Cemented abstractions, swept by the winds, drowned by the mists, the dense and shifting façades impose themselves, without foundations, without skies, like the gigantic panels of a theatre set. The actors — passers-by — come and go in this fluid mass where one moves to live. Their appearance is furtive. Their actions consist of simple gestures, reduced to the choreography of silence and to the harmony of chaos. Urbanity forces to the essential. Urban universality. Buildings vibrate, hands dance, footsteps are lost. The city welcomes its inhabitants. In return, in ordinary and everyday attempts, fragile lives try themselves at games of whirl, at inner journeys, at exchanges of words, at permutations of roles. Extract from the preface by Théo-Mario Coppola.