Functionalist architecture—particularly in the form of high-rise housing blocks of fifteen or more stories—remains a valid and urgently needed response to the challenges facing contemporary peripheral cities, not out of nostalgia for its modernist origins or its associations with authoritarian regimes, but due to its structural capacity to address critical issues such as affordable housing shortages, urban sprawl, and socio-spatial exclusion. This is an architecture stripped of ornament, sober and measured, where every square metre is justified and form follows use rather than spectacle. It does not aim to impress, but to perform—to organise the act of inhabiting through constructive logic rather than visual seduction. The functional block, in this light, is not a failure of urbanism but a misunderstood typology whose potential lies in its operational neutrality, its ability to adapt across contexts and to articulate compact, mixed, and efficient urban fabrics. Far from producing alienation or anonymity, well-designed blocks can offer spatial quality, cross ventilation, natural light, human-scaled thresholds of cohabitation, and integrated services—provided they are embedded in coherent territorial planning. This planning must consider the superblock not as a monofunctional unit but as a basic urban cell where residential, productive, educational, and communal functions coexist. Rather than perpetuating fragmented, inefficient, and exclusionary models, reclaiming and updating the functionalist block through contemporary lenses of sustainability and equity represents a robust pathway toward dignifying life in the peripheries without sacrificing urban density, cityhood, or the collective right to meaningful inhabitation. Choay, F. 1965. L’urbanisme, utopies et réalités. Paris: Seuil / Secchi, B. & Viganò, P. 2011. Territory as Project. Berlin: Ruby Press
