A new revolutionary approach to architecture and the city emerged in France during the Enlightenment. This book shows how a novel architectural expression informed by ancient precedents and universal forms together with a new urbanism brought about a sense of what the city might be; a rational, hygienic, symbolic and evident deployment of a consistent architecture, capable of expressing the liberal qualities of the civic life within it: ordered, open, and dignified. An essay by Nicholas Olsberg and case studies by Basile Baudez outline these changes through presenting and analyzing drawings, many of which are published for the first time, from François-Joseph Bélanger's vision of a theatre as a public space to Pierre-Frainçoise-Léonard Fontaine’s designs for city markets demonstrating the new rational and utilitarian approach to architecture and the city.