The main question put forward in this paper is whether it is possible to outline the main features expressing the idea of a metropolitan city in the late-modern Europe and to point out their relations with contemporary theories of urban planning. In order to identify and systematise “the common ideological indicators” of a contemporary European metropolis, the following criteria have been used: 1) universally recognised principles of urban development, 2) basic assessment criteria of the urban spatial structure and 3) the major modes of controlling urban development. The author has also attempted to systematise the major urban planning theories developed at the turn of the 20th and 21st century and the planning concepts corresponding to various models of spatial structure development that can be found in the new European metropolises. The observations have been illustrated with two examples of planning practice.

Author addresses the issue of sustainability of the market square formula in the historical cities as public space, which to this day remains an attractive urban form. Against this background, it outlined the theory has been the continuity of composition of the city based on the balance between creation and cultural heritage.

In the center of civilization is the city. This justifies the raise of questions: Why is the city? Why it arose and why else is it? Today we can say that the civilization it is the city. Consider, what the city once was, and it will help us classify the current state of the town and think about what is in front of the future. It is proposed to look at the city in a dynamic way, against the development of civilization. In this process you can be seen overlapping and not reaching a rhythm of four phases. The first phase corresponds to nomadism, the second this village, the third is already the city and the associated development of crafts, the fourth is a large agglomerations, industrialization and follow in the direction of globalization. Today we must redefine the city as a tissue, which is tissue of one big body as it happened so, that our civilization spilled already on the entire world, and is the only civilization that counts, and no longer needs the divisions (except for the administrative management) on different parts.

The first examples of ecological cities may be found in the towns built along Ebenezer Howard’s concept of the garden city and also in the urban settlements erected along the lines of Clarence Perry’s neighbourhood unit model. It turns out, that some ideas featured in the garden city formula have retained their appeal in the 21st century, too. Initially, the concept was related to the natural environment conservation and meant using the latest technological developments and cutting-edge products to protect the environment and improve the conditions of human existence, but later on the idea of an ecological city merged with intelligent city to become one complex and multi-dimensional concept.

The paper presents an outlook on the entire creative designing in architecture, defined as arranging space according to human needs. The categories of the Vitruvian Triad and Post-Modern Meaning and Ecology are applied here to analyze architectural works. Individual authors in particular cases and in varied proportions apply the factors resulting from these categories, depending on their creative attitude, ability, fashion, view of the world and so on. Common threads may be discerned in individual creations that form broader narratives in time. Two distinctly different and contrasting timeless meta-narratives emerge, named here Architecture and Building. The two lasting general tendencies define edges of the research area encompassing all actions and works of architecture. Historical and contemporary examples are described as belonging to the both meta-narratives.

The essay presents a fragment of the latest research that the Author has performed on the topic of the concept of beauty, viewed from the perspective of the cultural changes that took place throughout history, in relation to the spatial creations of cities. Urban aesthetics, so rarely taken into account in modern science, have been given due attention at the point at which theory meets practice. The territorial scope of the research extends from the Middle East and Egypt, through Europe, to the United States of America. The scope of history under analysis includes the time since the beginning of the construction of cities to the break of the XX century ‒ the time of the appearance of the first clear signs of the Modern Movement.

Metropolises can be analyzed from numerous points of view. Miller’s Law allows us to analyze them in the context of their behavior as complex organisms, as the fruit of the process of globalization. Their layout over the space of the world is subjected to Zipf’s Law. The subject of this article is a fragment of this spatial layout, a latitudinal transportation corridor ‒ the Polish section of the A-4 route from Germany to Ukraine. The Author searches for the genius loci of the metropolises that are situated along this corridor, for the elements that allow their inhabitants to identify themselves with a given metropolis.

The article is a polemic with the doctrine of multifunctional rural areas development (WROW) in Poland. This doctrine is supported by many scientists and politicians but it lacks reflection on its impact on spatial planning. It is a denial of the logic of the settlement process according to which the rural population leaving the employment in agriculture sector should be given the chance to choose the city as a place of residence.

This article strives to give a polemical response to the theses occurring in contemporary Polish publications on the theory of urbanism. The presented text emerged from the clash between the visions, theses and opinions presented in the aforementioned publications and the vision of the city that has been absorbed and assimilated by the author from his distinguished professors of the Institute of City and Regional Planning of the Faculty of Architecture at Cracow University of Technology. The author focuses on addressing the thesis that “the city is a political idea”. On the basis of some examples the author demonstrates in the text that the city is not a political idea, but a structure within which politics is made.

Contemporary economic growth is related to the emergence of innovative branches and sectors of industry as well as to their accompanying spatial forms and new concepts of the city. One of the characteristic features of modern cities is the multitude of network-type relations resulting from the nature of the information-based economy. Contemporary ideas about the city focus among others on the problems of sustainable development, ubiquity of information and communication technologies (ICT) and concentration of the creative class in innovative centres of services and industry. The article presents a number of practical implementations of the contemporary concepts of city development.

The dynamic growth of suburban zones in recent years has revealed a considerable diversification of functionalspatial structure of these areas, which is the result inter alia of local conditions, including the scale of the previously existing development. To a certain extent, the growth potential of suburban areas depends on whether they are ready to change and adapt to new functions. Some of them are locations housing diversified functional complexes which may in the future become a new form of ‘a suburban zone centre’. Of course, they must fulfil certain criteria of an attractive form and accessibility, but also of a certain functional specialisation adjusted to the specific character of a given place, its surroundings and the target user group. The aim of this article is to show a certain trend in developing some selected areas of the suburban zone – constituting the centres of various economic activities, which will allow identification of the most characteristic tendencies in their location, size, function and form.

The author presents the results of a research project carried out under the academic supervision of S. Juchnowicz in the 80s of the last century and, from the perspective of thirty years, undertakes the effort of verification whether the prognostic assumptions adopted at that time were accurate. The article presents the results of the research and the author’s personal reflections on the evolution of Kraków.

The contemporary shape of the housing estate does not promote development of social bonds. No other pro-social movement in the whole history of urban space has changed so much in the traditional cityscape as the modern avant-grade of the 19th and early 20th century. The situation in urban planning and design at that time was similar to other fields of science. The period brought a change in understanding beauty in art and architecture, and modernism strongly emphasised functionalism, rational and utilitarian values of the living environment of man.

The author focuses on the issues related to the polycentric character of metropolitan areas. The example of Milan provides a convenient opportunity for inspiring research because of the special role of these issues in the current development strategy of the city. The article presents two reconstruction projects of inner-city areas – at present the largest in Italy – which will result in crystallisation of urban nodes.

Nowa Huta represents a complex space, full of paradoxes and inner contradictions. It is difficult to evaluate. The aim of the article is the attempt to analize the built environment of Nowa Huta, to present selected ideas connected with the creation of the city and situating them in a broader, but still architectural context, the context of architectural creativity and urban development. The analysis is accompanied with a commentary on the cultural space understood as the sphere of values and meanings present in the material urban tissue.