The course introduces key positions and debates in urban theory that allow conceptualizing what cities are and how they function. This is linked with an overview of critical issues and challenges in historical and contemporary urban development. Key phases of modern urban design and planning are reflected in terms of their linkages to wider processes of capitalist urbanization, formations of state power, social struggle and cultural change. We also explore how design and planning interventions in the city have evolved in terms of changing sites and targets, goals and ideologies drawing on interdisciplinary literature from architecture and planning as well as urban social science and urban history.