Most books about architecture and urban environments give the impression that the world is a flat place inhabited by very rich countries and very poor countries. More complex physical and geographical realities exits, however, as well as places with middling economies. In this book, architect Eduard Bru discusses some of these places, many of which are found in southern Europe, and through them he reflects on the present and the immediate future of the built environment, using parameters different from those of the dominant Dutch/North American majority. He defends, for poorer countries, a construction of space by means of non-ephemeral, highly neutral, even atemporal objects whose meanings change with time.