International Conference

Strasbourg / 9-10 October 2025

This international conference is jointly organized by ENSA Nancy and ENSA Strasbourg.

Coordinated by: Gauthier Bolle (Professor, ENSA Strasbourg, UMR ARCHE), Cédric Feriel (Lecturer, Université Rennes 2, Tempora), Pierre Maurer (Lecturer, ENSA Nancy, LHAC).

This conference aims to understand modernization from the late 1940s to the 1980s by revisiting the notion of the European city as it relates to “accelerations” of the time. The European city is considered as a specific territory of tensions, and not simply a reduced version of the world’s major urban areas. Through perceptions of “acceleration,” the three main investigative themes examine ways of conceiving, governing, planning, building and challenging the city, in which historical uses, design practices and forecasting future urban realities are intersected:

• Spatial acceleration
• Political acceleration
• Social acceleration

See the Documents section below for further details.

Contributions in English or French may derive from various disciplines and should be part of a historical approach based on urban history or architectural history. Interdisciplinary or comparative approaches are welcome, as are thematic monographic entries, especially those emphasizing local and previously unpublished sources.

Proposals should be sent in .pdf format no later than December 12, 2024, to accelerations@nancy.archi.fr 

and should include a one-page summary of research arguments, accompanied by sources, a brief bibliography, as well as a one-page CV