While 20th-century architecture learned to “control” the climate of a building, the architecture of the 21st century needs to learn to “cope” with the climate of cities. There is an imperative for new forms of thermal “governance” (on other scales). In this lecture, important historical pioneers of such new architectural thinking will be highlighted. Urban climatology as science evolved in the early 20th century along with the genesis of new energy landscapes and new modern principles of planning. City climate research raised the novel question of the impact of the city on the local weather conditions; “the manner in which these great concentrations of human beings influence their climate” as climatologist Albert Kratzer stated in 1937.