In France, the difficulty faced by architecture in dealing with questions of urban design through a holistic approach that considers the city and its periphery as a whole, was not overcome either during the Trente glorieuses (1950-1970), when the design of the territory excluded any dialogue with architecture, nor during the period of the projet urbain à la française (1980-2000), when the profession was enriched by new values linked to the study of urban forms, though without ever linking up with a true organic vision at the scale of the territory. From 1980 to 2000, a fecund debate made it possible to expand the discourse on a trans-scalar approach, in opposition to the architectural and urban modernity of previous decades. The definition of the design of the city and the territory, which takes form in the project for the Grand Paris, contains new operative concepts. They include “drawing” or the “figure of the whole”, which make it possible to speak of a new theoretical-practical turning point.