Fleeting cities

Description:

Imperial expositions held in fin-de-siècle London, Paris and Berlin were knots in a world-wide web. Conceptualizing exhibitions as meta-media, Fleeting Cities undertakes a transdisciplinary investigation into how modernity was created and displayed, consumed and disputed within the European metropolis. Focusing on five such expositions – the Berliner Gewerbeausstellung (1896), the fifth Parisian Exposition Universelle (1900), the Franco-British Exhibition in London (1908), the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley (1924/25), and the Exposition Coloniale Internationale in Paris (1931) – this award-winning book examines their specific aims and aspirations, evolving forms and execution, and the public debates they engendered. Who shaped these mega-events, how were exposition venues inscribed into the urban fabric, what legacies did they bequeath? Taken as dense textures stretched over time, these expositions undergo both a close hermeneutic reading and broad spatial analysis. Fleeting Cities weaves extensive empirical research with underlying theoretical concerns, investigating their individual meanings in a new form of transnational network analysis.

subjects: Franco-British Exhibition (1908 : London, England),  Exhibitions,  Berliner Gewerbe-Ausstellung (1896),  Cities and towns,  Modern Civilization,  Exposition universelle internationale de 1900 (Paris, France),  British Empire Exhibition (1924 : Wembley, England),  Civilization,  Exposition coloniale internationale de Paris (1931),  History,  British Empire Exhibition (1924-1925 : Wembley, London, England),  Europe, civilization,  Exposition universelle (1900 : Paris, France)

People: Georg Simmel,  Wilhelm II,  Ludwig Max Goldberger,  Imre Kiralfy,  Lawrence Weaver,  Hubert Lyautey,  May Eyth

Places: Europe,  London,  Paris,  Berlin

Times: 19th century,  20th century,  fin-de-siècle