This historical and visual approach offers a reverse chronological history of the park’s territory, focusing on representations of past projects, on the unthought and the erased, but also on survivals and lingering traces. Visual material is prioritised to analyse the production and circulation of these representations. The aim is to build up a rich body of documentary and historical evidence on the territory, which can be drawn upon in the operational project.

The three components of the research project are: identifying archival collections; organising student workshops; and holding study days with both local and international perspectives. The work resulting from these study days will be published on the website www.inventerlegrandparis.fr.

The PAR(C)IMAGE project has been awarded funding under the MSH Paris Nord 2026 call for proposals for a duration of two years. It forms part of the ongoing research initiatives of the ‘Inventer le Grand Paris’ programme, and in particular its ‘Visions and Landscapes’ initiative.

Photo credit: Sonia Keravel_Romainville_20251110

The article PAR(C)IMAGE first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

This international network aims to address the challenge posed by urban sprawl in Europe by broadening understanding of urban planning policies centred on public transport across rural-urban areas. The focus here is on a contextual approach, in which the interactions between mobility and urbanisation are examined in relation to social and environmental factors.

This European programme (MSCA-ITN-H2020) is structured around 10 PhD projects running from 2021 to 2025. It is coordinated by the University of Antwerp (Greet de Block) and brings together nine universities: the University of Antwerp, École des Ponts ParisTech, EPFL, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, SLU, TU Berlin, TU Eindhoven, the University of Amsterdam and Université Gustave Eiffel.

The nine participating universities and twelve partner organisations form a unique platform for ten PhD students. It offers them an interdisciplinary and cross-cutting education, enabling them to analyse spatial planning in rural-urban regions and to develop new planning principles tailored to the contexts of rural and urban regions (RUR). The research undertaken draws on a wide range of European regions and draws on expertise in urban studies.

The article TOD-IS-RUR first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

Founded in 2012, the Inventer le Grand Paris collective was established to organise a multi-year series of four academic conferences dedicated to the history of the development of Greater Paris in the 20th century, informed by a range of international perspectives. The collective brings together researchers who use history to examine the development of the Greater Paris metropolitan area through the lenses of urban studies, social sciences, architecture, urban planning, visual arts and landscape.

Launched in 2017, the Inventer le Grand Paris website serves as a platform for publishing the programme’s collaborative research, a portal for hosting future research projects, and a guide to historical resources. Aimed at a wide audience of researchers, stakeholders and specialists, it publishes news about the scientific programme and the research outputs produced.

To mark the launch of the website, a scientific event was held on 14 September 2017 in the form of a one-day seminar on Digital Humanities and the History of Greater Paris, organised as part of the LabEx Futurs urbains (University of Paris-Est), which the collective joined in 2018. As such, it received state funding allocated by the Programme d’Investissements d’Avenir.

By 2024, the collective comprised some twenty researchers from the ACP, AHTTEP, CHS, INTRU, IPRAUS, LABURBA, LAREP, LATTS and TEMPORA laboratories. Established in 2025, an inter-institutional scientific and documentary network ensures the site’s long-term sustainability. This network brings together the laboratories and the documentary and archive centres of six schools and universities: the École des Ponts et Chaussées, the École d’Architecture de Paris-Belleville, the École du Paysage de Versailles-Marseille, the Campus Condorcet, the Université Gustave Eiffel, and the Université Paris Est Créteil.

With the publication of 50 research articles based on the conferences (under the ‘Historical Overviews’ section) and 200 transcribed presentations from the 30 seminars (under the ‘Research Projects’ section), Inventer le Grand Paris has become a leading resource centre. It houses oral archives as well as two unpublished research collections: a Bibliographic Database of Greater Paris and an Atlas of Greater Paris Plans.

The article Inventing Greater Paris first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.