Three Parisians around the world and their disenchantments: Urban imaginaries and political ruptures in Bucharest, Buenos Aires and Beirut
Speaker
- Gruia Bădescu, urban planner and historian, researcher at the University of Konstanz and, in 2024-2025, researcher in residence at the Institut d'études avancées de Paris l'Institut d'études avancées de Paris, specialist in post-war city reconstruction and urban memory.
Speaker:
- Justinien Tribillon, urban planner and writer, lecturer in history, theory and criticism at the École des Arts Décoratifs.
The moderation of this event will be provided by:
- Andreas Guidi, senior lecturer at CREE, Inalco.
Presentation of the scientific event
In the 19th and 20th centuries, many cities were described as the "Paris" of their region, due to their architecture or cultural life. Among them, Bucharest, nicknamed the "Paris of the Balkans", Buenos Aires, the "Paris of South America", and Beirut, the "Paris of the Middle East", underwent major urban and architectural transformations, sometimes inspired by Paris or directly implemented by French architects and urban planners. While the urban imaginations of Bucharest and Buenos Aires are rooted in Beaux-Arts aesthetics and Haussmann-inspired interventions of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, that of Beirut emerges in a different framework, after the end of the French mandate, albeit without any explicit architectural filiation.
This lecture analyzes the genesis and evolution of these urban imaginaries, while examining the effects of historical ruptures - wars, dictatorships and the political transitions of the second half of the 20th century - on the material configuration and symbolic representation of these cities. It offers a reflection on the dynamics of transnational circulation of urban models, political ruptures and the constitution of multiple modernities, as well as on the possible dialogues between three cities evolving in distinct contexts, but connected through imaginaries of the past and contemporary challenges that often intersect in unexpected ways.
Speaker biography
Gruia Bădescu is a researcher at the Zukunftskolleg of the University of Konstanz (Germany), and in 2024-2025, researcher in residence at the Institut d'études avancées in Paris. D. from Cambridge University, he was a lecturer and research associate at Oxford University before joining the University of Konstanz in 2018. His research focuses on spatial reconfigurations and the transformation of societies following major political ruptures such as wars, dictatorships and the end of empires. He is particularly interested in how cities are rebuilt and reimagined after such upheavals, and in the ways in which difficult pasts are managed. One line of research concerns post-war urban reconstruction in the Balkans and Lebanon. A second explores the transformation of cities in the aftermath of dictatorships and the memorialization of political violence in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as in Latin America. Since 2020, he has led a research group in Constance on urban imaginaries after political ruptures.
Organization
- Andreas Guidi (Inalco, CREE)
- Étienne Boisserie (Inalco, CREE)