Imagining an Old City in Nineteenth-Century France: Urban Renovation, Civil Society, and the Making of Vieux Lyon

Nineteenth-century urban renovations in Lyon, driven by state initiatives under the Second Empire, inadvertently sparked a localist movement that sought to preserve the city's distinctive, antiquarian architectural heritage. This study reveals that cultural elites in Lyon used antiquarian discourse to assert that the city's narrow, crooked streets were integral to its identity, fearing their erasure by Parisian influences. Contrary to traditional narratives focusing on state-led urban transformations, this research highlights the role of civil society and antiquarian history as modern phenomena shaping urban development. The analysis combines urban history with cultural studies to illustrate how local pride and anxiety drove the preservation movement that gave rise to Vieux Lyon.

De Oliveira, P. L. S. (2017). Imagining an Old City in Nineteenth-Century France: Urban Renovation, Civil Society, and the Making of Vieux Lyon. Journal of Urban History, 45(1), 67–98. https://doi.org/10.1177/0096144216689090