Event – Detail

Dr. Min Kyung Lee will present an illustrated talk drawing on her new study of 19th century Paris and its cartographic representations. Maps are rarely given the same attention as other print media or art forms in urban history. Beginning with an examination of the emblematic urban plan that Napoléon III gave to the prefect of the Seine, Georges-Eugène Haussmann in 1853, this presentation explores the significance of the map itself; the means of its production through surveying; the methods of its use and reception by architects, engineers, and administrators; and its place in the visual culture of Paris’s modernization. At the heart of this exploration is a focus on orthography in architecture and the new quality of exactitude in modern mapping practices.

Min Kyung Lee is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of the Growth and Structure of Cities at Bryn Mawr College. She teaches courses in modern architectural and urban history. Her recent monograph, The Tyranny of the Straight Line: Mapping Modern Paris (Yale University Press, 2024) studies the relations between mapping and architecture in 19th-century Paris. She has published in The Journal of Urban History, The Journal of Architectural Education, The Journal of Architecture, PLATFORM, and LA+, among others. She was the inaugural recipient of the Banister Fletcher Global Fellowship, and has received awards from the Deutsches Forum fur Kunstgeschichte, the Mellon Foundation, Humboldt University, the Getty Research Institute, and the Camargo Foundation.

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