During the 19th century the introduction of the concept of function in the thinking about the city has led to the substitution of its conceptions as a background of social life by conceptions of the city as object. To the extent that this object is studied in order to guarantee the terms of its effective reproduction, the design practices tend to employ the principles set by the dominant modes of industrial production. This article focuses upon urban design practices, that is the totality of activities of the designer from the initial demand to the final proposal concerning urban space. The object of the article is first to describe the attitudes, the basic principles, and the main strategies which dominate design practices during the last 30 years and then, to seek analogies and relations in two directions: a) the ideological conception of the city b) the organizational principles of industrial (re)production. The central hypothesis discussed in the article is the existence of correspondences between the conception of the city the design process and the dominant modes of industrial (re)production.
