposition to the existing metropolitan terrain: it positioned the form of the individual building against an - assumed - urban formlessness. The publication explores this dichotomy and analyzes the works of important urbanists, r anging from August Endell, Karl Scheffler, Ludwig Hilberseimer and Reyner Banham to Rem Koolhaas and Bernard Tschumi. Thus The Good Metropolis develops a theoretical and historical framework for understanding the complex relationship between architecture and the city.