More than another plea to the political commitment of architects, this essay seeks to understand how neoliberalism challenged an entire way of practicing architecture. If words like «city» or «plan» are just an uncomfortable embarrassment in the mouth of so many architects, or simply old relics placed in the showcase of the museum of architectural history, it is because the entire foundations of the idea of project, of architecture as project – which marked the experience of architecture throughout the twentieth century –, were shattered by the progressive dismantling of the Welfare State.