Rising salaries and greater recourse to selling on credit, along with the First World War, transformed working-class consumption habits between 1880 and 1920. While covering topics ranging from deprivation to appropriation, a new book proposes to trace the “social lives of objects.”
Flames, disbelief, dread. A cathedral burns and tears flow. But why does our architectural heritage and its disappearance move us so greatly? The sociologist Nathalie Heinich offers some answers.
Paris, 1933. Oscar Dufrenne, a music hall mogul and notorious homosexual, was found murdered in his office. Even though a suspect was arrested, the investigation led nowhere. The case paints a portrait of interwar France in its desire to restore order, its political violence, and the slow evolution of social mores.
Which actors are responsible for creating housing markets? A recent book looks at how Parisian real estate changed in the late nineteenth century, revealing how the property boom radically altered relationships to the city.
In a new biography, Howard Eiland and Michael W. Jennings recount the decisive moments of Walter Benjamin’s life – his work on tragic drama and allegory, his friendship with Gershom Scholem and Bertolt Brecht, his flight from Germany in 1933 and subsequent years in Paris –, focusing on his fascination with the messianic meaning of the everyday.
Almost twenty years ago, Christian de Portzamparc was the first French architect to receive the Pritzker Prize. Today his Atelier, located in Paris, is more dynamic than ever, with ambitious projects like the Cidade das Artes in Rio, or the participation in the Grand Paris project. The following interview shows an architect urbanist whose work is geared towards the city and music.
