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This paper is based on the discovery and use of an unpublished collection of archives from the public and private sectors. Firstly, it sheds light on the conditions surrounding the creation of the very influential BERU ( Bureau d’études et de réalisations urbaines, Urban Design and Development Office) in the late 1950s, including its powerful sponsors and their meaning, the trajectories (in terms of activism and careers) of its early recruits, and its founder Max Stern’s use of his networks, including in the Anglo-Saxon countries. The paper then endeavours to decipher the intellectual and methodological influences at work within the BERU in its beginnings, at the crossroads of central planning and “human engineering”. Lastly, while the BERU’s purpose was indeed to provide consulting, research and technical assistance in order to help resolve problems raised by the design and development of large-scale urbanism projects, its creators were first concerned about housing-related issues. The BERU’s desire (notably shared by the young architects of Atelier de Montrouge, ATM) to give a subjective, more human dimension to architecture and urbanism would find expression in its earliest contracts to renovate city centres in the Lower Seine region, with the “heart of the city” being viewed as the favoured interface between the individual and the community.