The research of Harvard Project on the City about the city of Lagos, the biggest city of Nigeria, is a part of a publication called Mutations, published in 2000 by arc en rêve centre d’architecture, including diverse texts about the current tendencies and the city seen in a global scale. In this research Lagos is seen as a place of extreme situations, from where knowledge could be extracted when looking to the future of other cities in completely different places in the world. The text states an interesting paradox of Lagos being a huge, unplanned city, that should not, according to specialists and common reason, be able to sustain and work. Anyhow it does, the city miraculously lives, grows and develops, in its own order. As the main reason for this the Harvard research team proposes a certain elasticity of the city and its solutions, its way of finding alternative, creative solution in the lack of infrastructure and organisation, which traditionally have defined the notion of a city in the occidental world. The city of Lagos is seen as a radical example of the global phenomenon of modernization, instead of looking at it as a part of modernization “in an African way”, taking its models from the occidental world. It is clear that Lagos cannot represent an average African city but is surely an extreme case also inside the continent. In the context of West Africa, it is a forerunner, now maybe a starting point to a new tour of “post-colonial” exploration. The text talks about Lagos by describing its elementary, small-scale elements, repeating in the city structure and creating the urban landscape. It goes through spatial structure, the limits, the enclosures, the transportation system and the phenomenon of colonising structures, originally meant for completely other use. Also some key places are presented, describing the new elastic and adaptive culture of the city of Lagos. All the themes are richly illustrated with photos showing the extreme landscapes of the city, which helps in the comprehension on visual and spatial result of the Lagosian way of urbanism. To conclude, the research of Harvard Project on the City has its merits and faults. The research’s point of view towards Lagos is really interesting: instead of trying to put it in the frame we are used to seeing in western cities we look at is as a different model for a city, maybe even representing the eventual future of our actual western planned, organized cities. With the history of colonisation, the roles of influence could so even turn around. The text does not try to find new solutions for this chaotic city nor propose things to make it function better. In a way it relies on the capacity of the city and its inhabitants to survive by themselves, to adapt into new conditions and to find the creative solutions for problems faced. At the same time, the research gives me a feeling of quite an exterior point of view. It is a study by an American university, by people who do not probably have the experience of being part of the society and living the life in Lagos. Also, the research tries to see what the situation of the city of Lagos could teach for developing mostly the occidental cities in the future, which in a way leads to a certain feeling of shallowness. Maybe the story of locals, with an interior point of view, could enlighten more the story of this extreme city and widen the perspective when talking about Learning from Lagos.