Open call

To illustrate the context in which Tony Garnier developed his Cité industrielle project, we focus on three main themes:

Rome and Italy

The first is to explore the context of Roman and Italian production around 1900. Tony Garnier was certainly able to meet Italian architects and draw inspiration from their ideas. The urbanization of the Testaccio district, with its new abattoirs, may have served as a model for the facilities of the future Cité industrielle. More generally, was the architectural and urban culture of Camillo Boito’s generation and his pupils of interest to the architect from Lyon? Did Tony Garnier have any contact with members of the Associazione artistica tra i cultori di architettura, founded in 1890? Gustavo Giovannoni was active in Rome from the late 1890s and, in the early years of the ^20th century, he gradually developed the urban concepts that would give rise to Rome’s new regulatory plan in 1909.

The Académie de France in Rome: players and sociability

The second axis concerns the Villa Medici itself. The sociability of the residents and their shared interests in political and social issues need to be studied in greater detail. It is a fact that Tony Garnier rubbed shoulders with other boarders who are important in the history of the birth of urban planning: Henri Prost (boarder from 1902 to 1906) and Léon Jaussely (from 1903 to 1907). Ernest Hébrard, who won the Prix de Rome in 1904, designed the World Capital of Humanity with Hendrik Andersen and Olivia Cushing Andersen. However, the Cité industrielle project itself preceded their arrival. The aim here is to clarify the role played by Tony Garnier in this favorable context.

International networks

The final section looks at Rome’s international milieu and the ideas that circulated within it. Which European architects did Tony Garnier meet during his stay at Villa Medici? Charles Buls, for example, was in Rome in 1900 and 1901. Peter Behrens was there in the summer of 1903. An in-depth investigation is required to draw up an inventory of the architects and urban planners whose ideas may have contributed to the meeting of architectural and urban cultures in Rome at the beginning of the ^20th century, and thus better understand how Tony Garnier was able not only to draw inspiration from them, but also to transfigure them.

PRACTICAL INFORMATION

Thursday, November 19, 2026
9am-6pm
Free: registration link coming soon

Study day organized in Rome as part of Villa Medici program: “Architecture and architects at the Académie de France in Rome: views, works and circulations – 19th – 20th centuries”.