Conférence internationale | Heritage and the Metropolis

Heritage dynamics in the urban peripheries

How might we study and understand metropolises and heritage as not just things, but forces for, and processes of, change? How might these two dynamics intersect with and model one another?

Metropolitan cities are well understood to be in the course of constant change: cities expand, and swallow up other ones; new connections are formed; new consciousnesses come into being. The city’s edges push ever outward into the suburbs or the hinterland.

Heritage, on the other hand, certainly in the guide of preservation is often constructed as resistance to change; and yet is not static: conceptions of what is heritage (or not) continually shift, producing new campaigns for preservation or destruction.

In no part of the metropolis is this shifting nature of both the city and heritage more evident than on their edges: the part of the city where buildings and places seem to be at their most ephemeral, in which buildings and places are produced and destroyed rapidly, and often seemingly without care, as if there was no heritage there at all.

This conference engages with these edges – of both city and heritage – in order to study them together and to understand the ways in which their dynamic and endless processes of change intersect, asking, most simply: how does metropolitan development affect heritage, and conversely, how do developing notions of heritage affect metropolitan development ?

>> télécharger le programme complet (pdf)/download full program (pdf)

Programme/Program

Day 1 : 23 avril 2026/23 April 2026

• 9:30 – 10:00 : Opening Session
  avec Maria Gravari Barbas (université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) et Edward Hollis (university of Edinburgh)
• 11:15 – 13:00 : Parallel Sessions

Session 1: Collective memory, community activism and Heritage in the urban peripheries
modérée par Sébastien Jacquot (IREST, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne), avec Íngrid Castañé, Aysegul Boyali, Bernardo De La Vega, Fabian Frenzel, Camila Moreas, Isabella Rega, Juliana Mainard-Sardon et Raisha Gamba Segovia

Session 2: Heritage in the peripheries: governance and planning
modérée par Ana Yanez, avec Suzanna Ramiréz, David García Alvarez, Robin Larsimont, Maday Romero, Alix de La Gaignonnière, Beatriz Martínez et Cécile Doustaly

• 14:00 – 16:00 : Parallel Sessions

Session3: Collective memory, community activism and Heritage in the urban peripheries (cnd)
modérée par Maria Garcia Hernandez (universidad Complutense Madrid), avec Hector Alliaga, Mesut Dinler, Celia Lopez Bravo, Marie-Alix Molinié-Andlauer, Panos Mavros, Isabelle Garron, Stéphane Safin

Session 4: (World)Heritage in/off the urban peripheries: the role of stakeholders and of the local communities
modérée par Ruxandra Stoica (University of Edinburgh), avec Marie Le Devehat, Armelle Ninnin, James White, Sofiane Saadia

• 16:30 – 18:00 : Round table with stakeholders of the Parisian metropolis (in french, with simultaneous translation)
  avec Dominique Dellac (vice-chair of the Seine-Saint-Denis Departmental Council), Ivan Fouquet (association des jardins ouvriers des Vertus), Elefterios Kehagioglou (director of PPCM, Bagneux), Livia Pareja Del Corso (chargée de projets patrimoine culturel immatériel, Conseil départemental de la Seine-Saint-Denis), Mikaël Petitjean (responsable du développement culturel et patrimonial à La Courneuve (tbc)), Hélène Saunon (responsable du service Patrimoine et Tourisme, Plaine Commune)
• 18:00 – 18:30 : Presentation of the Heritage Observatory in the urban Peripheries (HOPE)
• 18:30 : Vernissage of the exhibition Alt-Her and cocktail
  >> en savoir plus sur l’exposition/more information about the exhibition

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Day 2 : 24 avril 2026/24 April 2026

• 9:00 – 10:45 : Parallel Sessions

Session 5 : Industrial Heritage in the metropolitan peripheries
modérée par Juan Carlos Revila (universidad Complutense Madrid), avec Minna-Marjukka Kaikkonen, Shengxi Zeng, Patrice Ballester, Sonia Laloyaux

Session 6 : Exploring the conceptual and territorial margins of heritage
modérée par Sandra Guinand, avec Alain Bourdin, Peng Ieng, Javier García Ferragud, Adva Matar, Jovana Janinovic

• 11:15 – 12:45 : Round Table Collective landscape futures between memory, margins, and territorial regeneration – HERITOPOLIS
  avec Antonella Contin (Heritopolis, the MetroHub, Politecnico di Milano), Francesco Bandarin (Heritopolis, Advisor to the Aga Khan Foundation / Michael Turner, Heritopolis – UNESCO Chair), David Simon (Heritopolis – Royal Holloway, university of London) et Olivia Bina (ICS, Universidad de Lisboa), Eric Huybrechts (Heritopolis – Paris Region)
• 14:00 – 15:30 : Parallel Sessions

Session 7 : Intangible heritage and arts in the urban peripheries
modérée par Juan Martin, avec Maria Milagros Escobar, Séverin Guillard, Sara Iandolo

Session 8 : Popular and social housing. Perspectives from the metropolitan peripheries
modérée par Linda Boukhris, avec Alexandre Callens, Valérian Rocca, Hanna Skapska, Agnès Roby-Brami, Fanny Beguery, Nicole Picquart, Katherine Fiumani et Françoise Pothier

• 16:30 – 17:30 : Book presentation – Tourism, heritage and metropolitan dynamics in the urban peripheries
  avec Maria Gravari-Barbas, Sandra Guinand, Sébastien Jacquot, Maja Jovic, Johannes Novy, Westminster University
• 17:30 – 18:00 : Concluding remarks
• 18:00 : Closing cocktail

Informations pratiques/Practical information

• jeudi 23 et vendredi 24 avril 2026/Thursday and Friday 23 & 24 April 2026
• à la MSH Paris Nord, auditorium/MSH Paris Nord, Saint-Denis, auditorium
• ouvert à tous·tes/open to all

Un projet de recherche qui bénéficie du soutien de la MSH Paris Nord dans le cadre de son appel à projets annuel./A research project supported by MSH Paris Nord as part of its annual call for proposals.