A romantic manifesto on the ruins of the concept of the city that is also a call for its reconstitution:

Perhaps never has the city been spoken of as much as today, and yet, throughout the millennia-long history of this concept, we have perhaps never been so far from understanding it fully. It is therefore imperative to address the city from an ontological standpoint. However, faced with something so concrete, one must consider how to draw ourselves closer once more to that materiality.

Appearing to be a romantic manifesto for a lost cause,  A Beleza de Um Corpo Nu assesses the ruins of the concept of the city and calls for the concrete possibilities of its reconstitution. With that veiled purpose in mind, the book traverses myths, ethics, death, architectures, legitimate and illegitimate suburban lineages and, finally, the political as a raison d'être.

«This is an essential book, which we must read and reread, like a warning or a siren that alerts us, time and again, to what we are losing as citizens of the world, and without which we shall, in all likelihood, never again know how to find ourselves.» Nuno Grande, Preface