Talk by Gruia Bădescu, Research Fellow at Zukunftskolleg, University of Konstanz, and 2024-2025 Research Fellow at the Paris IAS (FIAS program), as part of the workshop Ville désirable / ville désirée : construire les imaginaires urbains par le visuel (XVIIIe–XXIe) organized by the Laboratoire de recherche historique Rhône-Alpes (LARHRA, UMR 5190).

Onsite event, open to the public (free entry).
Workshop: June 10 from 1.30pm to 6pm and June 11 from 8.45am to 4.30pm.
Talks in French.

Presentation

Gruia Bădescu explores how the image of Paris - as an object of urban desire - has been mobilized at different times in three cities: Buenos Aires, Bucharest and Beirut. These three cities, often referred to as the “Paris” of their respective regions, have seen their visual imaginary shaped through political contexts marked by ruptures: wars, dictatorships and reconstructions. I propose to examine three specific moments that successively expressed the desire to become, surpass or recover the regional “Paris”, by analyzing the production of an urban image via political actors, architects and urban planners, and through a corpus of visual sources.

This talk is part of the workshop Ville désirable / ville désirée : construire les imaginaires urbains par le visuel (XVIIIe–XXIe) which looks at how urban images generate desire and projections over time. The aim is to historicize the links between the reception of an image and the production of a desire, and to reflect on the social, political and aesthetic dynamics at work in the visual fabrication of cities.

Organizers

Event organized by the LARHRA (UMR 5190), with the support of the Université Lumière Lyon 2, the Université Grenoble Alpes, the Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès, and the MSH Lyon.

More information