Urban Images and Their Unpredictable Narratives 1450-1950: Stakeholders, Authorities, and ‘the Other’

Cities have long been complex sites of intersection, conflict, and negotiation. Their visual representations—whether in maps, vedute, paintings, engravings, or other media—have carefully articulated the diverse contexts, interests, and power structures that operated in the city. Far from being neutral, these representations were directly shaped by their creators’ perspectives and the environments they were part of. Within this tension, further narratives were at play.

Starting from the image, this session aims to understand how representing cities has functioned both as political instrument capable of normalizing power structures and as means of capturing the intrinsic unruly nature of urban space for a broader audience. How was power articulated in images in response to the unpredictability of (daily) urban life? How did images serve to express, reinforce, or contest authority? How do these representations generate narratives of intersection, conflict, continuity, and rupture?

List of speakers

Cordélia Floc'hic (Université de Lausanne): Between punishment and salvation: Christian imagery in the face of urban disaster: the example of the explosion at the Zandpoort in Mechelen

Stephanie Hanke (Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut): "Come a spettacol piacevolissimo": la Darsena di Livorno nel contesto di alcune vedute portuali tra Cinquecento e Seicento

Paula Pita-Galán (Universidad de Granada): Florentine Visions of Córdoba, Granada, and Seville: Andalusian Cities in the Official Chronicle of Cosimo III de Médici's Journey (1668)  

Bindu Bhadana (Anant National University): The Visual Journey of the City of Delhi: 1650-1950

Keith Eggener (University of Oregon): “Uncle Sam and His Search Light”: Kansas City Builds an Empire

Eva Oustric (EPFL – Lausanne): Le Mirail Through the Looking Glass. Neither Brasilia, nor Sarcelles, yet eventually both of them