The book was prepared based on the materials of the first stage of a three-year collective study devoted to a wide range of historical and theoretical problems of modernization of the living environment by means of architecture and urban planning. It consists of four parts: The art of mastering the natural environment: the traditions of Antiquity and the Middle Ages; Programmatic modernization of cities, villages and inter-settlement territories of the Russian Empire; Revolutionary and evolutionary transformations of the living environment in the 20th century; Modern search for a solution to the problem of improving the quality of the living environment by means of architecture.